CYAT Acquires Rovia
by Calvin Reid -- Publishers Weekly, 1/6/2003
Rovia Inc., originally launched as a digital vendor specializing in online access to DRM-protected digital textbooks, has been acquired by CYA Technologies, a firm specializing in business continuity and content-management applications. The amount of the all-stock purchase was not disclosed.
Elaine Price, founder and CEO of CYAT, said the deal will allow CYAT to broaden "its reach and offer clients a more complete set of products." Rovia has a number of deals with publishers, such as Houghton Mifflin and Pearson, to offer digital textbooks. The deal will allow CYAT to incorporate Rovia's DRM technology into its suite of business continuity software applications.
Price said that CYAT will maintain Rovia's Cambridge, Mass., office and its technical staff of six. She also said that while Rovia's DRM technology will be offered as part of CYAT's business continuity suite, the company would continue to pursue customers in the publishing sector. Rovia's former principals, CEO Andres Nannetti and CTO Pedro Zayas, will leave the company. Price acknowledged that about half of Rovia's 12 employees were laid off before the acquisition. CYAT has 70 employees and is based in Trumbull, Conn.
CYAT was founded in 1998 and offers a suite of proprietary software applications (among them HotBackup, Virtual Standby and iArchive) that provide a tiered system to back up and archive a company's information in the event of system failure, disaster or routine maintenance or company relocation. However, Price explained, CYAT offers "application-aware" back-up technology. "It's not just making copies of everything," said Price. CYAT's technology, she explained, can find and identify specific pieces of information, detect file corruption and fully restore a failed system. And CYAT software allows a company to "share information without sharing files," eliminating the fear that information could be copied and redistributed without permission.
"We provide chunks of applications that can be used as needed by a company as it grows," said Price.
