Data Storage Sees Increased Acquisition Activity Due to the Growing Integration of Flash Technology in Servers and Storage Appliances
67 WALL STREET, New York - February 12, 2013 - The Wall Street Transcript has just published its Data Hosting Centers and Data Storage Report offering a timely review of the sector to serious investors and industry executives. This special feature contains expert industry commentary through in-depth interviews with public company CEOs and Equity Analysts. The full issue is available by calling (212) 952-7433 or via The Wall Street Transcript Online.
Topics covered: Data Hosting Centers - Flash Memory - Cloud Computing Secular Trends - Internet Infrastructure Build - Big Data, PCIe Storage, Cloud Computing and the Virtual Desktop - Data Center REITs - Colocation, Managed Hosting and Cloud Computing - Data Center Expansion -
Companies include: EMC Corporation (EMC), NetApp, Inc. (NTAP), Hewlett-Packard Company (HPQ), Dell Inc. (DELL), Lexmark International Inc. (LXK), Arrow Electronics, Inc. (ARW), Avnet Inc. (AVT), Ingram Micro Inc. (IM), Tech Data Corp. (TECD), Flextronics International Ltd. (FLEX), Jabil Circuit Inc. (JBL), Plexus Corp. (PLXS), VMware, Inc. (VMW), International Business Machine (IBM), Teradata Corporation (TDC), Oracle Corp. (ORCL), Rackspace Hosting, Inc (RAX), Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) and many more.
In the following excerpt from the Data Hosting Centers and Data Storage Report, an expert analyst discusses the outlook for the sector for investors:
TWST: Have any of these companies made any important strategic moves or innovations or acquisitions?
Mr. Alexander: EMC (EMC) has been pretty continuously acquisitive. They bought a few months ago a company called XtremIO, which is a company that it is in the all-flash storage arrays that I mentioned before. So as it relates to adopting flash as a technology, EMC's placed its bets across the board.
They have a product that allows for flash to be integrated into the server, which is called VFCache; that competes against Fusion-io (FIO). They have the all-flash array with XtremIO, which actually hasn't been released as a product yet, but will be in the next two quarters. And then they also have a flash storage appliance hitting the market this year that they refer to as Project Thunder.
If you look back over the last, maybe not two quarters but two years, with EMC buying Isilon, EMC buying XtremIO, they truly are, in my opinion, visionaries when it comes to understanding technology trends and how to best position themselves for where the product is going, not necessarily where it's been. I almost think of them as a private equity company that is also an operating company. I'm not so sure if they are better at execution or better at acquiring innovative technology at reasonable prices.
I would say NetApp's (NTAP) been a bit, in my opinion, asleep at the wheel on the strategic front until very recently, when they partnered with Fusion-io to have a flash on the server solution. This is something where they've partnered for that technology, and in my opinion they shouldn't necessarily acquire it. Whereas before that, they really did not have an answer to that customer problem. And then when they came to the concept of scale out, their innovation in that regard has been...
For more of this interview and many others visit the Wall Street Transcript - a unique service for investors and industry researchers - providing fresh commentary and insight through verbatim interviews with CEOs, portfolio managers and research analysts. This special issue is available by calling (212) 952-7433 or via The Wall Street Transcript Online.
