EMC Buying Dantz

Bug-Y2K writes "Looks like storage giant EMC, is buying longtime Mac software company Dantz Develpment. Dantz, makers of Retrospect have been the leader in backup technology for the Mac OS since dinosaurs roamed the earth. Mindshare has been slipping of late but the product is known for being better at restores than anything out there. I wonder what lies in store for Retrospect now?"

Comments

Headline slightly misleading

[Gogo Dodo]

EMC is in talks to buy Dantz, but nothing has been finalized yet.

However, usually somebody reporting that these types of discussions are going on means that it will happen, but as the article says "it's never done until it's done"

I find this funny.

[Ayanami Rei]

While Dantz is _the_ Mac backup software company, the reason why EMC is interested is because Retrospect for Windows is the only software with the exception of Veritas that can back up live NTFS filesystems, with or without Volume Shadow Copy support.

Re:I find this funny.

[MarcQuadra]

There's more to it than that.

Apple's xSan (real soon now) and the xServe RAID are actually generating interest in the enterprise market. Lots of net admins KNOW that they need something more 'beefy' than Windows to run their SANs, and Apple is making what looks like drop-dead easy and super-cheap SANs a reality.

Trust me, the admin at my work came to my desk yesterday and asked if I could prepare a report for consolidating storage on Apple metal instead of Dell. Dell wants to sell us more SCSI equipment, which is total overkill for our needs. We don't need the throughput of 36 SCSI drives in a RAID5, it's not worth the cost compared to something like the xServe RAID.

Also, our CIO has been pushing for OpenDirectory instead of AD, to make it easier for our databases, vendors, and appliances to tie-in. And I can make OD and SAMBA work together and perform better than AD. All this is probably gonna happen on Apple metal, at least until the admins are comfy enough with *NIX to move to straight-BSD.

EMC's purchase of Dantz is part of EMC's long-term plan to become a software vendor. I bet they license retrospect to Apple in the xSan, and other vendors in their NAS and SAN projects.

Dantz -- getting arrogant in its old age?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've used Retrospect since the mid-nineties, and it's an OK but slightly limited product (also a bit slow), but the company has slowly started to piss me off. Dantz is starting to seem a bit arrogant, although aside from a couple unfortunate run-ins with "support," I can't quite put my finger on it.

Version 5 was advertised as supporting Windows and Macintosh servers and workstations, which was great because I still had an old AppleShare IP file server to backup, plus a couple windows and OS X boxes. Unfortunately version 5, despite being advertised as compatible with AppleShare IP, was not. Period. There was a known bug that Dantz said was Apple's fault (maybe it was, but version 4 didn't have the same problem...) that crashed the server every half hour or so. The workaround: use version 4. Dantz didn't give a flying &*#% that it didn't work once they had my money, and I was stuck with a few hundred dollars of unusable software. Plus they were jerks in the smuggly arrogant way they told me I was SOL.

Well, finally the Appleshare IP server was gone so I optimistically thought I might be able to finally use version 5. No dice. It's basically not compatible with OS X, and definitely not compatible with OS X 10.3, and really definitely not at all compatible with 10.3 Server.

Unfortunately at this point due to circumstances beyond my control I had to get X 10.3 Server integrated with the rest of the backups in a hurry, so I grudingly purchase version 6. But when I go to install it I'm told I don't have a valid software key. The key included with the product doesn't work, neither does the key from the old version, nor anything else remotely key-like that I can find. A gruff dude at Dantz tells me definitively and mockingly that I don't need a key to install the upgrade. Except the upgrade won't launch without a key. Ok. Call back Dantz. They make an enormous fuss about it being an upgrade and how I didn't register the previous version, and how could I possibly have an upgrade if I hadn't registered by previous copy? I told them that the previous copy didn't work, I never used it, and that there was no clearly apparent reason to fill out the registration card anyway (do people actually register retail software?). Then I was told to use my old registration key (the one that didn't work). "Are you sure it doesn't work?" Yes. I was told I'd be sent a new registration key by email in a couple minutes. Carefully verified email address. Waited...next day no key. Call back Dantz. Explain the situation again. The customer service rep is shocked and amazed that it's possible to buy an upgrade to their product from a retailer. I eventually convince her I did not download the upgrade and that I did not receive a key in an email with the software that I did not download. I explain that I was told I'd receive a key in an email that should have been sent the day before. Then I'm told, there's no record of a key being sent. (Eureka! I think we were starting to communicate.) She promises to send a key...and against all odds it finally arrived.

Now I'm successfully using the product, but the company exudes a smelly fog of bumbling arrogance. So far it doesn't seem to have hit their programming team, but I'm not impressed. Especially with so many other backup solutions out there, of varying price & capability, I hesitate to recommend the product to others.

Dantz Patents

[wchin]

Dantz owns a patent, 5,150,473 Data storage format for addressable or sequential memory media which essentially covers the use of a on-disk catalog to record what is written to tape for faster retrieval and creating incrementals. This patent can be very cumbersome for companies trying to enter the Mac OS X backup market. With that said, there are quite a few backup solutions available or coming to Mac OS X - BakBone, Avail, SGL, Tolis Group, and more. I know that the Tolis Group doesn't use a catalog the same way and doesn't do point-in-time incremental snapshots like Retrospect does. I don't know if anyone else coming to Mac OS X does. It is rumored that OmniGroup's OmniBackup was killed over this patent issue. Too bad, since that was the only tape backup application for Mac OS X Server at the time.

Re:Dantz Patents

[Anonymous Coward]

It is rumored that OmniGroup's OmniBackup was killed over this patent issue.

That's no rumor: Dantz came right out and said it at the time.

Put this in your file of "patents that should be invalidated, because what they cover is obvious to one skilled in the art." Keeping a catalog of what you backed up? Give me a break.

Re:Retrospect for Windows

[Gogo Dodo]

Unfortunately, for a long time, the Mac Server was de-prioritized. The Windows Server got a lot of development for a long time and after a lot of complaints on the Retro-Talk list, development of the Mac Server finally started up again. The Retro-Talk list was plain nasty for awhile.