The all-cash deal is worth around $14.7m, with a performance-based consideration of up to $30m over the next three years. The deal closed on January 4.
Privately held AfterMail develops so-called enterprise email intelligence, which is a fancy term for archiving email data to make it more accessible to knowledge workers and adhere to corporate compliance regulations.
AfterMail says its approach is differentiated from other archiving systems because of its minimal impact to existing IT infrastructure. For example, the system delivers seamless accessibility to email systems without the need to install client software (something the company refers to as the endless inbox) and provides efficient storage of email messages and attachments, claiming to reduce the size of Exchange stores by up to 90% without having to install new sever-side software.
The technology will nicely dovetail with Quest’s Infrastructure Management platform, which works with Oracle, Microsoft, and IBM database systems, and is used for database diagnostics, network monitoring, application deployment, problem detection and resolution, and data replication.
If anything the move will extend messaging support for Quest’s Microsoft Exchange-centric archive platform to now encompass other STMP-based email systems like IBM Lotus Notes, Novell GroupWise and Sendmail.
Aliso Viejo-based Quest will be announcing integration roadmaps for its email archiving solution later this month.
The company also plans to keep the AfterMail product development team in Wellington, New Zealand and will also set up a new sales office in the country later this year.
