Symantec Acquires LiveOffice for Cloud Archiving Expertise

Symantec, the security company that probably brooks no further introduction, has announced the acquisition of cloud-based archiving solution provider LiveOffice for $115 million as it looks to boost its information governance play.

Now, Symantec already has plenty of play in the  information governance and archiving markets thanks to its Enterprise Vault solution and integration with the recently acquired Clearwell eDiscovery Platform. But before this LiveOffice acquisition, it was limited to on-premises deployments.

According to the press release, that previously mentioned integration between Enterprise Vault and Clearwell is what makes this entry into the cloud archiving market work. Clearwell is the only eDiscovery product that’s certified to scrape Enterprise Vault, and LiveOffice already offers integration with Clearwell, so this acquisition makes it easy for users to combine all of their data into one place for “for processing, analysis, early case assessment and review,” according to Symantec.

In that same release, Symantec refers to LiveOffice as its “hosted archiving OEM partner for Enterprise Vault.cloud,” and it plans on bringing the two companies closer together. With LiveOffice, according to Symantec, customers can get everything they need for messaging protection, from spam blocking to continuity to, yes, archiving — all from its cloud.

For its part, LiveOffice made a lot of noise around offering compliance solutions for cloud products including Microsoft Office 365 and Salesforce.com, which can only make Symantec happier with its purchase.

We’ll be watching for more updates as LiveOffice makes its way deeper into Symantec’s cloud strategy, so stay tuned for updates.