StorageTek buy heralds dawn of a storage-centric Sun
StorageTek buy heralds dawn of a storage-centric Sun
Sep 08, 2005: The StorageTek stockholders' seal of approval for the US$4.1 billion takeover of the company by Sun Microsystems, which was granted earlier this week, marks the transformation of Sun into a storage-centric company, according to one of the deal's main powerbrokers.
James Whitemore, vice president of marketing, network storage, at Sun, was heavily involved in the negotiations that led to the StorageTek acquisition. Speaking in Sydney during a visit to the Storage Networking World event at the Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre, commented: "This really signifies how committed we are to storage. It is an all-cash deal, which is a big gamble for us, as you don't take $4 billion of your company's cash lightly."
Whitemore said the companies are a perfect fit, as it pairs together StorageTek's data archiving expertise with Sun's expertise in putting that data to work.
"We have the capability to completely manage a customer's data from creation until disposal or archiving."
While the benefits of the deal are more immediately apparent from Sun's point of view, what with StorageTek huge customer base effectively making Sun a storage heavyweight overnight, Whitemore said that StorageTek also has much to gain from the coupling.
"If you look at the positions of strength in the market that EMC and Network Appliance have, you have to do something different from them in order to compete with them. StorageTek understood that we are more effective working together to compete than on our own, as we can manage the identity and security of information right through the stack."
As for Sun's next step in their move to become a storage powerhouse, Whitemore said it was unlikely that Sun would make another acquisition of this size, but that there would be some further market activity in the coming months.
"There won't be anything on the same scale, as this is the largest acquisition we've ever made, but don't expect the mergers and acquisitions group to stop as there are lots of things in the pipeline."
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