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01 Oct 2008
Comments:1
HP resellers have greeted the vendor’s $360m (£203m) acquisition of virtualisation and iSCSI storage area network (SAN) vendor LeftHand Networks.
The purchase will allow HP to add midrange offerings to its suite of iSCSI solutions and LeftHand will be integrated into the HP StorageWorks division within the vendor's Technology Solutions Group.
LeftHand currently has 215 employees and more than 500 resellers and distributors worldwide.
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Alan Brown, business strategy director at reseller Panacea Services, said: “It is not a surprise that HP is looking to strengthen its iSCSI SAN and storage virtualisation offering as it is an area it does not currently cover.
“The acquisition of LeftHand Networks looks like it will be a good move for HP in an increasingly exciting and competitive market, allowing it to compete with the likes of Dell EqualLogic.”
Dave Roberson, senior vice president and general manager for StorageWorks Division at HP, said: “The acquisition of LeftHand Networks significantly expands our storage portfolio, enabling HP to deliver customers an expanded suite of storage functionality, scalable capacity and interconnect options for every budget and performance requirement.”
Many of LeftHand Networks’ solutions are already certified to work HP products, including HP ProLiant servers, HP BladeSystem infrastructure, HP ProCurve Networking and HP Insight Control management software.
Bill Chambers, chief executive officer of LeftHand Networks, said: “Joining with HP is a natural fit for our customers and channel partners, giving them an expanded portfolio of server, storage and networking products and services that are already supported by LeftHand Networks’ solutions.
“The combination of LeftHand Networks’ virtualisation technologies with HP’s has the power to significantly accelerate server consolidation projects by making the deployment of shared storage much easier and more cost-effective.”
The transaction is expected to be completed in HP’s first fiscal quarter of 2009.
With the exit of LeftHand’s two top European directors in July, speculation mounted over the vendor’s next move.
Last month, speaking to CRN, LeftHand claimed it had put its European expansion plans on hold to throw weight behind its UK and Benelux operations.
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HP partners happy, LeftHand partners sad
Now that every HP reseller can see LeftHand, margins for partners will drop. LeftHand was a differentiator, now those partners need to look at others in the iSCSI space - Datacore, Falc, who else?
Posted by Templeton | 08 Oct 2008
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