The battle for the System i high availability market took a new turn today with an announcement from Vision Solutions that it has bought long-time arch-rival Lakeview Technology

Both companies were members of the original ‘big three’ high availability (HA) vendors that emerged when the technology for the platform first emerged, along with DataMirror. Between them, Vision and Lakeview have around 6,000 customers worldwide, compared to DataMirror’s 2,200. Vision itself was bought by American private equity firm Thoma Cressey Bravo from South Africa’s Idion Technology Holdings in September, 2006. The following month, Thoma Cressey acquired iTera, one of the second-tier System i HA vendors that had appeared on the scene, and merged the two companies under the Vision brand.

At the time, it was hinted that Thoma Cressey Bravo had yet another HA player in its sights and it looks like that target was always Lakeview. The thinking behind its three System i acquisitions is presumably simple. If one adds the other second-tier HA vendors like New Zealand’s Maximum Availability, which will probably hit the 1,000 customer mark in the not-too-distant future, and France’s Traders into the mix, then only 4.5% of the System i worldwide customer base (at, say, 200,000) has installed HA software. And this is at a time when in terms of both hardware and software costs, HA has never been cheaper.

“We are excited to partner with Vision Solutions and Lakeview Technology to create the clear industry leader in the System i high availability market,” said Scott Crabill, a partner with Thoma Cressey Bravo. “Adding the [Lakeview] MIMIX range of solutions to Vision’s product family creates the broadest and most innovative portfolio of high availability technology globally.”

Giving his blessing to the union, Mark Shearer, IBM’s worldwide System i general manager, said: “Vision Solutions has leadership technology assets, services competencies, global reach and the financial strength necessary to take business resiliency to an entirely new level for our clients and partners.”

When Vision and iTera merged, the new entity continued to market and develop both their respective flagship lines, ORION HA and iTera HA. Vision intends to do the same with Lakeview's MIMIX product line.

"Each of the iTera, MIMIX and ORION high availability offerings bring important availability and recovery capabilities to their respective customers,” said Alan Arnold, chief technology officer at Vision Solutions. “We will continue to develop and support these solutions, while working to cross-pollinate the best features of each offering as we roll out new releases.”

The financial terms of the takeover were not disclosed and, at the time of going to press, it was not clear how the company would be restructured.

Seamus Quinn