Thursday, October 21, 2004
Quantum Buys Certance For $60M
Storage products maker Quantum said yesterday that it is buying Costa Mesa-based Certance, a developer of tape drive products and data protection technology. Quantum is acquiring all of Certance for $60M in cash. Quantum said that it would add the Certance line of tape drives to its lineup, acquiring Travan, DDS/DAT, and LTO/Ultrium drive formats to its lineup of supported tape drives. Quantum also said that it believed that the Certance acquisition would help complement its channel business, compared with Quantum's existing OEM relationships. The companies have been long time rivals in the tape backup and protection business, with Quantum's DLT format tape drives considered direct competition to the LTO format used by Certance. Quantum said that it expects that the acquisition will close in Q4 of 2004.