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Binary Research Ltd was a company founded in
Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The most populous urban area in the country and the fifth largest city in Oceania, Auckland has an urban population of about ...
, New Zealand by
Murray Haszard Murray Hayden Haszard (born 11 May 1954) is a New Zealand entrepreneur and businessman who founded the companies B32 Software and Binary Research and is the chairman of Ilion Technology. B32 Software In 1983 he was contracted to convert Kiwi P ...
in 1991 after the sale of his previous company, B32 Software. Binary Research initially considered developing competitors to the file transfer programs
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and Laplink. The product to compete with Blast was dropped at an early stage, but a program to transfer files over parallel or serial cables was developed and marketed from 1994 to 1996 under several names, including ''Beam'', ''UniBeam'' and ''LinkWiz''. This program was available in
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, Windows 3.x,
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2.0 and
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versions, and claimed to transfer files more rapidly than Laplink at that time. Later versions of the program could also transfer files using a network cable. Beam was not a financial success, as Laplink was the dominant product in that marketplace. Binary Research's next product, arising from the file transfer and parallel port technologies of Beam, was Ghost, first sold in 1996. Ghost pioneered the field of
disk cloning Disk cloning is the process of creating a 1-to-1 copy of a hard disk drive (HDD) or solid-state drive (SSD), not just its files. Disk cloning may be used for upgrading a disk or replacing an aging disk with a fresh one. In this case, the clone can r ...
software. A network of agents was set up around the world, and a branch of Binary Research Ltd, Binary Research International Inc, was established in Glendale, Milwaukee County, Wisconsin as a sales and support centre. Ghost was a very successful product, but Binary Research was a small company and was unable to drive the global sales force which Ghost needed. In 1998, Murray Haszard looked for a company which could acquire and develop Ghost further. Symantec expressed an interest, and after a unanimous vote of approval by Binary Research's New Zealand employees, Ghost was purchased by Symantec for US$27.5 million in July 1998.
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magazine, 16 november 1998, page 112
Almost all New Zealand employees of Binary Research became Symantec employees, and Ghost continued to be developed in Auckland for over ten years. Binary Research Ltd was closed down after the acquisition, but Binary Research International Inc. continues as a reseller of Ghost, and has expanded into other software products. One of the most significant products BRI distributed was the UI

(Universal Imaging Utility) which facilitates the creation of an Disk cloning, image that can be deployed to a vast range of hardware, irrespective of brand, components and drivers.


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Binary Research International Inc
{{Symantec Defunct software companies of New Zealand Gen Digital acquisitions