HP Makes AppIQ Buy

AppIQ, Burlington, Mass., is well known for its software to manage SANs and storage resources—software that HP offers under the name HP Storage Essentials.

Rich Escott, director of storage management software for HP, said the Palo Alto, Calif.-based vendor has long seen the promise of AppIQ&s technology. “And we are looking at applying its technology to other areas,” he said.

Other OEMs of AppIQ&s software include Hitachi Data Systems, Sun Microsystems and Engenio Information Technologies.

Solution providers said HP made the right move by acquiring AppIQ, but for different reasons.

“It shows HP&s commitment to storage management now that they&re buying AppIQ instead of OEMing it,” said Gary Hazard, vice president of Atrion, an HP solution provider based in Hillsborough, N.J.

And Mark Teter, CTO of Advanced Systems Group, a Denver-based Sun solution provider, said he has wondered for some time why no one had acquired AppIQ, especially given its OEM customers. “I&m surprised EMC didn&t pick it up just to cause havoc,” he said.

Teter said he expects consternation at Sun now that rival HP has acquired AppIQ. Still, not all is lost for Sun. Sun gains similar technology from its $4.1 billion acquisition of storage software vendor StorageTek.

So far, however, Sun has not indicated any plans to replace its popular AppIQ software with the competitive StorageTek product. That could change, Teter said. “Sun has some StorageTek products that might be of more interest to them now that HP has the AppIQ intellectual property,” he said.

For his part, though, Hazard doesn&t think the HP acquisition will have much effect on AppIQ&s OEM relationships with HP&s rivals. He cited VMware, which, despite being acquired by EMC, still has strong relationships with EMC rivals such as HP and IBM. Escott said HP will maintain AppIQ&s OEM relationships. “Our intention is to continue the OEM model and add value to that model,” he said.

The acquisition is expected to close late October or early November. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.