Infotech Lead America: SanDisk will acquire Smart Storage Systems for $307 million to strengthen presence in enterprise storage market.
The acquisition of the enterprise solid state drives (SSDs) based on the SATA and SAS storage protocols provider enables SanDisk to address a $1.6 billion market opportunity in enterprise SATA products.
With this combination, SanDisk will have products qualified with six of the top seven storage OEMs worldwide.
Recently, SanDisk Ventures invested in Panzura, a provider of flash-based network attached storage (NAS) solutions for enterprises. The company participated in Panzura’s recent Series D funding round and joins Meritech Capital, Matrix Partners, Khosla Ventures, Opus Capital and Chevron Technology Ventures as Panzura backers.
Approximately 250 employees of Smart Storage Systems will join SanDisk at the close of the transaction.
“SanDisk is excited to build upon its leadership position with its fourth acquisition in the enterprise storage market,” said Sumit Sadana, executive vice president & chief strategy officer of SanDisk.
Following the acquisition, SanDisk can address opportunities in enterprise storage by combining the benefits of Smart Storage Systems’ products, technology, and talent with the existing enterprise SSD and software product portfolios, vertical integration, scale, market reach and financial strength of SanDisk.
Smart Storage posted approximately $25 million revenue in its latest quarter ended May 31, 2013.
SanDisk posted 2 percent dip in the fourth quarter revenue to $1.54 billion.
