Network Computing is part of the Informa Tech Division of Informa PLC

This site is operated by a business or businesses owned by Informa PLC and all copyright resides with them. Informa PLC's registered office is 5 Howick Place, London SW1P 1WG. Registered in England and Wales. Number 8860726.

Where Are They Now? A Look at Past Top 10 Startups: Page 3 of 26

When he was contacted by Byte and Switch earlier today, Agite Software AG's CTO Ueli Schweizer refused to say what led to the termination, other than confirming that the companies had "some contractual disputes."

In addition to the U.S., Agite Software LLC also distributed the Swiss vendor's wares in the U.K., Ireland, and South Africa, although Schweizer is putting a brave face on things. "We will sell direct from our Swiss office until we find out how we can go on," he says, but he admits that this is not a perfect scenario, particularly for the U.S. market, which is at least six hours behind central European time.

"I know that it's very difficult to serve U.S. customers from Switzerland, but we're in a position to find a solution," adds the exec, explaining that the vendor is already on the lookout for other American distributors and resellers. "We're definitely trying to set up a distribution channel in the U.S."

At the heart of this effort is Agite Software AG's flagship Backup Visual product, which competes with offerings from Aptare, Bocada, and WysDM. "I dont think that this is the end for Backup Visual in the U.S.," says Schweizer.

Backup Visual, which is also resold by Sepaton to some VTL customers, works with EMC NetWorker, Symantec Backup Exec, Symantec NetBackup, and Tivoli Storage Manager, delivering information on the utilization and performance of disk, VTL, and tape libraries. Data gathered from the backup utilities is stored in an underlying SQL or Oracle database, which, in turn, generates reports.