IBM’s acquisition of Arsenal Digital Solutions is the latest transaction driven by the growing concern among businesses of all sizes that they have to do more to protect their electronic files in order to safeguard against natural disasters and satisfy escalating regulations.

What makes this trend even more interesting is that it has brought greater attention to the fundamental advantages of using a “hosted”, managed service to respond to these business concerns. This has made a widening array of storage, e-discovery and other managed service providers (MSPs) very attractive acquisition targets for an expanding assortment of potential buyers.

Here are a few of the acquisitions which preceeded IBM’s announcement,

Seagate $185 million purchase of EVault
EMC’s $76 million acquisition of Berkeley Data Systems Inc.’s Mozy storage service
Autonomy’s $375 million acquisition of email archiving service provider Zantaz Inc.
A series of acquisitions by Iron Mountain, including … Read More »