Hitachi Data Systems Buys Cofio, Software Infrastructure Developer

Hitachi Data Systems, a Santa Clara, CA-based subsidiary of Japan’s Hitachi conglomerate, has acquired San Diego-based Cofio Software, which specializes in data protection software and related technology.

Financial terms were not disclosed, and Cofio CEO Tony Cerqueira did not respond to an email query yesterday. He joined Hitachi Data Systems as a senior director for global markets.

Word of the acquisition was disclosed in late September on a Hitachi Data Systems blog for data center advisers. Hitachi Data Systems has more than 5,300 employees worldwide, and provides mid-range and high-end storage systems, software, and services.

In the blog, Hitachi Data Systems vice president Sean Moser writes, “We have acquired Cofio, a privately held company with a successful unified data protection solution. Its flagship product, AIMstor, is an innovative and intuitive solution for protecting customer data globally.”

Moser adds that Cofio’s acquisition is a key part of Hitachi Data System’s long-term vision for data center management that takes a more comprehensive approach by integrating backup, archiving, and storage platform-based replication technologies. “Over time, Moser says, “we plan to offer a centralized data instance management solution that promises significant infrastructure, storage, and management cost and efficiency savings by consolidating, reducing and better managing and tracking data copies.”

Cofio was founded in 2006 by Cerqueira, Patrick Barcus, and Fabrice Helliker, who previously led development of the NetVault line of data backup and recovery software at San Diego’s BakBone Software. Quest Software acquired BakBone in 2011.

Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.