25th April 2006
Leading ZANTAZ reseller and Apex Align to Offer Joint Data Retention and Email Archiving Solution Essential and Apex First to Offer ZANTAZ EAS Integrated in IBM System Storage DR550.

Essential & Apex 1st to offer
IBM DR550 Compliance Solution for Email

Leading ZANTAZ reseller, Essential Computing Ltd, and Apex Computers International, a premier IBM Business Partner, have today announced their partnership agreement to deliver the joint ZANTAZ Enterprise Archive Solution (EAS) and IBM System Storage DR550 solution.

ZANTAZ support for the industry-leading IBM System Storage DR550 solution, announced at LotusSphere in January 2006, allows the companies and their partners to work together to help meet increasing customer demand for storage solutions that address long term data retention and regulatory compliance requirements.

The ZANTAZ software suite offers a fully integrated family of email and file retention management and discovery products that work with IBM's next-generation data retention solution. Through this product integration, companies can better address the new and changing regulations surrounding data capture, retention and disclosure management.

According to Essential's sales director, Paul Murray, "This collaboration enables customers to work with an experienced team skilled in the integration of software applications and focussed storage and infrastructure solutions. Essential has been involved with over 200 ZANTAZ EAS projects over the last five years and in that time the majority of customers had no viable options for storing their archives beyond their standard corporate disk systems. Increasingly though, customers are seeking the improved ROI and security of self-managed archive storage systems like the IBM System Storage DR550 where they can get greater assurance of retained data integrity as well as lower operating costs."

The IBM System Storage DR550 is IBM's next generation data retention solution, which can deliver a central point of control for both regulated data and non-regulated data. The solution incorporates IBM POWER5T servers which are designed for increased performance and speed of data storage. Using policy-based non-erasable, non-rewritable data protection and disk technology, it offers increased performance, ease-of-use and new security options.

"The regulatory, legal and economic climate is driving the rapid growth of retention managed data and specifically e-mail. New regulatory mandates continue to emerge even as companies work to comply with existing regulations, and as a result, they face the growing challenge of efficiently managing data over long periods of time," said Alan Stuart, Chief Strategist and Business Line Executive, IBM Data Retention Solutions. "The DR550 is designed to help businesses address this challenge while leveraging their existing software. ZANTAZ EAS integration with the DR550 can help customers more cost-effectively address the myriad and complex issues relating to managing data in accordance with corporate business control, government and industry regulations."

"By implementing ZANTAZ EAS, organisations benefit from a cost-effective, low maintenance solution, gaining control over their corporate assets and protecting themselves from litigation or possible regulatory fines," said Glenn Perachio, Director of ZANTAZ in Europe. "When customers select IBM System Storage DR550, they get all of the benefits of EAS, giving them a broader set of choices and management over the flow of information within their company.

" Simon Buist, Apex' Business Development Director comments, "The Apex and Essential partnership, by combining the technical excellence of IBM and ZANTAZ respectively, is providing an unbeatable solution to what is fast becoming a serious business problem for many organisations. ZANTAZ EAS with the IBM DR550 is a key-stone of the ApexStoreT approach to business data storage issues, enabling our clients to manage both the costs and the risk associated with their rapidly growing data volumes."

About ZANTAZ
ZANTAZ is the global leader in Information Retention and Disclosure Management solutions. ZANTAZ' solutions enable organisations to capture, preserve and access unstructured digital information-including email, IM, files, scanned documents, and other electronic records-and review and produce relevant documents in a manner that reduces operational risks and costs while complying with legal, regulatory and corporate policy requirements. ZANTAZ solutions are available as onsite software applications or on-demand hosted services, and include a broad set of professional services and integration support. ZANTAZ has over 600 customers, including many of the largest corporations, law firms and government agencies in the world. For more information, visit www.ZANTAZ.com or ring on +44 (0)207 3978 760.

About Essential
Established over 15 years, Essential enables organisations to optimise and protect their messaging and collaboration technologies. Essential's independent status means it is free to deliver 'best of breed' solutions, with the emphasis on robustness and flexibility. This powerful combination of quality software, services and expertise helps its customers use scarce resources effectively and avoid costly mistakes.

About Apex
Apex is a provider of IT systems and services to business. An IBM and Cisco Premier Partner and Microsoft Gold Partner, Apex has the vision and knowledge to optimise IT infrastructure. With strategic application partners we provide a comprehensive range of IT solutions to business problems that give clients a real competitive edge. The 5 core brands, ApexOptimiseT, ApexAccessT, ApexSecureT, ApexStoreT and ApexManageT together provide a holistic approach to the consultancy, design, implementation and support of IT infrastructure for any business.

Contact:
Gillie Tennant
01252 375665
gillie@thunderfactory.com

Mary Kingman
0207 3978760
mkingman@zantaz.com

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