March 13, 2017
In today’s technology market, there is the potential for a start-up to launch at any time and disrupt long-standing players in the industry. In response, it seems that the largest technology companies continue to acquire and purchase some of the smaller players in an attempt to expand their product offering. From the Genesys purchase of Interactive Intelligence to the Dell-EMC deal, the industry continues to consolidate.
On March 7, 2017, the Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) finalized a deal with Nimble Storage to purchase all of their shares of stock on the New York Stock Exchange. The shares will be purchased in cash for $12.50 a piece for a total of $10 Billion. This is an interesting move for HPE and has the potential to radically change the landscape of the storage market.
HPE and Nimble: The First Major Acquisition of 2017
The Rise of Flash Storage
Flash storage solutions are on the verge of overtaking the storage industry with an expected market value of $20 Billion by 2020. The all flash segment of the market is growing at a compound annual rate of almost 17%. This presents an excellent opportunity for HPE to get in now with a major player and capitalize on the market trends.
As explained by Meg Whitman, President and CEO of HPE, the inclusion of Nimble’s product line builds upon Hewlett Packard’s existing flash storage solutions. This positions Hewlett Packard to capitalize on the growing flash storage field.
“Nimble Storage’s portfolio complements and strengthens our current 3PAR products in the high-growth flash storage market and will help us deliver on our vision of making Hybrid IT simple for our customers. And, this acquisition is exactly aligned with the strategy and capital allocation approach we’ve laid out. We remain focused on high-growth and higher-margin segments of the market.”
Meg Whitman, President and CEO
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
Brains and Brawn
In some ways, Nimble and HPE are a perfect match for each other. Both companies bring something valuable to the table. For years, Nimble’s hybrid and all flash storage arrays have proven to be some of the highest quality flash arrays on the market. Yet, the company’s youth and relatively small scale limited their potential reach. With HPE’s expansive distribution network, the Nimble brand will be able to reach more customers around the globe.
Suresh Vasudevan, CEO of Nimble Storage explains:
“Over 10,000 enterprises are using Nimble Storage because our Predictive Cloud Platform is reliably fast, radically simple, and cloud ready. This acquisition validates our technology leadership in flash and in the use of cloud-based predictive analytics. We’re confident that by combining Nimble Storage’s technology leadership with HPE’s global distribution strength, strong brand, and enterprise relationships, we’re creating expansion opportunities for the combined company.”
Suresh Vasudevan, CEO
Nimble Storage
A New Storage Era
If we look at the storage field after the merger, there are only a handful of major players left. Dell/EMC, Pure Storage, NetApp, now HPE, and only a few others stand at the top of a booming market. How these companies compete with each other and what they do to distinguish themselves will be an interesting sight to see. The complete replacement of disk storage by all flash arrays is not far off, and HPE looks like they are ready to become a leader in the field.
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