EMC announced today that they had acquired Kazeon Systems, a standard-bearer in the world of information search and e-discovery. Kazeon had long worked to develop an automatic data classification capability, building an appliance based on open-source and in-house tools. The company’s solution was capable of both scanning file content and indexing it in a database for later search, somewhat unique in the space. Kazeon has also been active in the e-discovery and litigation-readiness space and was top-of-mind for analysts discussing such tools. EMC will likely integrate the Kazeon technology with their SourceOne archiving and discovery platform.

In the past, end users privately voiced frustration with Kazeon’s toolkit. They complained that it failed to scale to ingest enterprise-class jobs and that the complex solution was prone to failure, prompting time-consuming re-scans. The e-discovery space is a complex one, with companies duking it out with regard to the proper orientation: Should records management, data archiving, data search, storage management, or legal lead the e-discovery charge? Kazeon came from the technical data search and storage management space, a good match for EMC.

Kazeon raised over $60 million in their 6 years of existence. They faced a difficult market and were reportedly only able to bring in $7 in revenue in the last 12 months. EMC reportedly paid $75 million for the company, a fair price given Kazeon’s challenges.