Disaster Recovery: sungard to acquire vericenter
SunGard recently announced that it has reached a definitive agreement to acquire VeriCenter, Inc., a provider of managed hosting, colocation, and infrastructure services. VeriCenter will become part of SunGard Availability Services, the pioneer and leading provider of information availability and business continuity services. The transaction, the terms of which were not disclosed, is not expected to have a material impact on SunGard's financial results.
The addition of VeriCenter increases SunGard's economies of scale. It also broadens SunGard's service offerings that combine dedicated and shared resources tailored to specific customer information availability needs. The VeriCenter resources complement SunGard's business continuity and production hosting solutions that maximize the availability of networks, systems, data and applications.
"Companies have a decreasing tolerance for IT system downtime to avoid business disruptions, and budgetary pressures require them to look for vendors that can increase IT availability in a cost-effective way," said Ted Gaasche, chief executive officer of SunGard Availability Services. "The powerful blend of SunGard's deep portfolio of information availability services, VeriCenter's strong facility footprint and the world class expertise of our combined team will further enhance the ability to help protect customers' mission-critical people, systems and applications."
Founded in 1999, VeriCenter serves more than 600 customers with complex requirements and significant uptime needs. VeriCenter hosts business applications, Websites, Software-as-a-Service, and messaging and collaboration applications from a nationwide network of seven data center facilities.
An acquisition by SunGard Availability Services will give VeriCenter customers access to a much broader range of business continuity, consulting and managed services to support their IT requirements.
Gray Hall, chief executive officer of VeriCenter, commented, "SunGard is a best-in-class business continuity services provider and it has a rapidly growing managed services business. More of VeriCenter's customers seek a total availability solution from a single vendor, and combining our managed services delivery with SunGard Availability Services will help meet this need. Together, we can serve customers that seek business continuity, managed services or the blend of the two."
Once the acquisition is finalized, SunGard Availability Services will serve more than 10,000 customers in nearly four million square feet of operations space predominantly in North America and Europe. Much of VeriCenter's nearly 470,000 square feet of operations space remains untapped. SunGard Availability Services can customize the construction at each site to satisfy customer demands for managed services and business continuity to support customers.
About VeriCenter
Founded in 1999, VeriCenter is a managed services, application hosting, and IT infrastructure company. VeriCenter has built a reputation for business leadership and industry vision. VeriCenter is the recipient of prestigious technology and industry accolades. Recently, VeriCenter has been honored as a 2006 Inc. 500 fastest-growing private company for the second year in a row, marking the distinction as a first for a managed services and infrastructure outsourcing company. The company is also a five-time winner of the Houston Fast Tech 50, which honors the 50 fastest growing technology companies in the Houston area. For more information on VeriCenter, please visit www.vericenter.com .
About SunGard Availability Services
SunGard Availability Services is the pioneer and leading provider of information availability services, helping to ensure that nearly 10,000 clients in North America and Europe have access to their business-critical information systems. With over three million square feet of hardened facilities, SunGard offers a complete range of information availability services for more than 30 technology platforms, from 48-hour disaster recovery hotsites to always-on, high-availability infrastructure, co-location and electronic vaulting services. SunGard also provides technology and systems management services for application and data center outsourcing, as well as business continuity consulting services and planning software. For more information about SunGard Availability Services, visit www.availability.sungard.com or call 1-800-523-4970.
About SunGard
With annual revenue exceeding $4 B, SunGard is a global leader in software and processing solutions for financial services, higher education and the public sector. SunGard also helps information dependent enterprises of all types to ensure the continuity of their business. SunGard serves more than 25,000 customers in more than 50 countries, including the world's 50 largest financial services companies. Visit SunGard at www.sungard.com
SOURCE: SunGard