Quest builds up vWorkspace with RemoteScan buy

Contact: Karin Kelley, Ben Kolada

In its latest desktop virtualization and management play, Quest Software has announced that it is purchasing the assets of imaging device management vendor RemoteScan. The deal lands Quest more healthcare accounts, mostly in North America, but the company plans an aggressive push into European markets next.

Quest will integrate eight-year-old RemoteScan’s assets, including all of its employees, with its vWorkspace group. The tiny target was launched in 2003 with RemoteScan for LAN, but has since been focusing most of its efforts on RemoteScan Enterprise and RemoteScan Universal. The deal gives vWorkspace one more competitive feature – wide driver support for imaging devices in LAN-based VDI and terminal services environments. Most of RemoteScan’s customers are in healthcare, although the vendor claims some traction in financial services and insurance markets. The products work with Windows Terminal Server and Citrix’s XenDesktop and XenApp, and support all other virtualized LAN environments using Microsoft’s RDP and Citrix’s ICA graphics-remoting technology.

Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, but we understand that RemoteScan has had considerable success over the years, having lined up some 20,000 customers, with particular strength in the medical vertical. Since it hasn’t taken any institutional funding that would propel its growth, we bet that its revenue is still in the single-digit millions. And while Quest generally pays in line with broader market valuations, RemoteScan could have gotten somewhat of a premium, since companies that are successful in targeting the medical vertical typically get higher-than-average valuations.