Briefs: August 8, 2005

ACCESS DISTRIBUTION ADDS SERVICES

“As change occurs, we have to make sure we are well-positioned to respond. We will be positioned to deliver services and add value to vendors and solution providers,” McDermott said. Access Distribution also launched Compete-to-Win, a new customer support program in which its services specialists can deliver customized training and one-to-one consulting services on-site to customers. On the marketing side, Access Distribution announced The Market Evaluator, a sales intelligence tool for building new account relationships; the Pipeline Accelerator tool to drive more immediate revenue; and media marketing programs.

TECH DATA CUTS 2Q GUIDANCE
Tech Data said last Tuesday that challenges in Europe will cause the company to miss its earnings guidance for its fiscal second quarter.

The Clearwater, Fla.-based distributor now expects to post second-quarter earnings of $12.5 million to $16.5 million, or 21 cents to 28 cents per share, falling well below the previous forecast for profit of $24 million to $27 million, or 40 cents to 45 cents per share. The projections exclude certain restructuring and other charges.

Tech Data slashed its forecast despite sales of $4.8 billion to $4.82 billion, at the high end of the company&'s guidance for revenue of $4.7 billion to $4.85 billion.

The company said shrinking gross profit margins in its business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa offset gains elsewhere.

Shares fell 9 percent to $35.42 last Wednesday following the announcement.

ORACLE CONTINUES SPENDING SPREE WITH CONTEXT, I-FLEX
Oracle continued its buying ways last week, announcing it had purchased assets from Context Media, a content-integration specialist, as well as a stake in i-flex Solutions.

Terms of the Context Media deal were not disclosed, but Oracle said some of the Providence, R.I., company&'s technology would end up in Oracle&'s Content Management Services 10g, Collaboration Suite and Project Fusion middleware. Oracle said it will buy up to 61 percent of i-flex, a banking software company based in India, from Citigroup Venture Capital and shareholders.

Oracle&'s deals have been orchestrated by Charles Phillips, president of the Redwood Shores, Calif.-based company.

In other acquisition news, IBM said Tuesday it will acquire DWL, a privately held customer data integration specialist. Terms were not disclosed. The deal is expected to close later this year.

IBM UNVEILS FIRST PRODUCTS FROM NETAPP ALLIANCE
The alliance between IBM and Network Appliance has borne its first fruit. Last Tuesday, IBM unveiled storage systems aimed at small and midsize businesses, including the TotalStorage N3700, a NAS solution targeted at companies with fewer than 1,000 employees. Slated to ship by the end of the month, the product represents the first offering from the IBM-NetApp partnership announced in April.

Under the arrangement, IBM agreed to OEM NAS and SAN appliances from the Sunnyvale, Calif., storage vendor. At the time, IBM executives said the NetApp relationship would give the Armonk, N.Y.-based company a better chance to compete with rival EMC in the midmarket storage segment.

In addition, IBM rolled out the DR550 Express, a storage archive system that offers non-rewriteable, non-erasable data management, and a SAN Starter Kit designed to help SMBs consolidate storage. Both products are available now.

The TotalStorage N3700 is priced at $50,000, the DR550 Express runs $45,000 and the SAN Starter Kit costs $16,376, according to IBM.

In announcing the new products, IBM executives said storage solutions tailored for SMBs must be easy to install and use. Both IBM and NetApp said the products launched Tuesday would be the first of several offerings to emerge from their collaboration.

SSA GLOBAL TECHNOLOGIES WILL SOON HAVE A CRM EPIPHANY
SSA Global Technologies, a maker of business software, on Wednesday said it plans to acquire San Mateo, Calif.-based Epiphany, a developer of customer relationship management software, for $329 million.

The deal is worth about $4.20 per share for Epiphany stockholders—a 7.1 percent premium to the closing price of $3.92 on the Nasdaq. The company&'s stock gained a penny after hours to $3.93 last Wednesday. SSA&'s Nasdaq-listed shares closed down 27 cents at $13.20.

Epiphany&'s applications are built using the same Java 2 Enterprise Edition technology as SSA&'s recently released SSA Technology Architecture, SSA said, adding that the combination will allow it to “quickly tailor solutions for specific industries.”

In 2004, Epiphany posted sales of $79.3 million. For the fiscal year ended July 2004, SSA had sales of $636.5 million. The deal is expected to close in about eight to 12 weeks.

OVERLAND: HP TO SWITCH AUTOMATED TAPE SUPPLIERS
Data storage products manufacturer Overland Storage said Wednesday that Hewlett-Packard, its largest original equipment manufacturing customer, has decided not to purchase its next-generation, mid-range tape automation product line from Overland.

The company said it expects HP to begin buying the first product of this new line from a different supplier during calendar 2006.

Although HP will continue to purchase the tape automation products currently supplied by Overland for some time, the new product will eventually replace most of those purchases. Overland expects the revenue impact of this supplier switch to be minimal for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2006. Overland&'s three-year deal with HP expires in July 2006.

“Although our OEM business has declined in the last year, our branded business has grown about 20 percent per year in each of the last two years and now represents nearly $100 million in annual revenue,” said Christopher Calisi, Overland president and CEO.

NOVELL TAPS NEW PRESIDENT OF NORTH AMERICA
Novell has named Susan Heystee as president, Novell North America. In that role, she will head field sales, consulting, channel business and support, the company said Friday.

Heystee replaces Ron Hovsepian, who was recently named executive vice president and president of worldwide field operations for Novell. Heystee has been with Waltham, Mass.-based Novell since March of 2004. Heystee also joins Novell&'s worldwide management committee.