Autonomy to buy Zantaz

UK enterprise search pioneer Autonomy has agreed to buy Zantaz, a specialist in archiving and discovering data for use in legal and regulatory processes.

The $375m deal will give Cambridge-based Autonomy the opportunity to deliver a strong portfolio combining archiving, discovery, analytics and policy management.

The result is likely to be a leader in information risk management, one of the hottest topics of recent years after the introduction of various corporate governance rules and high-profile legal cases.

Zantaz will also give Autonomy more strength locally as customers include many leading UK-based law and financial services firms. The deal will also provide Autonomy with more experience of the on-demand model as about 70 percent of Zantaz business is service-based.

The deal “lets companies engage with one firm” and provides access to a consolidated archive that supports voice and video discovery, said Ian Black, managing director of Autonomy’s Aungate enterprise governance unit.

Zantaz CEO Steve King said that the ability to buy a broad set of search, discovery and archive services from one source would be highly attractive compared to consulting engagements based on many vendors’ products.

“Once you start to stitch technologies together that can raise some difficult issues when you can’t afford to miss even one record,” he said.

Autonomy said all Zantaz products will continue to be developed and supported and pointed to its “strong track record in integrating business”, notably the purchase of Verity, agreed in November 2005.

The Zantaz deal comes as Autonomy is impressing analysts with its latest financial announcements, sending stock to its highest point for a year and a half.