Disk subsystem integrator MTI Technology Corp has bought the management software division of Raxco Inc for $5m in an attempt to expand beyond its traditional Digital Equipment Corp kit market, where it was losing out to DEC itself. For its cash, debt, warrants and assumed liabilities, Annaheim, California-based MTI gains all the intellectual properties and source code rights related to the Raxco UNIX and Open VMS storage management software product lines; the customer base, which includes about 450 Unix and VMS products and maintenance contract customers; and international distribution relationships and development and technical support teams in Virginia and the UK. For Rockville, Maryland-based Raxco, the sale means it is free to concentrate on security services and help desk offerings; last year Raxco formed its Axent division (CI No 2,487) dedicated to developing security applications for client-server environments. The purchase is expected to lift MTI’s annual revenues and strengthen MTI’s software team. It should also plug the gap through which MTI’s customers have been trickling away from its traditional market, DEC’s VMS, to client-server; now, if its user base wants to migrate to open systems, MTI says it will be able to offer storage subsystems for Unix as well. And the deal should help MTI, which styles itself The Universal Storage Systems Company, to fulfil that claim.
