Vision: iTera Merger

Key’s assessment of recent merger and acquisition activity that affects our clients.

On November 2, Vision Solutions and iTera announced the merger of their two companies. The new company is called Vision Solutions and is owned by Thoma Cressey Equity Partners. The combined organization is the world's leading provider of HA solutions for the System i market.

Nicolaas Vlok, who will continue as CEO of Vision Solutions, told INsights, “This merger has created IBM's largest high-availability partner in the System i space. It's exciting because we will be able to drive significant new opportunities based on our combined businesses and technologies.”

Key and other Vision business partners will be offering all products of both Vision and iTera. Vision’s products tend to focus on enterprise-wide environments while iTera has targeted the small-and-medium-business (SMB) community primarily in the U.S.

“We welcome the addition of the robust iTera offerings to the array of business continuity solutions we offer our clients,” announced Lief Morin, Key’s President.

“One of our goals is to generate customer awareness that not only has the i5 come down in price, but so has high availability," explained Dan Neville, former CEO of iTera and current Vision Board Member. “We want to prove to companies that HA is easy to use and that it is affordable. Key is a tremendous partner for Vision with their excellent client relations and support and we will be working closely with Key to bring the benefits of our new product portfolio to its clients.”

A FAQ on Vision’s Web site makes the following points:

• Vision will honor current quotes, transactions or deals.
  
• Vision will continue to deliver and support both ORION and Echo2 product families as they deliver a converged next-generation family of products.
  
• Vision will provide a detailed product roadmap in early 2007.
  
• Vision will host a series of Webinars in the coming weeks featuring senior management.
  
• Current reseller contracts remain in effect.

Formal announcements appear on both the Vision and iTera Web sites. For more information, visit the Vision Solutions Web site.

To visit the iTera Web site, go here.

Both Vision’s home office in Irvine, CA, and the iTera home office in Salt Lake City, UT, will remain in place. All URLs, email addresses and phone numbers for both organizations remain the same.

Editor-in-Chief Thomas Stockwell and Senior Products Editor Bill Rice of MC PressOnline talked to the two principals of the newly merged Vision and iTera organization. Click here for the interview.

As additional information about important mergers in the SMB space come to light, we will report on them to you here in INsights.

For additional information about the Vision – iTera merger, email Pete Elliot or call him at 818.737.2804