INRG acquisition news (might explain yesterday's big drop, assuming some folks had advance-knowledge)..
===================
Wednesday January 10, 8:52 am Eastern Time
INRANGE Bolsters Professional Services Organization With Acquisition of Prevail Technology; Company Expands Capabilities to Directly Support Storage Management and SAN Planning and Deployment
LUMBERTON, N.J., Jan. 10 /PRNewswire/ -- INRANGE Technologies (Nasdaq: INRG - news), a leader in high-end storage networking solutions, announced today that it has acquired Prevail Technology (Waltham, MA), a professional services company with expertise in designing and implementing high availability solutions for IT infrastructures and e-business environments.
The acquisition brings all thirty Prevail employees, including 21 consultants, to INRANGE's Professional Services organization. With the acquisition, INRANGE is approaching 450 professionals in sales, service, and consulting positions deployed globally.
Founded in 1997, Prevail specializes in designing and implementing high- availability infrastructures that enable clients -- ranging from Fortune 1000 companies to ``dot.com'' startups -- to leverage their installed IT systems for use in heterogeneous computing environments. Prevail's solutions cover enterprise storage management and implementation, open systems planning and integration, data management, e-business solutions, and business continuance strategies. The company has experience in the critical disciplines required for managing all phases of a Storage Area Network (SAN) project, including assessment, design, testing, and implementation.
The acquisition adds significant skills-sets to INRANGE's Professional Services organization and is key to INRANGE's storage networking strategy. Anchored by the successful IN-VSN(TM) Virtual Storage Networking family of solutions, IN-VSN technology provides a unifying architecture for large-scale, high availability enterprise SANs. The flagship of the IN-VSN family is the FC/9000(TM) Fibre Channel Director, the industry's highest capacity fibre channel switching technology available. One of the keys to sustaining growth in the storage networking sector is the ability to assist customers with comprehensive SAN consulting services to speed Return On Investment, including technology assessment, SAN deployment, and SAN management. ``Staffing and skills sets are the top issues reported by our customers for three years running now,'' stated Nick Allen, Vice President of Storage Research at Gartner.
``Prevail's experience in designing high-availability storage management solutions and in open systems planning broadens the value we bring to our customers,'' said INRANGE CEO Greg Grodhaus, ``many of whom do not have sufficient in-house skills or time to evaluate, design, and plan a SAN as well as other complex infrastructures.'' A recent Computerworld survey of IT professionals revealed that lack of staff resources was the second greatest inhibitor to SAN deployment, trailing only concerns about availability and uptime.
``Businesses today recognize that IT infrastructure and systems are key enablers for success,'' stated Jill Broyles, Founder, President and CEO of Prevail. ``They require tightly-coupled relationships with vendors who can help them assess current needs, and who can offer a composite of technical knowledge, business analysis, strategic planning, and long-term technology and market vision. Unlike many companies in their market segment, INRANGE fosters this level of customer intimacy and is committed to continuing to build its professional services organization. Prevail looks forward to joining INRANGE, and to creating truly high availability SAN solutions centered around the IN-VSN family.'' Prevail, an IBM Premier Business Partner, specializes in supporting the family of IBM hardware and software products, and has extensive experience in Sun, HP, Linux, and NT platforms, and with VERITAS, Tivoli, EMC, and Legato management products.
About INRANGE Technologies (www.inrange.com)
INRANGE Technologies designs, manufactures, markets and services networking and switching products for storage, data and telecommunications networks. Our products provide fast and reliable connections among networks of computers and related devices and are used in global 2000 businesses and other enterprises that operate large-scale and heterogeneous systems where open connectivity, reliability, and continuous availability are critical. Our products are designed to be compatible with various vendors' products and multiple communication standards and protocols.
INRANGE and the INRANGE logo are registered trademarks of INRANGE Technologies Corporation. IN-VSN and FC/9000 are trademarks of INRANGE Technologies Corporation. All other trademarks and product names are the property of their respective owners. |
