Asigra Sues Robobak update from August 2008

Backup specialist Asigra has filed a lawsuit against rival vendor Robobak for alleged libel and misleading advertising.

Asigra confirmed the legal proceedings yesterday afternoon. The lawsuit, filed in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in Toronto, alleges that RoboDRS, which distributes Robobak software, its CEO Ron Roberts, another RoboDRS officer, and the firms PR agency MMI Communications, defamed the Televaulting product in two recent press releases.

”It is regrettable that some companies and individuals resort to such tactics,” said David Farajun, the Asigra CEO, in a statement. “We have worked for 22 years to develop Aisgra software with innovation, quality, service and honesty – we are committed to aggressively defending Asigra’s brand and reputation.”

Asigra alleges that in one of the releases, Robobak made “false and misleading statements” about the vendor’s relations with its customers, in addition to “disparaging Asigra’s products and services.”

The vendor also challenges the assertions made in another Robobak release.”Robobak and its public relations agency allegedly aggravated the defamation of Asigra by falsely announcing that ‘a top executive’ at Asigra had recommended Robobak software,” it said, in its statement. “Asigra Inc. does not recommend the competitors’ software.”

The contentious press releases were still up on Robobak’s Website today, although the Atlanta-based vendor was playing its cards to close to its chest. “At this time, Robobak has no comment,” said a company spokesman.

Both Robobak and Asigra are playing in the booming data de-duplication space, and analysts have already identified similarities in their technologies. Both vendors’ software, for example, runs on a Windows server in the data center and does not require an agent to be installed on remote office devices.

The two vendors also have their sights set firmly on SMB de-dupe, chasing the lucrative small business dollar, although Asigra recently ramped up its enterprise efforts.

Given the nature of recent storage legal battles, the Asigra lawsuit is fairly unusual in that it centers on Robobak’s marketing claims. Most of the recent disputes in the storage sector, for example, have focused on patents, as opposed to marketing spiel.Crossroads Systems, for example, recently accused 10 firms of infringing its storage patents. Other firms that have been involved in recent patent disputes include STEC and Seagate, NetApp and Sun, and Quantum and Riverbed .Have a comment on this story? Please click "Discuss" below. If you'd like to contact Byte and Switch's editors directly, send us a message.