Features - Storage Innovations:

FUJITSU SOFTEK OFFERS AID TO BMC'S ABANDONED CUSTOMERS

To relieve fear, uncertainty and doubt among enterprise customers who were recently abandoned by BMC Software's recent decision to exit the storage resource management (SRM) software business, Softek has announced a competitive upgrade program to immediately offer free user licenses and installation of its award-winning SRM solution -- Softek Storage Manager.

"Softek is throwing an application availability life preserver to businesses that were 'voted off' the BMC Software storage management island," said Steven Murphy, president and CEO at Softek, in reference to BMC's much-ballyhooed advertising campaign, based on the Survivor television show, which accompanied the launch of BMC Patrol Storage Manager. "BMC's sudden and unexplainable withdrawal from the SRM market casts a pall on the entire community of SRM product vendors as a whole. In part, our program is intended as a demonstration of solidarity with former BMC customers who were looking for a way to simplify and optimize their multi-vendor storage infrastructure and have experienced an unnecessary expense and delay in the support of their efforts. Unlike large, established vendors, for whom SRM is a sideline, it is our primary focus at Softek. Given BMC's actions, perhaps medium-size niche vendors now have an the advantage over the monolithic system software companies, not only in terms of innovative product breakthroughs, but also in terms of truly delivering easy-to-use and scalable storage management solutions."

The Softek Rescue program is simple, affordable and effective in delivering immediate and measurable value. At no cost, a Softek-trained, SNIA-certified technician will install Softek Storage Manager, which is typically a 2 to 3 hour process. Normal maintenance fees are charged. There are no other hidden charges and no capacity-based pricing schemes. This offer expires September 30, 2003.

"We feel the customer pain and confusion generated by BMC's action," said Murphy. "The Softek Rescue program underscores our long-term commitment to the customer and our mission to simplify and optimize the management of storage in multi-vendor infrastructures.

In commenting on BMC's exit from the storage management software industry, noted storage expert and author Jon Toigo recommends IT departments "buy a product that installs quickly, that is cheap to use, and that delivers instantaneous ROI ... " (Storage Strategies, Feb. 20, 2003). Softek Storage Manager delivers on all three of these points. As proof, Softek Storage Manager was named as Storage Management Product of the Year by SearchStorage.com and Storage magazine (January, 2003) and was named as a "Best IT Buy" by eWeek magazine (Feb 10, 2003).

About Softek Storage Manager

Softek Storage Manager software is an award-winning product that enables customers to manage their storage infrastructure via one interface no matter how many systems, platforms or configurations they are supporting, whether they are direct, networked or SAN-attached. Softek Storage Manager also delivers visualization of storage resources along with policy-based automation of storage management, enabling companies to realize best-in-class ROI from storage assets by improving utilization of their storage resources and reducing the time and money needed to manage them.

About Softek

Softek delivers award-winning automated storage area management (SAM) solutions operating across more vendors and platforms than any other SAM software. With Softek, customers are able to both optimize and simplify the management of complex, multi-vendor storage infrastructures via action-based automated resource management including space management, storage provisioning, data replication, data migration, performance monitoring, service level management, data recovery and backup. The result is better-utilized storage, more productive staffs, and greater application availability. Backed by the financial strength of Fujitsu Limited, Softek is distributed globally and offers 24/7 support to more than 700 customers worldwide. www.softek.fujitsu.com/.

Contact: Angie Platt, +1-916-941-1009, or aplatt@strategiccom.biz.