GlassHouse Extends Vertical Reach

GlassHouse Technologies Inc. has purchased a tiny consultancy to gain what it views as big-time talent that can widen its vertical market presence.

GlassHouse bought CycleBridge Technologies Inc. in a stock transaction, terms undisclosed. It's the second-ever acquisition for the startup, which bought some service contracts from Auspex last year (see NetApp Picks Up Auspex Patents).

As it did in that acquisition, GlassHouse has an eye on something besides the modest day-to-day business of its target. Specifically, GlassHouse wants contacts and talent. The former includes 10 to 20 new clients in the pharmaceutical and healthcare vertical markets, viewed as key slices of the SAN pie (see Patient Records Healthy for Storage).

Among the clients CycleBridge claims to have on board are IBM Corp. (NYSE: IBM), drug developer Infinity Pharmaceuticals, and Phase Forward, which makes software for clinical trials.

GlassHouse is also taking on CycleBridge's principal partner and cofounder Janie Tremlett, who joins GlassHouse as VP of corporate development, replacing Richard Scannell, who's become senior VP of North American Consulting (see GlassHouse Buys CycleBridge ).Tremlett's past jobs included stints for consultancies in a range of fields, with an emphasis on using specialized software to help streamline important tasks such as regulatory compliance, channel sales, and business partnerships. GlassHouse clearly wants to tap her abilities to define and market its services in an ever more competitive market in which commoditized services are easier to peddle than ones that are general and loosely defined.

Tremlett's past jobs include: COO and general manager of strategy services for Breakaway Solutions, a now-defunct consultancy in Boston; CTO and VP of R&D at CommercialWare, which makes software for retailers with multiple sales channels; CIO of Commonwealth Financial Network, an independent broker dealer; and VP and CIO of WFD Consulting (formerly Work-Family Directions), a human resources consultancy. She also wrote software applications at BlueCross BlueShield.

Besides Tremlett, CycleBridge has just three other full-time employees, who also will join GlassHouse's staff of about 100. A small cadre of consultants acting as affiliates on CycleBridge jobs will continue to do so, and some could wind up as permanent GlassHouse employees, according to GlassHouse spokeswoman Ann Dalrymple. (Tremlett herself was unavailable for comment because she was giving a talk at the MIT Sloan School of Management.)

Since CycleBridge's HQ is in the same building as the GlassHouse main office, no one will have to move very far to join GlassHouse.

Mary Jander, Site Editor, Byte and Switch0