Global Distribution acquires Symply Inc

Global Distribution has announced the acquisition of assets of Symply, Inc., a leading designer and manufacturer of high-performance storage solutions for collaborative workflows. Symply products offer a blend of enterprise-class five nines reliability storage and StorNext file system, which support clients running on Linux, Mac and Windows platforms. 

Symply delivers a wide range of easy-to-use storage solutions that support connectivity over Fibre Channel, Ethernet, and Thunderbolt. All Symply products are optimised for rich media applications, collaborative teams, AI use, cloud connectivity, HDR, high-frame-rate, 4K and higher resolution projects.

“Our acquisition of Symply Inc., combines the innovative customer-centric solutions developed by the Symply team with our longevity and presence as a specialist distributor in the media and entertainment industry,” said Keith Warburton, CEO at Global Distribution. “We’ve always worked very closely with our vendors but acquiring Symply opens up really exciting new possibilities for us to expand upon Symply’s SAN, NAS and storage product lines and develop comprehensive solutions for media workflows through unrivaled interoperable technologies.”

Global’s acquisition of Symply furthers its partnership with Quantum to deliver market-leading solutions based on the next-generation StorNext 6 storage management platform that is embedded within a wide-range of Symply products.

“We are excited to partner with Global to bring StorNext 6 to a far wider base of creative professionals,” said Jamie Lerner, CEO and president of Quantum. “The unique approach of the SymplyULTRA, and Global’s vision for innovative Apple compatible Thunderbolt solutions are a perfect match with StorNext high-performance file sharing capabilities.”

The Symply sales, engineering and support teams remain in place, ensuring all Symply customers continue to enjoy the products, knowledgeable staff, and world-class support they have come to rely on. 

“We are very pleased to see Symply evolving by joining industry leader Global Distribution. We rely on Symply in our post-production workflow to deliver the performance and reliability we need,” said Michael Rogalewski, director of IT, Big Breakfast Productions. “As the premier producer of scripted and unscripted comedic television, our team depends on Symply to support us in meeting our tight deadlines.”

“We are very excited to hear that Symply is becoming part of Global Distribution and look forward to seeing what they can do with the resources of a bigger company,” said Andres Lapi, CTO at Teledoce. “We’ve been using Symply with great success at our facilities in Montevideo, Uruguay for about a year. When it came time to choose a workflow for operations at the International Broadcast Centre of the World Cup in Moscow, Russia, we chose Symply again. We installed a control room and all the storage operations run through Symply. We’ve got editors working on the media, journalists checking material and technicians organizing the huge amounts of hours of video being generated at the World Cup. Everything is running smoothly with Symply, and hope our National team joins our success on the field.”

“Global Distribution has built a strong following and is considered to be the distributor of choice for Value Added Resellers that focus on system integration, studio and workflow design. In recent years Global has aggressively expanded to reach markets around the world including the Los Angeles film, television and advertising communities. The acquisition of Symply Inc. will allow Global to offer specific solutions to requirements that are unique to the M&E community. With offices in Culver City, Global is strategically located to help our resellers support and service the needs of media companies in Burbank, Culver City, and Hollywood,” said Jonathan Ellihou COO Global Distribution NA.

Symply products with embedded StorNext6 are immediately available to order from Global Distribution’s worldwide resellers along with seamlessly interoperable options for asset management, production workflows and content archive.