The Register®

Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/04/23/emc_xtremio/

EMC 'poised' to gobble flashy upstart Xtremio

NetApp also perusing the menu - report

By Chris Mellor

Posted in Storage, 23rd April 2012 17:02 GMT

Free whitepaper – Hands on with Hyper-V 3.0 and virtual machine movement

EMC is apparently closer to buying Herzliya, Israel headquartered Xtremio [1], with NetApp sniffing around as well, according to Israeli financial news site Globes [2].

This possibility first popped up publically in March. Globes' sources say EMC execs, such as CFO David Goulden and VMware's CTO Dr Stephen Herrod, have visited Israel, where EMC has a research centre, and where its VFCache [3] server flash cache product software is produced.

Globes adds that NetApp execs have also been seen in Israel, including its mergers and acquisitions head, implying a bidding war might be talking place.

Xtremio [4], which makes storage solutions based on solid state technology, has raised some $25m of venture funding in two rounds and is developed a scale-out all-flash array with peer-to-peer nodes aimed at applications such as server and desktop virtualisation, database consolidation, analytics and business intelligence, and high-performance computing.

EMC could use the Xtremio array as a shared front for its hard disk drive VMAX and VNX arrays. An Xtremio white paper can apparently be obtained here (PDF) [5] – but although you'll receive an emailed request acknowledgment immediately, the paper isn't delivered straight away – El Reg storage desk is still waiting for ours. The same thing happens with a 451 analysis report [6].

Globes suggests a possible acquisition price of $400m to $450m. It would make a nice announcement for EMC World in Las Vegas in May. ®