EMC (Nasdaq: EMC) announced Monday it is buying NAS (network-attached storage) vendor Isilon Systems for roughly US$2.25 billion. Both companies’ boards have approved the deal, which is expected to be finalized later this year.
Isilon and EMC’s products combined will provide a low-cost, scalable platform for managing large amounts of “Big Data,” an industry term referring to the flood information generated by utilities, online media companies and other verticals, according to a statement.
Isilon has built its marketshare on the fast-growing “Scale-out NAS” segment, which IDC projects will grow on average approximately 36 per cent annually reaching an estimated $6 billion dollars in 2014.
Together, EMC’s Atmos and Isilon’s solutions could offer a highly scalable, low-cost storage infrastructure for managing “Big Data.” Big Data is a term used to describe the massive amount of data produced by a new generation of applications in markets such as life sciences (e.g. gene sequencing), media and entertainment (e.g. online streaming), and oil and gas (e.g. seismic interpretation) to name a few,” EMC said.
Isilon’s scale-out NAS systems are designed to begin small and scale non-disruptively up to 10 petabytes in size, with extremely high levels of performance and availability. EMC Atmos object storage provides the perfect complement to Isilon for massive globally distributed environments and object access to data for usages like Web 2.0 applications.
Joe Tucci, chairman and CEO, EMC Corp., said, “The unmistakable waves of cloud computing and ‘Big Data’ are upon us. Customers are looking for new ways to store, protect, secure and add intelligence to the vast amounts of information they will accumulate over the next decade. EMC, in combination with Isilon, sits at the intersection of these trends with leading products, solutions and services to help customers get the absolute most out of what cloud computing has to offer.”
Pat Gelsinger, President and COO, EMC Information Infrastructure Products, said, “EMC brings unique value to Isilon through our highly complementary portfolio, engineering depth, financial strength and global sales reach. Isilon will enable EMC to accelerate our storage revenue growth and serve our customers across a broader range of the storage systems market. EMC will invest in all aspects of Isilon’s business to accelerate growth and take advantage of the fast-growing market opportunity ahead.”
Sujal Patel, CEO of Isilon, said, “Our excitement about the opportunity to become part of EMC’s world-class team cannot be overstated. EMC’s track record of successfully acquiring, integrating and growing leading companies and the complementary nature of our technologies are undeniable. I am most excited about Isilon’s ability to now leverage EMC’s unparalleled market reach and portfolio of leading technology assets to build on our already significant success in this fast-growing space. Together, Isilon and EMC are ideally positioned to take our company to the next level and accelerate Isilon’s growth and technology adoption by customers around the world.”