Where are they now? Recent changes in the storage space

watnThe storage space has been a very exciting space over recent years. There have been so many new start-ups and new innovations, that it becomes difficult to keep track sometimes. More recently, there has been a lot of news around mergers, acquisitions, shutdowns and IPOs in the storage industry. It got me thinking about a lot of the changes we have seen over the past number of years in the storage market. Just for my own interest, I went back over many of my blogs, and the various conversations I had with people at various VMworld events and VMUG meetings, and tried to see where a lot of these companies/products are now, and what they are currently doing. Now, I am not going to mention every single vendor here. I’m simply trying to highlight the ones that were acquired or merged or indeed IPO’ed (and in some cases are no longer with us) during this period.

Amplidataacquired by HGST/Western Digital (March 2015)

Atlantis Computing – no longer exists, certain assets acquired by Hive-IO (July 2017)

Avere Systemsacquired by Microsoft (Jan 2018)

Brocadeacquired by Broadcom (November 2016)

Coho Datano longer exists, closed down (August 2017)

Coraidno longer exists, closed down (April 2015). (Resurrected once more by SouthSuite)

CleverSafeacquired by IBM (November 2015)

Data Gravityacquired by HyTrust (July 2017)

Datriumacquired by VMware (July 2020)

EMCmerger with DELL into DELL Technologies (September 2016)

Dot Hillacquired by Seagate (October 2015)

DSSDacquired by EMC (May 2014) EOL’ed by DELL (March 2017)

Emulexacquired by Avago (February 2015)

Exabloxacquired by StorageCraft (January 2017)

Flashsoftacquired by SanDisk ( February 2012) Spun out as JetStream Software (mid 2018)

Fusion-ioacquired by SanDisk (June 2014)

Greenbytesacquired by Oracle (May 2014)

Hedvigacquired by CommVault (Sep 2019)

HPsplit in two,  storage now in HP Enterprise (HPE) – October 2015

Inktank (Ceph)acquired by RedHat (April 2014)

Maxtano longer exists, closed down (Jan 2019)

Mellanoxacquired by NVIDIA (March 2019)

NexGen Storageacquired by Fusion-io, then SanDisk, then spun out againSince acquired by Pivot3 (January 2015)

Nexsanacquired by Imation (January 2013) – spun out again (January 2017)

Nimble StorageIPO (December 2013) – acquired by HPE (March 2017)

Nimbus Data – dormant since 2015. No idea if they still exist or not.

NutanixIPO (September 2016)

PernixDataacquired by Nutanix and EOL’ed soon after (September 2016)

Pivot3acquired by Quantum (July 2021)

Portworxacquired by Pure Storage (September 2020)

PrimaryDatarumored to have closed down (January 2018)

ProximalDataacquired by Samsung (November 2014)

Pure StorageIPO (October 2015)

QLogicacquired by Cavium (June 2016)

RedHatacquired by IBM (July 2019)

SanDiskacquired by Western Digital (October 2015)

ScaleIOacquired by EMC (July 2013)

SimpliVityacquired by HPE (January 2017)

Skyeraacquired by HGST/Western Digital (December 2014)

SolidFireacquired by NetApp, announced in December 2015

Springpathacquired by Cisco (August 2017) Rebranded as Cisco HypeFlex (End of Sale/End of Life announcement by Cisco (September 2023)

Tegileacquired by Western Digital (August 2017)

Texas Memory Systems (TMS) – acquired by IBM (October 2012)

TintriIPO (June 2017) Filed for Chapter 11 / Bankruptcy – acquired by DNN (July 2018)

TwinStrataacquired by EMC (July 2014)

Violin MemoryIPO (September 2013) – Filed for Chapter 11 (December 2016) Resurfaced under new leadership as Violin Systems.

Virstoacquired by VMware (February 2013)

VMware Virtual Storage Applianceend of life announcement (April 2014)

Viridentacquired by HGST/Western Digital (September 2013)

Whiptailacquired by Cisco Renamed Invicta (October 2013). Invicta end of life announcement (July 2015)

X-IO – Storage business (ISE) acquired by Violin Systems (October 2018) Remaining business rebranded as Axellio Inc

Xangatiacquired by Virtual Instruments (October 2016)

Xsigoacquired by Oracle (July 2012)

XtremIOacquired by EMC (May 2012)

Those are the ones I could think of but I’m sure I have missed some. Please leave a comment if I did.

I’m also pretty sure that we are going to see a lot more changes in this space. Interesting times.

18 Replies to “Where are they now? Recent changes in the storage space”

  1. That’s a good start on a complete list. I’d add:
    Qumulo – out of stealth 2/2015
    and
    Whiptail – became Invicta under Cisco, no longer exists

    1. Got the whiptail one Dave. Have Qumulo been acquired already? I’m really only highlighting mergers/acquisitions/IPOs or closures.

      1. You had Whiptail’s acquisition, but not it’s closure.

        Qumulo has neither IPO’ed or been acquired.

        If you want to include object storage, too, there’s also:
        Amplidata – acquired by HGST
        Cleversafe – acquired by IBM

        1. Ah – got it. Thanks Dave.

          Really this is only about companies that have had some sort of change to their status since exiting stealth – either bought out, IPO’ing or going under. Thanks for the others.

  2. Thank you for not naming the company in “stealth”. Let them die a slow painful death. They don’t need or deserve any publicity. Look them up on Glassdoor and LinkedIn – that will tell you everything you need to know.

    1. Don’t think much has changed in those spaces Jomak. As mentioned, I’m just looking at companies who have IPO’ed, merged, being acquired or folded. These companies are still getting VC investments afaik.

  3. Panasas sold their IP, laid off lots of folks few days ago and well on its way to being folded. What a waste.

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