HP is acquiring IT services provider Synstar for $297 million in cash to shore up its overseas presence as it battles IBM's Global Services division

HP's Global Investments B.V. subsidiary agreed to buy the U.K.-based provider of managed services geared to deliver business availability across desktop configuration and data center environments. Synstar serves 1,500 customers and boasts a direct delivery presence in eight European countries, helping customers manage IT infrastructure to reduce costs and increase service quality. HP has made a few similar purchases as of late. In March, the Palo Alto, Calif., company acquired U.K.-based software management and licensing firm FH Computer Services (FHG) to round out its services division. In other HP news, the company extended its pledge to support the storage industry back-up format Digital Audio Tape (DAT) in conjunction with back-up partner Certance. The companies extended their roadmap for DAT to allow the partners to serve the data protection needs of small and medium businesses (SMBs). Some 6 million SMB customers rely on DAT for backup and restore of data in case primary disk storage systems fail. According to high-tech researcher Gartner, worldwide industry unit shipments of DDS/DAT technology among all vendors in 2003 amounted to nearly 1 million units, or roughly 46 percent of the total tape units shipped for the year among all tape formats.