Data Management Company Based in Carmel Says Deal May Bring Staff Expansion

By Erika D. Smith, The Indianapolis Star

Feb. 13–Carmel-based nFrame has been acquired by Continental Broadband, a subsidiary of media giant Landmark Communications.

The acquisition, Continental Broadband’s eighth in recent months, is part of its larger strategy to build a national federation of industry-leading tech firms.

The deal is expected to bring more clients, more employees and more investment to nFrame, a company with 35 workers that helps other businesses back up their computer data.

Financial terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. Both companies are private.

Landmark Communications is a 100-year-old media company with interests in newspapers, Web sites and television stations, including The Weather Channel, in addition to data network services. Its businesses employ approximately 10,000 people.

nFrame, Indiana’s top provider of business continuity and data management services, will continue to operate much as it does now, under the same name and with the same employees.

However, the company’s chief operating officer, Bob Alcorn, expects to expand the staff. Also, nFrame will get access to a new crop of corporate clients across Indiana.

“We’re going to be chasing after bigger companies,” he said.

But perhaps the biggest benefit will be the additional assets for nFrame’s disaster-recovery business.

Right now, nFrame manages data — from the contents of e-mail systems to internal networks to Web sites — for companies. That data are backed up at nFrame’s data center in Carmel. The thinking is, if a client’s office building burns to the ground, all of its data will be secure off-site.

But that won’t do the client much good if a natural disaster affects all of Central Indiana.

Now, with the acquisition, nFrame will gain access to Continental Broadband’s recently acquired data centers in nearby states. Therefore, nFrame’s Hoosier clients will be able to back up their data in Cleveland or Pittsburgh or Chicago.

Continental, based in Norfolk, Va., has been buying technology-service companies across the United States since early 2004. CEO Charlie Watkins said Continental Broadband first eyed nFrame in August of that year, but the owners weren’t ready to sell. Talks didn’t begin until June 2006.

Once “the dust settles” with the nFrame deal, Watkins said Continental Broadband might try to acquire more tech companies in Central Indiana. He wouldn’t name names, though.

After all, the disaster recovery and data management industry is growing exponentially. In 2002, it was a $400 million business nationwide, according to tech- research firm IDC. This year the industry is expected to reach $2.9 billion.

“The market is that business customers have a lot of concern and need to protect and guard their data as they move it around,” Watkins said.

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