EMC today confirmed the widely reported speculation that it had acquired privately held Utah-based Berkeley Data Systems, which operates the online-backup service Mozy. Terms of the deal were not announced. However, last month the tech blog TechCrunch broke the news of the impending acquisition and pegged the price at $76 million.
Mozy is a nice fit for Hopkinton, MA-based storage leader EMC (NYSE: EMC). The service lets users download a small desktop application onto their personal computer’s hard drive. The application monitors key files or folders and automatically uploads copies to Mozy’s servers at pre-scheduled times, guaranteeing backups should something happen to their own copies.
Observers had wondered whether Mozy would continue to offer a consumer-facing service as part of EMC, which is mainly known for its enterprise products. But Tom Heiser, EMC’s senior vice president of corporate development and new ventures, said the service will stay. “We will continue to invest in Mozy’s full portfolio of online backup and recovery services and advance the Mozy brand in the marketplace,” Heiser said in a statement.
Author: Robert Buderi
Bob is Xconomy's founder and chairman. He is one of the country's foremost journalists covering business and technology. As a noted author and magazine editor, he is a sought-after commentator on innovation and global competitiveness. Before taking his most recent position as a research fellow in MIT's Center for International Studies, Bob served as Editor in Chief of MIT's Technology Review, then a 10-times-a-year publication with a circulation of 315,000. Bob led the magazine to numerous editorial and design awards and oversaw its expansion into three foreign editions, electronic newsletters, and highly successful conferences. As BusinessWeek's technology editor, he shared in the 1992 National Magazine Award for The Quality Imperative.
Bob is the author of four books about technology and innovation. Naval Innovation for the 21st Century (2013) is a post-Cold War account of the Office of Naval Research. Guanxi (2006) focuses on Microsoft's Beijing research lab as a metaphor for global competitiveness. Engines of Tomorrow (2000) describes the evolution of corporate research. The Invention That Changed the World (1996) covered a secret lab at MIT during WWII. Bob served on the Council on Competitiveness-sponsored National Innovation Initiative and is an advisor to the Draper Prize Nominating Committee. He has been a regular guest of CNBC's Strategy Session and has spoken about innovation at many venues, including the Business Council, Amazon, eBay, Google, IBM, and Microsoft.
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