NetApp snaps up flash player SolidFire
All-flash array firm bought for $870m
NetApp has rounded of its year by acquiring all-flash firm SolidFire in a move it claims will bolster its flash offering.
NetApp is set to cough up $870m (£584.23m) for the firm in a deal which is expected to close in its Q4 next year.
SolidFire is a US firm which was founded in 2010 and specialises in all-flash storage systems.
The fledgling firm's flash kit will be incorporated into NetApp's data fabric products "over time", NetApp said. SolidFire's CEO Dave Wright will be in charge of his company's product line within NetApp's product operations.
The popularity of flash storage has rocketed in recent years. Last week IDC claimed that IT buyers are snubbing traditional storage in favour of the new tech, which now accounts for more than half of IT storage value.
NetApp has talked up its flash offering for a while, but its CEO George Kurian claims that the SolidFire deal will accelerate this even further.
"This acquisition will benefit current and future customers looking to gain the benefits of webscale cloud providers for their own data centers," he said.
"SolidFire combines the performance and economics of all-flash storage with a webscale architecture that radically simplifies datacentre operations and enables rapid deployments of new applications. We look forward to extending NetApp's flash leadership with the SolidFire team, products and partner ecosystem, and to accelerating flash adoption through NetApp's large partner and customer base."
NetApp partner Gardner Systems' technical director Paul Stringfellow welcomed the news.
"It's probably not as all about flash as you might think," he said. "I don't know SolidFire in great detail, but what I do know is they have a very strong play in the service provider webscale market. So they've got some uniqueness there in that environment... and that is not necessarily where NetApp plays. NetApp has a pretty strong flash proposition... and SolidFire is bulking out that a little more."