Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Metalogix Updates SharePoint Strategy, UI for Axceler Tools By Anthony Myers

Metalogix Updates SharePoint Strategy, UI for Axceler Tools
By Anthony Myers  |  Nov 5, 2013  

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Metalogix Updates SharePoint Strategy, UI for Axceler ToolsMetalogix, a provider of content infrastructure software, updated the interface for its ControlPoint SharePoint administration tool from its Axcelor acquisition. It's also giving us a clearer view of its overall strategy on the shifting SharePoint landscape.

Murky SharePoint Strategy
Customers use Metalogix products to upgrade, migrate, organize, store, archive and replicate content on Microsoft SharePoint, Exchange and Cloud platforms. And any company operating in the vast ecosystem of SharePoint tools has to contend with one messy reality.
Microsoft simply isn't saying as much as it could about its plans for maintaining what are virtually two different products: SharePoint Server and SharePoint Online.
Microsoft is investing heavily in SharePoint Online. While SharePoint Server will continue to get regular upgrades, it seems likely the focus on the cloud will affect on premises products, said Jeffrey Mann, Gartner's research vice president, said during a recent Gartner Symposium.


"We wish there was more detail with the SharePoint road map," Jignesh Shah, chief strategy and marketing officer at Metalogix, said in an interview. "You could argue SharePoint Online and SharePoint Server are not the same product today. But Microsoft is committed to on premises customers. It's just that some areas of the cloud will be updated faster and will integrate more with other Microsoft products."
The Metalogix team recently met with Microsoft. Shah said his company tries to align with Microsoft's vision. He also clued us into what customers are working on with their SharePoint Online migrations. Moving email to the cloud is one of the most popular. Social sync and share are other popular cloud migrations, he added, and customers are increasingly looking to host their SharePoint deployments on AWS, Azure or Rackspace.
This allows them to do more customization, Jignesh said, noting that Office 365 simply isn't enough for those customers. Hosting and managing SharePoint servers in those environments allows companies to have more control and be more elastic like when they need to scale workloads up or down.
The app model is a move in the right direction as well, Shah added, and Microsoft clearly sees companies want to extend SharePoint.  "The app model also helps with discoverability and it seems Microsoft got it right."

ControlPoint 5.2 Rolls Out
Metalogix has rolled out ControlPoint 5.2. Besides adding its own logo to the product, user controls are meant to be more accessible to business users, Gail Shlansky, an Axceler senior director of product management (now with Metalogix, of course) said in an interview.
"In a SharePoint deployment, IT wants control, but they like to give responsibility to others for day to day managing," she said. "With this update, IT can be comfortable knowing nobody has access to things they aren't allowed to." 
Business users and non technical staff can be inside SharePoint working on their projects, while IT maintains a high level of control over who does what. Shah and Shlansky said Metalogix customers should feel like they have access to the best of breed in SharePoint tools, and future updates like mobile friendly tools that are now in the works.
The mobile update will arrive in 2014, but Shah could not be more specific about a release date than that, he said. Metalogix competes most often with companies like AvePoint. Shah claims his company's focus on a best of breed approach is what differentiates it.

Friday, November 1, 2013

Soarsoft Africa announces Metalogix acquisition of Idera’s SharePoint Business including market-leading SharePoint Backup and Diagnostic Manager

Soarsoft Africa, a specialist of archive, migration, messaging and collaboration solutions and distributor of Metalogix solutions in southern Africa, has announced Metalogix’s acquisition of Idera’s highly successful and profitable SharePoint business, including the market-leading backup and monitoring products, SharePoint Backup and SharePoint Diagnostic Manager. The acquisition of Idera’s SharePoint products, customer base, brands and all related assets expands Metalogix’s suite of best-of-breed content infrastructure management software and strengthens the company’s position as the fastest-growing SharePoint Independent Software Vendor (ISV).
“Metalogix’s expansion and growth as the most complete specialist software vendor for SharePoint solutions has been phenomenal and has allowed us to quickly expand our offerings to new and existing clients. In each case, Metalogix’s acquisitions have been ’best of breed’ with leading solutions that have been quickly integrated into the existing capabilities. As a result, it has been relatively easy for Soarsoft to expand local implementation, training and support facilities to local partners and customers. Soarsoft is excited by the acquisition and looks forward to assisting local organisations with any requirements or queries they may have in understanding all the new features and benefits available,” says Chris Hathaway, Director at Soarsoft Africa.
Metalogix suite of best-in-class SharePoint products now includes Idera’s SharePoint Backup product, the industry’s fastest SharePoint backup technology, which delivers instant deployments and full farm protection of business critical content. Metalogix will integrate SharePoint Backup with Metalogix StoragePoint, the industry-leading storage optimisation technology, to provide lightning-fast speeds for the backup and recovery of Terabytes (TB) of content in just minutes, instead of hours or days. SharePoint Backup also features easy, granular document recovery capabilities and powerful backup file compression that saves storage space, which is essential as organisations work to manage a rapidly expanding volume of SharePoint content for today’s increasingly collaborative, global and mobile workforce. Metalogix will also expand the proactive real-time visibility and control capabilities of its best-in-class software suite with the addition of Idera’s monitoring product, SharePoint Diagnostic Manager. Additionally, SharePoint Enterprise Manager and Audit products will be upgraded and swiftly integrated into the recently-launched Metalogix ControlPoint for SharePoint Governance and Administration technology.
“Today Metalogix is once again improving the use and performance of the Microsoft SharePoint content management platform with the industry’s most innovative and fastest backup and recovery software, which enables enterprise SharePoint administrators, IT executives and now business line professionals to quickly and easily backup and restore TB of content in minutes, with a few clicks, instead of taking hours or days,” says Steven Murphy, CEO of Metalogix. “The powerful combination of Metalogix and Idera’s industry-leading SharePoint products squarely delivers on our mission to provide customers with the industry’s best-in-class portfolio of content infrastructure management software to deploy, operate and protect Microsoft SharePoint platforms on-premises and in the cloud.”
“The integration of Idera’s SharePoint business with Metalogix portfolio of premier products for the management of the entire SharePoint lifecycle will exponentially increase efficiencies and value for our customers managing enterprise SharePoint environments. These customers will also benefit from Metalogix’s larger, global, 24 by 7 customer support. This transaction accelerates our focus on a suite of Application Performance Monitoring (APM) solutions that drive exceptional customer value,” says Randy Jacops, Idera’s CEO.
With over 14,000 customers, in 86 countries on 7 continents, Metalogix is the fastest growing SharePoint-focused Independent Software Vendor (ISV) in the world. Metalogix is committed to integrating and enhancing the combined product portfolios to help customers enhance the use and performance of SharePoint. New and existing customers will benefit from Metalogix expanded reach, scale and resources, including its industry-leading LIVE 24 by 7 telephone and online support program, which helps our customers maintain the highest level of availability to support the demands of always-on content sharing and collaboration.
With over 12,000 customers, Idera will continue operating multiple, profitable product solutions, including Idera’s award-winning SQL database monitoring and server backup products, as well as the recently acquired CopperEgg and Precise Software business units.
To learn more about Metalogix products visit: http://www.metalogix.com/Products.aspx
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About Metalogix
Metalogix provides content infrastructure software to improve the use and performance of enterprise content. For over a decade, Metalogix has transformed the way commercial and government organisations manage TBs of content to improve knowledge sharing and collaboration. Today, more than 14,000 customers rely on the company’s products to upgrade, migrate, organise, store, archive and replicate content on Microsoft SharePoint, Exchange and Cloud platforms. Metalogix has moved more than 50,000 TBs of content.
Metalogix was named to Inc.’s 500 List of Fastest Growing Private Companies in 2012 and was recognised as the fastest growing software company in the Washington, D.C. area by the Washington Business Journal. Metalogix is a Microsoft Gold Partner, a managed partner in Microsoft’s Public Sector, a member of the Microsoft Partner Advisory Board and a certified GSA provider. Metalogix is a privately held company backed by Insight Venture Partners and Bessemer Venture Partners. Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook and contact us at +1 202-690-9100 or www.Metalogix.com for free downloads and success stories.

About Idera
Idera is a leading provider of application and server management solutions. Idera provides a wide variety of application performance management products including solutions for Microsoft SQL Server. Idera also provides award-winning server backup solutions for both managed service providers and enterprise customers. Headquartered in Houston, Texas, Idera is a Microsoft Managed Partner and has over 12,000 customers worldwide. Contact Idera at +1-713-523-4433 or visit www.idera.com for free trials, free tools and more information.
About Soarsoft Africa 
Soarsoft Africa focuses on Archive, Migration, Messaging and Collaboration solutions, with a successful track record that spans over a decade. Leveraging the experience gained from some of the largest and most complex information management implementations around the world, we are able to deliver cost effective and successful projects and solutions. Soarsoft only supports and implements what it considers to be trusted and proven solutions to meet our customers’ specific information management requirements. Soarsoft continues to evaluate its offerings to ensure they maintain market and technological leadership positions, so that clients are offered the very best and up-to-date advice when assessing their requirements. Soarsoft Africa operates throughout Africa and parts of the Middle East and has offices in both Johannesburg and Cape Town South Africa.
Editorial Contacts:
Soarsoft Africa: 
Chris Hathaway
Tel: 021 200 2393
Email: chrish@soarsoft.co.za
Evolution PR
Lesley Rencontre 
Tel: 011 462 0679
Email: Lesley@evolutionpr.co.za