Just as your pulse is checked during a routine physical, free cash flow is used as an indicator of a company's health. It equals the cash brought in from operations minus the money needed to pay the bills. Think about leftover money in your checking account after you pay this month's bills.

Investors and analysts see this leftover money as a gauge of a company's ability to perform. It is available for transactions such as handing out dividends and working on new products.

Some argue free cash flow is wrongly overshadowed by the emphasis often placed on earnings. Earnings numbers can be manipulated and don't always tell the whole story -- and earnings don't mean much if there's nothing left over after a company pays its expenses. Even if you bring in a six-figure salary, but no money left after paying the bills, are you in great financial shape?

You don't have to be Einstein to figure out free cash flow. To calculate the number, subtract the company's expenditures and dividends from its operating cash flow.

If the free cash flow is written in red ink, it doesn't necessarily signal curtains. This is common for young companies looking to grow. It also could be a result of heavy investments, which in the long run could be worth a standing ovation.

Home / Markets / Industries / Technology

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Double-Take(R) Software Acquires emBoot, Inc.

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Comtex

SOUTHBOROUGH, Mass., Jul 29, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) ----Double-Take(R) Software (NASDAQ: DBTK), announced today the acquisition of emBoot Inc., experts in network booting technology. The acquisition follows Double-Take Software's development of full system protection and recovery technologies as well as the acquisition of CDP recovery with TimeData as key components of the company's Dynamic Infrastructure Strategy that aims to optimize, protect, monitor and recover workloads on any resource, anywhere and to any point in time.

The technology acquired with emBoot, Inc. allows organizations to easily assign and re-assign computing workloads to any available Windows or Linux physical servers or desktops or any virtual machine in their environment. IT organizations can now move those workloads around in a matter of minutes, whether it is because a disaster has occurred, a data center is moving, the company has decided to virtualize its infrastructure or an application needs more capacity.

Moving entire workloads around independent of the underlying physical or virtual hardware they are running on has been painfully complex and time consuming for IT administrators. By storing workloads on networked storage resources and making them available to physical and virtual servers on-demand, Double-Take's new solutions now make it is easy for IT administrators to move critical applications and data according to their value and desired service level agreements and to optimize the use of test, production and disaster recovery computing resources.

Not only does this create flexibility for the IT administrator, it also creates an innovative solution to minimize energy use in the data center. This technology allows the efficient use of power in a server environment by allowing standby servers to be powered off until needed for failover or full site recovery and allows greater use of diskless servers and blades.

"We see the market moving toward an increased need to liberate workloads and allow IT administrators the ability to move those workloads to meet business needs. Double-Take Software is building a suite of tools to meet those needs," said Dean Goodermote, CEO of Double-Take. "We expect to continue to expand our product offerings and our addressable markets with additional software-based solutions to optimize customers' most pressing IT infrastructure needs," continued Goodermote.

emBoot's technology is based on the rapidly growing iSCSI storage standard (Internet Small Computer System Interface).

"emBoot provides network boot products that significantly reduce the cost and complexity of administrating servers, desktops, POS terminals and embedded systems," said George Kostiuk, CEO of emBoot. "We are excited about joining the Double-Take Software team and contributing to the development of tools that allow our customers to liberate workloads, and reduce hardware and power consumption as they move to a more dynamically managed infrastructure," concluded Kostiuk.

The Company acquired emBoot, which with 5 employees is located in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, for a total cash purchase price of $9.6 million, subject to customary terms and conditions.

The Company will discuss this announcement on its regular scheduled quarterly conference call today at 4:30 p.m. ET. A live web cast will be available on the investor relations section at www.DoubleTake.com.

If you are unable to participate in the conference call, an audio replay of the call will be available approximately two hours after the conclusion of the call and remain available until Friday, August 1, 2008 at 11:59 p.m. ET. To access the audio replay, dial 888-266-2081 or 703-925-2533 and enter pass code 1255729.

A replay of the web cast will be available on the investor relations section at www.DoubleTake.com approximately two hours after the conclusion of the call and will remain available for 90 calendar days.

About Double-Take(R) Software

Headquartered in Southborough, Massachusetts, Double-Take(R) Software (Nasdaq: DBTK) is a leading provider of affordable software for recoverability, including continuous data replication, application availability and system state protection. Double-Take Software products and services enable customers to protect and recover business-critical data and applications such as Microsoft Exchange, SQL, and SharePoint in both physical and virtual environments. With its unparalleled partner programs, technical support, and professional services, Double-Take Software is the solution of choice for more than ten thousand customers worldwide, from SMEs to the Fortune 500. Information about Double-Take Software's products and services can be found at www.doubletake.com.

This release includes forward-looking statements intended to qualify for the safe harbor from liability established by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements generally can be identified by phrases that say Double-Take or its management "believes," "expects," "anticipates," "foresees," "forecasts," "estimates" or other words or phrases of similar import. Similarly, statements in this release that describe the Company's business strategy, outlook, objectives, plans, intentions or goals also are forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are inherently speculative, and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated in forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include those set forth from time to time in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We are under no obligation, and do not undertake any duty, to update these forward looking statements at any time.

(C) Double-Take Software. All rights reserved. Double-Take, GeoCluster, Double-Take for Virtual Systems, and NSI are registered trademarks of Double-Take Software, Inc. Balance and Double-Take ShadowCaster are trademarks of Double-Take Software, Inc. TimeData is a registered trademark of Double-Take Software Canada, Inc. TimeData logo is a trademark of Double-Take Software Canada, Inc. Microsoft, Windows, and the Windows logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective companies.

SOURCE: Double-Take Software

Double-Take Software S. Craig Huke, 317-572-1857 Chief Financial Officer investor@doubletake.com or Sapphire Investor
   Relations, LLC Erica Mannion, 212-766-1800 Investor Relations investor@doubletake.com

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