The Business of Storage

My quick take…

Allowing just long enough for the rumor mill to quiet down a bit after the first suggestions that EMC would buy the Israeli flash array company, XtremIO – and hence at least guaranteeing a second round of publicity! - EMC confirmed this morning that it is indeed breaking into its piggy-bank to buy the start-up.

Last month, I had the chance to speak with Joel Reich who heads NetApp’s Array Products Group (APG). The conversation was to formally mark the completion of one full year since NetApp acquired the Engenio business from LSI. The first extract from our conversation was posted on 4/24 and today – exactly a year from the deal closing – I am delivering the concluding comments.

I’m a big believer in mankind’s ability to invent its way out of problems and/or discover opportunities. And so the [somewhat edited, with bold highlights added by me too] press release below caught my eye. There’s a lot of chatter about what comes next after NAND flash; phase-change memory is one of the more promising avenues but it has some challenges. Maybe the news out of Johns Hopkins University (JHU) is making it look a whole lot more interesting.