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Diligent Technologies: Page 2 of 3

Diligent CTO Neville Yates says Diligent has grown the mainframe customer base inherited from EMC from 30 to 60. It now has about 70 licenses distributed among those customers. EMC still sells Diligent software through a non-exclusive agreement.

Might EMC regret its choice? “I don’t think they would spin us off today,” Yates says of EMC. “EMC is realizing mainframes make up a bigger piece of their business.” Indeed, EMC beefed up mainframe capabilities when it refreshed its hardware line in February (see EMC Hits Hardware Refresh).

Yet it will take more than the mainframe product for Diligent to make it. It also has launched a virtual tape application for open systems and is trying to raise funding to launch another product by early next year. Yates says the goal is to become profitable by the end of 2004.

“We’re looking at raising a bit of money. We don’t need a lot. We’re looking at becoming profitable, and we’re on target to turn that magic corner this year.”

Judging from recent funding, Diligent should be able to scrounge up at least a few million. Sepaton Inc.
($23.5 million) and disk backup appliance vendors Data Domain Inc. ($17 million) and Candera Inc.
($12 million) all closed funding rounds since December. (See Sepaton Secures $23.5M, Data Domain Picks Up $17M, and Candera Closes $12M Round). All have business plans based on virtual tape.