The acquisition of Clearwell Systems will bring together eDiscovery, archiving and backup to provide a comprehensive information management systems, says Symantec.
The deal, which is subject to regulatory approval, is expected to close in the third quarter of the year.
"As information continues to grow at unprecedented rates, the biggest challenge for customers is to protect, manage and backup this information as well as have the ability to categorise and discover it efficiently," said Deepak Mohan, senior vice president, Information Management Group, Symantec.
Mohan said the acquisition of Clearwell will increase Symantec's ability to get the right information to the right people, at the right time, while reducing legal review costs and limiting risk.
Symantec says the acquisition is aimed at positioning the company as a leader in the eDiscovery software market.
The eDiscovery software market is growing at a compounded annual growth rate of 14% and is expected to reach $1.7bn by 2014, according to research firm Gartner.
Archiving and eDiscovery are two critical elements of information governance, says Aaref Hilaly, president and chief executive officer of Clearwell Systems.
Combining the two will enable integrated governance workflow. This will benefit both Symantec and Clearwell customers, Hilaly said.
Organizations are being required to adopt more formal information governance processes to help reduce the costs and risks associated with legal discovery.
According to Gartner, companies without an information governance strategy and technology for content archiving systems, will spend a third more on eDiscovery in the next two years than those with content archiving systems.
This story was first published by Computer Weekly