ADIC's List for Santa

5:15 PM -- Tis the season for shopping, and ADIC is at it -- even after failing to nail its prime 2005 acquisition target.

Overland successfully resisted ADIC’s advances this year, but ADIC CEO Peter van Oppen said on his company’s earnings conference call Thursday night that he’s talking to other companies about acquiring them. (See Overland Rejects ADIC Offer and ADIC Courts Overland.)

“We are in regular discussions with other tape companies and frankly a much broader universe,” he said.

He still thinks the Overland deal would make sense for both companies, but if Overland won’t come around, there are a few “opportunities for consolidation.” Tape vendors Spectra Logic, Quantum, Qualstar, and Exabyte are still out there.

Disk backup and data protection software are also high on van Oppen's wish list. He cited Avamar’s compression technology as an interesting advance. (See Avamar CEO: Hardware's a Hard Sell and Avamar Advances.) Note: He did not specifically finger Avamar as a target, but said it was part of a “group of companies trying to squeeze down the data.”If you follow van Oppen's reasoning, Data Domain is another data squeezer, which could land it on ADIC’s list. Then there are continuous data protection (CDP) startups such as Mendocino Software, Revivio, Mimosa Systems, TimeSpring, Storactive, and Availl -- all still Availlable, even though Lasso Logic and Zetta have been gobbled up. (See SonicWall Lassos enKoo and Overland Overtakes Zetta .)

If van Oppen keeps up the requests, ADIC could get more than a lump of coal in its stocking next Christmas!

— Dave Raffo, Senior Editor, Byte and Switch

Organizations mentioned in this article: