Conference 7.286::digital

4578.0. "Say Goodbye to BRS!" by RESTRT::THOMAS (The Truth is Out There!) Tue Apr 30 1996 10:29

    
    Posted on the web: http://recovery.sungard.com/n042996.html
    
    
    SunGard News Bureau:
    
    April 29, 1996 
    
     Douglas S. Clauson 
     SunGard Recovery Services 
     Phone - 610-341-8854 
     or send email 
     Internet - http://recovery.sungard.com 
    
    Nikki Richardson 
    Digital Equipment Corporation 
    (508) 493-6369 
    email  [email protected] 
    
    
          SUNGARD ACQUIRES ASSETS OF DIGITAL EQUIPMENT CORPORATION'S 
                   NORTH AMERICAN RECOVERY SERVICES BUSINESS 
    
               SunGard Becomes a Preferred Provider of Disaster Recovery
    Services for Digital 
    
    Wayne, PA, April 29, 1996 -- SunGardR Recovery Services Inc., the
    nation's premier provider of total business recovery
    services, today announced that it has acquired the assets of the North
    American recovery services business of Digital
    Equipment Corporation. By mutual agreement of the companies, the
    financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed. The
    purchase is SunGard Recovery Services' largest acquisition to date. 
    
    As part of the agreement, SunGard will acquire subscriber agreements
    for Digital's recovery customers, as well as hardware
    assets, including leading-edge Alpha processors, formerly used at
    Digital's recovery centers in the United States and Canada.
    Hardware from these facilities will be integrated into SunGard's
    recovery centers in Chicago, Philadelphia, Atlanta and
    Toronto, creating the largest hotsite facilities in the industry for
    Digital systems disaster recovery. 
    
    SunGard is endorsed by Digital as a preferred provider of recovery
    services to its existing and new customers throughout
    North America. In addition, SunGard Planning Solutions Inc. has been
    endorsed by Digital as a preferred supplier of business
    recovery planning software. SunGard Planning Solutions develops and
    markets CBRR comprehensive business recovery
    planning software used by clients to develop, test and maintain
    disaster recovery plans. 
    
    Michael F. Mulholland, President and Chief Executive Officer of SunGard
    Recovery Services Inc., said, "The acquisition of
    the assets of Digital's recovery services business further extends
    SunGard's leadership position in the disaster recovery
    industry. By combining Digital's recovery services offerings with our
    broad product set we can now offer users of Digital
    platforms a greater range of flexible solutions to meet their disaster
    recovery needs today and in the future." 
    
    Mulholland emphasized that Digital customers will benefit from
    SunGard's commitment to providing its subscribers with total
    solutions. "As part of our subscriber base, all Digital customers will
    have access to a wider range of solutions than was
    previously available to them. If their recovery needs extend into the
    mainframe area, we have the largest mainframe
    configuration dedicated to disaster recovery in the industry." 
    
    "The bottom line is that now they can work with one vendor who can meet
    all of their disaster recovery needs under one
    roof, from the largest mainframes to smaller distributed environments,
    regardless of platform. They also have access to our
    Mobile Data Centers, which bring recovery services directly to or near
    their site, and our MetroCenterRs for recovery of
    their key work groups," added Mulholland. 
    
    Stan R. Mawyer, Vice President and General Manager, Outsourcing
    Management Services at Digital, commented, "This
    agreement allows Digital to better focus on our core competencies while
    still having disaster recovery services available to our
    customers from a very well-respected source. With SunGard as a
    preferred provider of disaster recovery services, we are
    confident that our customers will continue to receive high-caliber
    service from a proven expert and industry leader in disaster
    recovery and PC-based planning software." 
    
    The acquisition of the assets of Digital's recovery services business
    is not expected to have a material effect on SunGard Data
    Systems Inc. financial condition or results of operations. 
    
    SunGard Recovery Services Inc. annually engages an independent auditor
    to perform a third party review of its operations,
    services and selected contracts. The independent examination verifies
    that SunGard is conforming to its stated criteria for
    servicing its customers. SunGard is the only disaster recovery services
    provider to conduct and make public an independent
    audit of its stated service offerings. 
    
    SunGard Recovery Services, the disaster recovery unit of SunGard Data
    Systems Inc. (NASDAQ:SNDT), is the premier
    provider of total business recovery solutions. The company founded the
    industry in 1978 and provides recovery services for
    all major computing platforms. Comprehensive Business RecoverySM
    services include: computer hotsites and coldsites;
    electronic vaulting; network recovery; remote testing and recovery; and
    work group recovery services for voice, data, and
    LAN systems. Services are delivered through SunGard's network of
    MegaCenterRs and MetroCenterRs as well as its fleet
    of Mobile Data Centers stationed at strategic points nationwide.
    Business resumption planning, consulting services and
    PC-based contingency planning tools are furnished through the company's
    SunGard Planning Solutions division. 
    
    Digital Equipment Corporation helps customers worldwide with
    connectivity solutions. Together with its partners, the
    company provides industry-leading services, software, system platforms
    and components that connect people to people,
    people to information and companies to their customers, partners and
    suppliers. 
    
    Specific information and press releases on Digital's Intel and 64-bit
    Alpha platforms, networking, software, systems
    integration, multivendor services, storage, peripherals and
    semiconductor products can be accessed on the World Wide Web
    at: 
    
                                   http://www.digital.com 
    
                                        # # # 
    
    Note to Editors: Digital is a trademark of Digital Equipment
    Corporation. 
    
    For specific information on SunGard's many products and services please
    call 1-800-247-7832 or use our Feedback page. 
    

    My interpretation of .0 is that DEC's BRS is not affected. BRS
    (Business Recovery SERVER) is disaster tolerant clustering, with zero
    cluster downtime. Disaster recovery as mentioned in .0 with external
    hot and cold sites sounds to me like downtime for at least an hour
    before you can switch to an external hot site.
    
    Ueli

    re. -.1
    
    Digital's BRS is affected. It's going away!  
    
    The Business Recovery Server, BRS, is a renamed Cluster and it will
    stay.  The Business Recovery Services Group *IS* going away.  
    
    Digital, in it's infinite wisdom, has stated that the *profitable*
    Hot/Cold site business is not one of the business' that it wants to be
    in. 
    
    This is going to do wonders for customer loyalty, especially the
    customers that have contracts with BRS.
    

RE: .2

Now I'm confused.

>    Digital's BRS is affected. It's going away!  
>    
>    The Business Recovery Server, BRS, is a renamed Cluster and it will
>    stay.  The Business Recovery Services Group *IS* going away.  

Can I, as part of a Digital Sales team, continue to sell the Business
Recovery Service, part of which is the Business Recovery Server, with a
Digital part number and credit for the sale going to our budget?

-- Ken Moreau

    Bearing in mind that the announcement stated that Disaster Recovery is
    no longer part of Digital's core business are we to expect some sort of
    announcement regarding the Business within the UK and Europe???
    
    Or will the first we hear about it, be when someone has bought the
    business?                             
    
    

    re -.4
    
    We heard about it *offically* last week.  Not very nice of them, since
    it has probably been in the works for a while.
    
    I wonder what other Digital business lines Sungard will be involved in
    the near future..  Stay Tuned...:-}
    
    ttfn
    

    If any, how many actual digital (now ex-digital) employees are involved
    with Sungard talking over this line of business?

    All of us!  The count of the soon to be ex-digital employees is
    approximately 25-30!  This includes service delivery, sales and admin.
    We also have 3 hotsite/coldsite facilities that may close or be reused.
    They are MRC (Arlington Heights, IL), ERC (Piscataway, NJ), and SEC
    (Tampa, FL).
    
    

    There has now been an official announcement from European VP level that 
    RESTART (which is the European equivalent of the service being sold to 
    SunGard in North America) is *not* being sold.
    
    The message (to be given to customers) is that in Europe and 
    Asia/Pacific, RESTART 'thrives both as a stand-alone offering and as an 
    integral component of the wider outsourcing business.  The continued 
    strong growth of business continuity related services is seen as a core 
    competency of Digital's added value services portfolio in these 
    geographies'.
    
    I believe this is a good decision.  We are seeing a lot of interest 
    (and doing a significant amount of business) in RESTART here in the UK.  
    This includes covering a US site belonging to one of our UK clients 
    from a recovery site on this side of the water.  The first 
    trans-Atlantic recovery contract?  (Unfortunately, it is unlikely that 
    they will let us use them as a public reference.)
    
    Ian