Assurance Software Carved Out From Sungard AS As Standalone Business Continuity Provider
The IT channel has a new member this week as a venture capital firm has purchased the Assurance Business Continuity Management Planning software business from Sungard Availability Services.
The business, renamed Assurance Software, was formerly known as Strohl Systems before its 2008 acquisition by Sungard Availability Services.
Assurance Software was formed when Resurgens Technology Partners, an Atlanta-based venture capital investor whose portfolio also includes Darien, Conn-based financial services company Investment Metrics, acquired the software business in a deal unveiled this week. No financial details related to the acquisition were released.
The business was successful as a part of Sungard Availability Services, said Craig Potts, who on Wednesday became CEO of Assurance Software.
"Sungard AS wanted to focus more on its services, its disaster recovery and managed services, and less in the software space," Potts told CRN.
While it was part of Sungard AS, Assurance Software was mainly focused on developing on-premises software for customers looking for business continuity, Potts said.
"We now are a 100-percent SaaS-based business continuity provider," he said. "Eight years ago, we were an on-premises software company. Sungard AS invested a lot to move the technology to the cloud."
Assurance Software is focused on a growing market for security and compliance, and is responding with software to help businesses develop end-to-end business continuity programs via a multi-tenant SaaS model to provide customers the ability to execute disaster recovery plans and ensure employees can communicate after a disaster, Potts said.
That disaster might be a natural event like a hurricane or tornado, or a man-made event including a cybersecurity attack, he said.
"We believe there's a growing market for security and compliance," he said. "A lot of companies are looking for help to prevent breaches from happening. But it's not a question of if a breach will happen. We are looking at how to protect companies when a breach happens."
Resurgens saw a real opportunity to carve Assurance Software out of Sungard AS as a standalone company, Potts said. "This is a growing market, one that is not being addressed by competitors," he said. "There's no single giant dominating this space. It's the perfect opportunity."
As a standalone company, Assurance Software is also able to partner with other software vendors, something it was less likely to do as a part of Sungard AS, Potts said. However, he said, Sungard AS will be Assurance Software's first partner.
Assurance Software internally manages a customer's entire business continuity environment, said Scott Barndt, vice president of customer success for the company.
That includes the software and services needed for the solution, Barndt told CRN.
That software and services are needed by businesses that are increasingly looking for new ways to deal with threats, he said. "In the past, companies had someone inside who could protect them," he said.