EMC sells Retrospect to Sonic

EMC has sold its Retrospect backup software business to Sonic Solutions, owner of the Roxio product set.

EMC, according to a person close to events, has decided that Retrospect was no longer a strategic product. EMC bought Dantz Corporation in 2004 to acquire Retrospect and add it to the Insignia small business product line. The product provides backup to disk for home and small business users' desktops and servers. It can also backup to tape and, via Mozy, to the cloud.

Retrospect is now Roxio Retrospect and still available from Iomega, which is licensing it from Sonic Solutions. There is v8.0 for the Mac, v7.7 for Windows, a beta of v8.2 and an iPhone/iPod app.

Times change; millions of customers access  Mozy directly, according to EMC. Remote and branch offices use Avamar source deduplication for backup in EMC's world. There is vClone for backup to Iomega removable drives. Iomega is also going to use Avamar for its small filers. Networker is the main backup software product for business, and that leaves Retrospect out in the cold, with no reason why EMC should spend development dollars on it when spending them on Mozy or Avamar would bring in a better return.

So Retrospect went to Sonic Solutions. We don't know how much Sonic paid for Retrospect, if indeed it paid anything. It was probably a deal in the low millions.

Not every home or small biz user is going to use Avamar dedupe or trust their data to the cloud - they will buy software to backup to disks they own. Sonic Roxio will now support existing customers and, hopefully, continue to develop the product. ®