Alanco Sold Subsidiary Excel Meridian Data to Private Investor

Alanco Technologies, Inc. announced further implementation of its strategic plan to focus on the Company’s wireless monitoring services business through the sale of its data storage subsidiary, Excel Meridian Data, Inc., located in Carrollton, Texas. Excel Meridian was sold to a private investor in a transaction, which closed on March 19, 2010, valued at approximately $500,000, including cash, notes and assumed liabilities.

Robert R. Kauffman, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, commented: “This Excel Meridian transaction, although relatively small, represents an important, initial step in implementation of our plan to focus upon accelerating growth of our StarTrak recurring subscription revenue business model. We are also actively engaged in continuing discussions relative to a potential near-term sale of our major TSI PRISM RFID tracking subsidiary. Our primary StarTrak business, meanwhile, is evidencing continued consecutive quarterly growth with this March ending quarter’s sales growth expected to again reach 20%.”

Alanco Technologies, Inc. provides wireless monitoring and asset management solutions through its StarTrak Systems subsidiary. StarTrak Systems is a of tracking, monitoring and control services to the refrigerated or ‘Reefer’ segment of the transportation marketplace, enabling customers to increase efficiency and reduce costs of the refrigerated supply chain.

Comments

To be the first one in a specific technology with great future may eventually lead to total failure. A good example here is NAS. Auspex introduced what was probably the world's first NAS server shortly after its founding in 1987, but went bankrupt in June 2003, one year after the founding of NetApp, that entered into NAS to be currently one of the biggest storage company.

Maybe some storage veterans - like me - remember the name of Meridian Data. Founded in 1992, the firm was a pioneer in small network-attached storage, maybe the first one in low-end NAS, to get the availability of CD-ROMs data to all the users connected to an Ethernet network.

Here are some financial figures that we found in our archives: for FY98, the company recorded sales of $17.5 million, decreasing by 12% compared to FY97, with a huge loss of $13.2 million.

In May 1999, Quantum acquired Meridian Data for around $95 million in stock transaction, essentially to get NAS OS Snap! Server - not to pursue in CD-ROMs - and then spins off what became its NAS SnapServer division under the name of Snap Appliances Inc. It was acquired for $11.3 million by new company Snap Appliance and its CEO Eric Kelly. Kelly sold it two years later for $100 million to Adaptec that finally gave it to Overland - where he was and continues to be CEO - for a mere $4 million.

In 2002, Quantum get rid of the CD-ROM business of Meridian Data, selling it to Excel Computer that changes its name into Excel Meridian Data, Inc. (EMD Storage) to finally becoming the same year a wholly-owned subsidiary Alanco Technologies.

For year 2002, EMD was proud to set yearly revenue record topping only $6 million. The company is now involved in DAS, NAS and iSCSI SAN and is finishing in the hands of a private investor for only $500,000. Sad story.