Peerless Forms Disaster Recovery Unit in Tex. That Will Initially Cater

Peerless Systems Inc., a provider of community banking software, has formed a disaster recovery unit known as Peerless Recovery Services.

The new company, based in Plano, Tex., will initially offer backup computer services only to Peerless Systems software customers, which number about 400 nationwide. However, the company may extend its services to institutions beyond its client base in 1996.

Executives at Peerless Systems acknowledged that competition for disaster recovery business is heavy, but they expressed confidence in the company's ability to attract customers.

"We can offer our data processing customers significant advantages in a disaster recovery plan," said George Roeder, manager of Peerless Recovery Services, in a printed statement.

"Our knowledge of the (software) product enables us to respond more effectively in the event of a disaster and allows our customers to meet their yearly testing requirements without ever leaving the bank."

At least one industry observer agreed that the disaster recovery company would have a leg up on the competition when wooing Peerless software customers.

The reason: Since Peerless Recovery will already have the software used by its customers installed on its recovery systems, the customers need only send data to the recovery site to resurrect its operations.

Other recovery service companies would have to install Peerless software before accepting data from the bank, which could lead to a longer recovery schedule.

Peerless will likely have a harder time attracting business outside its customer base, though more community institutions are looking for new disaster recovery providers as regulators grow increasingly skeptical of reciprocal backup processing agreements between banks.

The new Peerless Recovery site will initially feature one AS/400 midrange computer and one System 36 midrange, both from International Business Machines Corp.

In the event of multiple disasters occurring at the same time, Peerless Systems, based in Richardson, Tex., will back up the Peerless Recovery site.

Peerless also offers recovery plan evaluation and development through Blair Management Services of Altoona, Pa.

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