Carbonite Buys Backup Firm Zmanda as Big Data Spending Skyrockets

Boston-based Carbonite (NASDAQ: [[ticker:CARB]]), the online data backup company, says it is acquiring Zmanda, a Sunnyvale, CA-based open source and cloud backup company. The price tag is about $14.75 million, with some adjustments. The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter of this year.

“Zmanda is a great strategic fit for Carbonite,” says David Friend, CEO and co-founder of Carbonite, in a statement. “Carbonite has focused on backing up computers and mobile devices, while Zmanda has focused on backing up servers and databases. In the small to medium business (SMB) market, most companies need both.”

Zmanda started in 2005 and is led by founder and CEO Chander Kant. It’s fair to say both Zmanda and Carbonite are companies that were set up for the “big data” trend before that became a buzzword.

Today’s merger news comes on the heels of a Gartner Research report that says big data will (directly and indirectly) drive $96 billion of IT spending worldwide in 2012.

Carbonite’s Friend is giving a keynote talk at Xconomy’s “Future of Big Data” conference in Boston on October 24.

Author: Gregory T. Huang

Greg is a veteran journalist who has covered a wide range of science, technology, and business. As former editor in chief, he overaw daily news, features, and events across Xconomy's national network. Before joining Xconomy, he was a features editor at New Scientist magazine, where he edited and wrote articles on physics, technology, and neuroscience. Previously he was senior writer at Technology Review, where he reported on emerging technologies, R&D, and advances in computing, robotics, and applied physics. His writing has also appeared in Wired, Nature, and The Atlantic Monthly’s website. He was named a New York Times professional fellow in 2003. Greg is the co-author of Guanxi (Simon & Schuster, 2006), about Microsoft in China and the global competition for talent and technology. Before becoming a journalist, he did research at MIT’s Artificial Intelligence Lab. He has published 20 papers in scientific journals and conferences and spoken on innovation at Adobe, Amazon, eBay, Google, HP, Microsoft, Yahoo, and other organizations. He has a Master’s and Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT, and a B.S. in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.