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Purchase of Seattle-Area Firm Augments Rocket’s Mainframe and Large Systems Capabilities
Newton, MA - July 11, 2006—Rocket Software (www.rocketsoftware.com), a Boston-based developer of Enterprise Infrastructure products, today announced they have signed a definitive agreement to acquire Mainstar Software Corporation (www.mainstar.com), a z/OS mainframe systems software company based in Bellevue, Washington. The transaction is expected to close on July 31, 2006.
In addition to bolstering Rocket’s already significant offerings in the storage management market, this acquisition complements the open systems storage software acquisition of Austin-based Servergraph in 2005, the purchase of the technology software assets of Storage Networks in 2003, and the software acquisition in 2005 of UK-based ASTRAC.
Mainstar, founded in 1978, provides mainframe storage products and services throughout the world. The company’s areas of expertise include catalog management, data cloning, disaster and local recovery, HSM tools, and professional services. For over 25 years Mainstar has focused on mainframe systems management and disaster recovery. Mainstar has been an IBM business partner since 1996, and is a SHARE Alliance Vendor.
Andy Youniss, CEO of Rocket Software, says, “Mainstar has an excellent suite of storage products that we see as complementary to Rocket’s offerings in the storage and systems-management markets. Our intention is not only to support existing Mainstar products, but to aggressively add features and capabilities and to speed up the development of additional products that have been on the drawing board at the company. Of particular interest to Rocket are Mainstar’s OEM and remarketing agreements with IBM. The acquisition will further strengthen Rocket’s commitment to IBM and its global customer base.”
Ron Ferguson, Founder, President, and CEO of Mainstar adds, “At Mainstar, our goal has always been to bring very high quality software products to the z/OS marketplace, provide outstanding customer service and technical support to our worldwide customer base, and develop a tremendous environment for our employees. There’s a terrific fit with both companies’ technology, product lines, and corporate values, ensuring that Mainstar will become a strategic part of Rocket’s future success. Mainstar’s pipeline of exciting new products should add substantially to Rocket’s revenues.”
About Rocket Software
Founded in 1990, Rocket Software is a global development firm that builds Enterprise Infrastructure products for the world’s leading OEMs, networks and software companies. The company’s current lines of business complement and extend strategic OEM offerings in the areas of enterprise and mobile security, relational databases, mobile and wireless computing, and operational support systems (OSS). Rocket’s current OEM relationships and technology partners include IBM, RSA Security, Microsoft, NEC, and Toshiba. Rocket Software is based in Newton, Mass., and employs more than 200 people worldwide. For more information, visit www.rocketsoftware.com.
About Mainstar
Mainstar Software Corporation, founded in 1978, provides complete storage management and disaster recovery solutions for MVS environments throughout the U.S.A., Canada, Europe, Australia, and the Asia-Pacific region. For more information, please visit www.mainstar.com, e-mail info@mainstar.com, or call (425) 455-3589.