Thursday, February 21, 2008

EMC swallows up Seattle's Pi

EMC Corp. reports it has inked a deal to acquire Pi Corp., a Seattle-based privately-held maker of personal information management software.

The cash transaction is expected to be completed later this quarter, according to EMC officials. The Hopkinton storage technology vendor offered no financial details of the transaction.

Pi, which makes software and online services to help individuals control, find, access, share and protect their personal digital information, boasts 100 engineers in the U.S., Canada and India. The company is in the process of beta testing its first products, according to a company statement.

Upon completion of the acquisition, Pi founder and CEO Paul Maritz, will join the executive management team of EMC (NYSE:EMC) as president and general manager of the newly formed Cloud Infrastructure and Services Division. Reporting to EMC CEO Joe Tucci, Maritz will continue to directly oversee development and operations for Pi, along with other key elements of EMC's cloud computing strategy, which include the EMC Fortress SaaS infrastructure, the Mozy online backup service and future offerings under development, according to officials.

Prior to founding Pi, Maritz spent 14 years at Microsoft Corp., where he was a member of the Redmond, Wash.-based software giant's executive committee.

Pi will operate as an independent subsidiary of EMC and will continue expanding operations in its Seattle headquarters and other offices in Montreal, Canada, and Bangalore, India, according to EMC officials.