Rocket Software announces agreement to acquire Mainstar

Issued by Global Research Partners for SecureData
Johannesburg, 28 Jul 2006

SecureData, a member of the JSE-listed ERP.com Group and the southern African distributor for Rocket Software, today announced that the latter has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Mainstar Software Corporation (http://www.mainstar.com/), a z/OS mainframe systems software company based in Bellevue, Washington.

In addition to bolstering Rocket's already significant offerings in the storage management market, this acquisition complements the open systems storage software acquisition of Austin-based Servergraph in 2005, the purchase of the technology software assets of Storage Networks in 2003, and the software acquisition in 2005 of UK-based ASTRAC.

Mainstar, founded in 1978, provides mainframe storage products and services throughout the world. The company's areas of expertise include catalogue management, data cloning, disaster and local recovery, HSM tools and professional services. For over 25 years Mainstar has focused on mainframe systems management and disaster recovery. Mainstar has been an IBM business partner since 1996, and is a SHARE Alliance Vendor.

"Mainstar has an excellent suite of storage products that we see as complementary to Rocket's offerings in the storage and systems-management markets," commented Andy Youniss, CEO of Rocket Software. "Our intention is not only to support existing Mainstar products, but to aggressively add features and capabilities and to speed up the development of additional products that have been on the drawing board at the company. Of particular interest to Rocket are Mainstar's OEM and remarketing agreements with IBM. The acquisition will further strengthen Rocket's commitment to IBM and its global customer base."

"At Mainstar, our goal has always been to bring very high quality software products to the z/OS marketplace, provide outstanding customer service and technical support to our worldwide customer base, and develop a tremendous environment for our employees," added Ron Ferguson, Founder, President, and CEO of Mainstar.

"There's a terrific fit with the technology of both companies, product lines, and corporate values, ensuring that Mainstar will become a strategic part of Rocket's future success. Mainstar's pipeline of exciting new products should add substantially to Rocket's revenues."

For further information, please contact Andrew Ochse at telephone +27 11 257 8600; fax +27 11 257 8699; e-mail andrewo@securedata.co.za.

Rocket Software

Founded in 1990, Rocket Software is a global development firm that builds enterprise infrastructure products for the world's leading OEMs, networks and software companies. The company's current lines of business complement and extend strategic OEM offerings in the areas of enterprise and mobile security, relational databases, mobile and wireless computing, and operational support systems. Rocket's current OEM relationships and technology partners include IBM, RSA Security, Microsoft, NEC, and Toshiba. Rocket Software is based in Newton, Massachusetts, and employs more than 200 people worldwide.

SecureData

SecureData, an ERP.com company, is Africa's premier IT security solution provider. SecureData's solutions incorporate anti-virus and content security, endpoint security, network security, intrusion prevention and authentication and identity management. SecureData's comprehensive "Managed Security Services" include design, audit, implementation, vulnerability assessment, out sourcing and hosting. SecureData distributes, sells and supports category leading IT security products to the public, corporate and SME sectors throughout Africa as well as products and services to the SOHO and consumer markets through partnerships with ISPs. As well as being the sole distributor in Sub-Saharan Africa for Trend Micro, SecureData is the Sub-Saharan African distributor for US-based TippingPoint Technologies as well as for AirDefense, Application Security, eEye, Network Engines, Precise Biometrics, Rocket Software, RSA Security, St Bernard and Websense. For more information, visit SecureData at www.securedata.co.za.

ERP.com

ERP.com is a JSE-listed company focused on the implementation, integration and management of enterprise applications in an e-business environment. For more information, visit ERP.com at www.erpcom.co.za.

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