SAN JOSE, Calif., Dec. 14, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Quantum Corp.
(NASDAQ: QMCO) today announced it has acquired Square Box Systems
Ltd, a specialist in data cataloging, user collaboration, and
digital asset management software. The acquisition builds on
Quantum's recently expanded portfolio that classifies, manages, and
protects data across its lifecycle by adding technology
advancements to further enrich video, digital images and other
forms of unstructured data. This acquisition will strengthen
Quantum's ability to provide software solutions to help companies
unlock the business value contained in their data, both on-premises
and in the cloud.
Square Box Systems' flagship product is CatDV, an agile media
management and workflow automation software platform that helps
organizations with large volumes of media and metadata to organize,
communicate and collaborate more effectively. CatDV leverages
artificial intelligence and machine learning technology to make it
easier for businesses of any size to catalog and analyze digital
assets such as video, images, audio files, PDFs, and more; enable
advanced search across local and cloud repositories; and provide
access control across the full data lifecycle for secure sharing
and data governance.
"There is huge untapped value contained in video, digital
images, and other valuable file data," says Jamie Lerner, President and CEO at Quantum.
"This acquisition will not only help our customers make better
business decisions based on their data, but it represents another
key step in Quantum's transformation by adding data enrichment
technology to our portfolio. We are also adding a growing,
profitable software business unit with strong gross margins that is
in the late stages of transitioning to a cloud-based SaaS
business."
Expanding into new markets
Headquartered in the
United Kingdom, Square Box Systems
grew by more than 20% in the last year and has over 1,500
commercial software deployments and tens of thousands of individual
users worldwide, including many customers that use CatDV with
Quantum StorNext™. CatDV is used today in post-production,
corporate video, sports, government and education markets, and has
potential to expand to other markets using specifically designed
plug-ins for expanded use cases such as genomics research,
autonomous vehicle design, geospatial exploration, and any use case
dealing with large unstructured data. CatDV is integrated
with a broad ecosystem of storage vendors and other technology
providers, and Quantum is committed to maintaining this open
ecosystem and multi-vendor support.
"As CatDV grows and becomes a bigger player across the industry,
there's more we want to do, building on CatDV's success and taking
it to a new level," says Rolf
Howarth, founder and CTO at Square Box Systems, now
Principal Architect at Quantum. "I am very excited at the prospect
of working with Quantum, taking CatDV into new markets and solving
new business problems, at the same time as continuing to work with
our existing customers and partners."
Dave Clack, former CEO of Square
Box Systems and General Manager, Cloud Software and Analytics at
Quantum, adds: "Joining forces with Quantum makes CatDV much
stronger: becoming part of a larger organization with its visionary
leadership team, whilst gaining access to an amazing pool of
talent, gives CatDV more opportunity to better serve our existing
and future customers. The direction of both firms is already
aligned; a clear focus on data management, orchestration at scale,
cloud, and automation of service delivery, all unlocking amazing
returns for our clients."
Opportunity to Provide Turnkey Solution to Small Media
Workgroups
Many of the world's largest studios,
broadcasters, and content producers have complex workflows, and
have the budget and infrastructure to deploy customized and
integrated media asset management (MAM) systems to manage their
workflows end to end. In these larger environments, Quantum has
deep integration and will continue to partner with these MAM
vendors to provide the best solutions to these customers.
However, smaller workgroups such as those in corporate video,
education, and houses of worship have a need for a more simple,
turnkey solution that provides basic functionality to be able to
index, search, and manage their content on a shared storage
platform. Quantum intends to combine the CatDV software with
StorNext to provide an all-in-one workgroup appliance and better
serve the needs of this market with a differentiated
offering.
Transaction Information
Quantum expects the initial
financial impact of the transaction to be accretive to current
business operations and additional guidance will be provided with
Quantum's release of its fiscal Q3 FY2021 financial results.
The Entrepreneurs Hub played a key role in advising Square Box
Systems in this transaction.
"Square Box Systems realized that with a solution applicable
across the globe, they needed to be part of a bigger family and
find an organization with leadership that shared a vision as big as
theirs," says Andrew Shepperd,
Director & Co Founder of the Entrepreneurs Hub. "We felt
Quantum with its pedigree for innovation and new vision would be an
excellent home for Square Box Systems. Entrepreneurs Hub has
worked with both leadership teams to secure the completion of this
exciting deal that will see a paradigm shift in the commercial
impact that CatDV brings and the wider audience it will now be able
to serve as part of Quantum's solution stack and technology
leadership."
Additional Resources
- For more about the CatDV asset management platform:
https://www.quantum.com/catdv
About Quantum
Quantum technology and services help
customers capture, create, and share digital content—and preserve
and protect it for decades. With solutions built for every stage of
the data lifecycle, Quantum's platforms provide the fastest
performance for high-resolution video, images, and industrial IoT.
That's why the world's leading entertainment companies, sports
franchises, researchers, government agencies, enterprises, and
cloud providers are making the world happier, safer, and smarter on
Quantum. Quantum is listed on Nasdaq (QMCO) and was added to the
Russell 2000® Index in 2020. For more information visit
www.quantum.com.
Quantum and the Quantum logo are registered trademarks of
Quantum Corporation and its affiliates in the United States and/or other countries. All
other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Forward-Looking Statements
The information provided
herein may include forward-looking statements within the meaning of
Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the
Securities Exchange Act of 1934 ("Exchange Act"). These
forward-looking statements are largely based on our current
expectations and projections about future events and financial
trends affecting our business. Such forward-looking statements
include, in particular, statements about the anticipated benefits
of our acquisition of Square Box Systems, the future prospects of
Square Box Systems' products and technology, market trends related
to Square Box Systems products and technology, our business
prospects, changes and trends in our business and the markets in
which we operate.
These forward-looking statements may be identified by the use of
terms and phrases such as "anticipates", "believes", "can",
"could", "estimates", "expects", "forecasts", "intends", "may",
"plans", "projects", "targets", "will", and similar expressions or
variations of these terms and similar phrases. Additionally,
statements concerning future matters such as projected benefits of
the acquisition, the development of new products, enhancements or
technologies, sales levels, expense levels and other statements
regarding matters that are not historical are forward-looking
statements. We caution that these forward-looking statements relate
to future events or our future performance and are subject to
business, economic, and other risks and uncertainties, both known
and unknown, that may cause actual results, levels of activity,
performance or achievements of our business or our industry to be
materially different from those expressed or implied by any
forward-looking statements.
These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties
that could cause actual results to differ materially from those
projected, including without limitation, the following: risks
related to the integration of the business, products, employees and
other aspects of Square Box Systems into Quantum, the competitive
pressures faced by our businesses; risks associated with executing
Quantum's strategy and the strategy related to this acquisition;
the distribution of Quantum's and Square Box Systems' products and
the delivery of Quantum's services effectively; the development and
transition of new products and services and the enhancement of
existing products and services to meet customer needs and respond
to emerging technological trends; the impact of Covid-19 on our
business and our ability to integrate the business of Square Box
Systems; and other risks that are described in the section entitled
"Risk Factors" in Quantum's filings with the Securities and
Exchange Commission, including its Form 10-K filed with the
Securities and Exchange Committee on June
24, 2020, a copy of which can be found at www.sec.gov. All
forward-looking statements in this press release are made as of the
date hereof, based on information available to us as of the date
hereof, and subsequent facts or circumstances may contradict,
obviate, undermine, or otherwise fail to support or substantiate
such statements. Quantum does not intend to update or alter its
forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information,
future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable law or
regulation.
Contacts:
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Media
Contact:
Kim
Willsher
Red Lorry Yellow
Lorry
310 773
3760
Quantum@rlyl.com
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Investor
Contact:
Rob Fink
FNK IR
646-809-4048
rob@fnkir.com
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