Legato chief lifts lid on EMC Documentum deal

By Stuart Finlayson

The chairman and CEO of storage software provider – and soon to be EMC subsidiary – Legato, has revealed that the decision by EMC to acquire content management software provider Documentum in a deal worth US$1.7 billion was borne out of his personal recommendation to EMC President and CEO, Joe Tucci.

In a conference call to Australian press and analysts, David B. Wright, who is visiting the country at present to help secure new business for the vendor, said the curious timing of the acquisition – with EMC already in the midst of integrating Legato into its business – was as a consequence of having to nip in ahead of a number of other vendors courting Documentum.

"There were other suitors, and that drove part of [the move], and they were the people you'd imagine would be in there. That's why we knew we had to go out and get this, as we are operating in a very aggressive, consolidating market."

Wright said they recognised the value of Documentum in terms of allowing them to offer a more complete range of products and services to customers.

"We felt that for us to be a player [in the content/records management space], we needed to have that resource and that technology."

He also stressed though that Documentum's technology would not be the only technology from that space they would be taking to market, with EMC still planning to continue to work with the likes of FileNet and IBM.

According to Wright, EMC plans to run Documentum as an independent subsidiary, much in the same fashion as they plan to run Legato.

"It gives us the ability to bid at the enterprise level, be able to participate in a market that is growing very well with good technology, as well as allowing us to put forward large, total solutions bids that we haven't been able to do in the past."

Wright added that major companies and organisations in Australia were already showing great interest in working with the new entity.

"Since the deal was announced, I have made calls to Telstra, National Australia Bank, and Brisbane City Council, which uses IT quite extensively, and all three were excited about this because they felt that they were always being the integrator, but by going to a one-stop shop, where the document management is already tied to [EMC's] Centera, they had a very strong possibility of being successful."

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