In another sign that EMC is serious about enterprise cloud storage and mobility, the company announced Tuesday that it had acquired Menlo Park, Calif.-based Syncplicity. The news comes amid a flurry of cloud storage product launches during the EMC World conference in Las Vegas.
Syncplicity is a privately held startup that offers cloud-based file storage, sync, sharing, automated backup and mobile device access with business IT levels of management over file policy and user/group access.
Security and data protection factor in as well. Syncplicity claims its three data centers are SAS70 Type II compliant. All data, whether in transit, at rest or on mobile devices, is encased in AES-256 SSL encryption. Combine that with quadruplicate replication and a geographically dispersed data center footprint, and it all adds up to “nine-nines” data resiliency, according to Syncplicity.
Syncplicity was founded in 2008 by ex-Microsoft execs Leonard Chung and Ondrej Hrebicek. The firm boasts more than 25,000 customers, including tech heavyweights like Google, IBM, and SAP.
Taking a shot at the consumer friendly offerings from services like Dropbox and Google Drive, EMC said Syncplicity’s technology is better suited for corporate file sharing needs. It also helps EMC address another segment that’s rewriting the playbook on access to today’s IT resources: mobility.
“Unlike competitive offerings geared for consumers, Syncplicity solutions were built for the enterprise, enabling users to interact and share content on their device of choice with the security and governance IT requires,” said the company in a release.
Consumerization of IT in Full Swing
If the growing numbers of iPads in boardrooms and conference rooms isn’t proof enough, today’s deal is a big indication that the bring your own device (BYOD) phenomenon is more than a passing fad. EMC said that integrating Syncplicity into the Information Intelligence Group — home to Documentum, Captiva and SourceOne — will empower “the ‘New User’ in the Post PC era.”
What distinguishes the post-PC user? According to the president of EMC’s Information Intelligence Group, Rick Devenuti, users engage with data — and one another — with mobile devices and tools that place a premium on social collaboration.
Syncplicity will help bring those attributes to Documentum, according to Devenuti, with enterprise-grade security to boot. “It’s our core belief that productivity and security are not mutually exclusive,” he says in a company statement. “In acquiring Syncplicity, we validate this concept by uniting enterprise ‘sync and share’ capabilities for the cloud with governance and rigor that is synonymous with Documentum,” he adds.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Pedro Hernandez is a contributing editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of the IT Business Edge Network, the network for technology professionals. Follow him on Twitter @ecoINSITE.
