The News: Cohesity announced its intention to acquire Veritas’ data protection business in a deal that is expected to close by the end of 2024. Additional details are available on Cohesity’s website.
Cohesity Acquires Veritas Data Protection Assets
Analyst Take: Cohesity will acquire Veritas’ NetBackup software, NetBackup Appliances, and Alta software as a service (SaaS) data protection solutions. A joint team of engineers from both companies will oversee integration of these offerings with Cohesity’s solutions, with the portfolio roadmap being shared under NDA with customers.
The acquisition is on one hand a technology play, rounding out Cohesity’s workload support including longstanding technologies that remain in the data center and at the same time expanding upon Cohesity’s Cloud Services capabilities with Veritas’ cloud-native Alta SaaS Data Protection capabilities. The workload support is notable because of the amount of time that it takes to develop the competencies that can address all of the enterprise needs. Cohesity will also overlay its security and insight/analytics services, including DataHawk, Turing, and IT Analytics, across the combined data protection portfolio. The idea is to address the growing need in the market to go beyond backing up and recovering data to handle issues around data security, mobility, access, and insights for more robust cyber-resiliency.
Cohesity will also benefit from Veritas’ longstanding traction and strong reputation in enterprise workloads, including its sales presence and global support network. According to Cohesity, the combined entity will count more than 10,000 customers including 96 of the Fortune 100 and 80% of the Global 500. This is in addition to a robust joint ecosystem of cloud service provider, VAR, and SI partners and OEMs and security partners on the technology side.
Without a doubt, the deal will have a ripple effect in the data protection market, providing material consolidation of a fragmented vendor landscape. While the companies’ capabilities will be largely complementary, there will be some rationalization that will need to occur—especially in the market for hyperconverged systems. A careful portfolio integration supported by customer feedback will be critical to success. Equally as critical will be enablement of channel and technology partners with clear lines of positioning of the products and their unique value. This is especially true as the roster of data protection decision-makers broadens outside of IT operations, for example, to include security and compliance teams—and as data protection competencies continue to broaden into adjacent areas, such as AI-supported data management.
Disclosure: The Futurum Group is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.
Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of The Futurum Group as a whole.
Other Insights from The Futurum Group:
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Cohesity Introduces Turing, Highlighting Data Protection’s Role in AI
Author Information
With a focus on data security, protection, and management, Krista has a particular focus on how these strategies play out in multi-cloud environments. She brings approximately 15 years of experience providing research and advisory services and creating thought leadership content. Her vantage point spans technology and vendor portfolio developments; customer buying behavior trends; and vendor ecosystems, go-to-market positioning, and business models. Her work has appeared in major publications including eWeek, TechTarget and The Register.
Prior to joining The Futurum Group, Krista led the data protection practice for Evaluator Group and the data center practice of analyst firm Technology Business Research. She also created articles, product analyses, and blogs on all things storage and data protection and management for analyst firm Storage Switzerland and led market intelligence initiatives for media company TechTarget.
Camberley brings over 25 years of executive experience leading sales and marketing teams at Fortune 500 firms. Before joining The Futurum Group, she led the Evaluator Group, an information technology analyst firm as Managing Director.
Her career has spanned all elements of sales and marketing including a 360-degree view of addressing challenges and delivering solutions was achieved from crossing the boundary of sales and channel engagement with large enterprise vendors and her own 100-person IT services firm.
Camberley has provided Global 250 startups with go-to-market strategies, creating a new market category “MAID” as Vice President of Marketing at COPAN and led a worldwide marketing team including channels as a VP at VERITAS. At GE Access, a $2B distribution company, she served as VP of a new division and succeeded in growing the company from $14 to $500 million and built a successful 100-person IT services firm. Camberley began her career at IBM in sales and management.
She holds a Bachelor of Science in International Business from California State University – Long Beach and executive certificates from Wellesley and Wharton School of Business.
