Ottawa-based personal computer maker Northern Micro Inc. announced Wednesday it is acquiring the server and storage division of Montreal-based network storage developer Maximum Throughput Inc.
The acquisition of Maximum Throughput’s assets and installed base provides Northern Micro with marketable technology, existing revenue and growth prospects, said Herman Yeh, president of Northern Micro, in a prepared statement.
Maximum Throughput servers feature Intel processor technology, while its storage solutions come in a variety of hardware configurations designed to store and protect data, Northern Micro said.
At press time, Maximum Throughput could not be reached for comment.
Northern Micro’s primary customers include the federal government, small corporations and school boards, said Northern Micro spokesperson Raymond Belisle. The company’s core desktop computer and server business is slowly establishing its retail division.
“What we’re doing is complementing the Northern Micro PC with the server and the storage so that we can expand that core product line. This positions Northern Micro as a complete solution provider for our client base,” Belisle said.
It will also help Northern Micro better compete on a national and international level, Belisle said.
The acquisition should leverage Northern Micro within an emerging server/storage market, said Michelle Warren, market analyst at Evans Research Corp. (ERC) in Toronto.
“It doesn’t appear to me that they are going to move away from their core business, being the desktops and the PCs- this just looks like an addition and looks very strategic,” Warren said.
Another ERC analyst, Jennifer Ewen, said because the server market has cooled, vendors are turning their sights towards the storage market.
The storage market, particularly the network attached storage (NAS) and storage area network (SAN) segments, appears to be more resilient compared to other aspects of the IT market – data growth is not optional and neither is storage growth, Ewen said.
“Data growth is mandatory. If you’re a company you can’t refuse to accept new orders because you’ve run out of space on your database servers, you have to have new storage.”
Northern Micro Inc. in Ottawa can be reached at http://www.northernmicro.com
Maximum Throughput Inc. in Montreal is at http://www.max-t.com
