LSI Corporation announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire ONStor, Inc. for approximately $25 million in cash inclusive of assumed debt and other net liabilities.
ONStor, a privately held company based in Campbell, Calif., provides clustered network-attached storage (NAS) solutions designed to help enterprises consolidate, protect and manage the accelerating growth of unstructured data. It also produces the Cougar NAS gateway and EverON software
ONStor products include NAS gateways, NAS systems and unified storage systems sold to end users through a worldwide network of channel partners and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs).
“The rapid growth of unstructured data is creating significant challenges for enterprises in provisioning, protecting and managing their storage in an efficient and cost-effective manner,” said Abhi Talwalkar, LSI president and chief executive officer. “With the addition of ONStor products and technology, LSI will be well positioned to offer a comprehensive set of storage solutions to help enterprise customers effectively manage both their unstructured and structured data with ease.”
The Register has more background information on the take-over:
“Unlike Isilon, and NAS cluster SW vendors like Ibrix, ONStor never carved out a big role for its products in the supercomputing, high-performance computing or movie rendering markets, instead choosing to sell its products to the generality of SME and enterprise storage buyers. It did this through distribution, reseller deals, front-ending complementary suppliers’ block storage arrays, or OEM-type deals: Xiotech and Texas Memory Systems in October, 2005; SGI Japan in December, 2006; 3PAR in August, 2005; Compellent in March, 2006; and Fujitsu Computer Systems in May, 2008.
Up until early 2008 it was growing and growing well. In early 2006 it announced its 100th NAS gateway installation. In October that year, it announced its customer base had doubled. The first half of 2007 saw record world-wide sales. The third quarter was described as having strong world-wide sales. In February 2008 the company said it had recorded its third consecutive year of 100 per cent revenue growth and seen the largest fourth quarter sales in its history.
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LSI is putting ONStor into its Engenio storage division. There is an irony here: Engenio is now an NAS vendor, a clustered NAS, NAS gateway and iSCSI storage vendor, and will compete with NetApp. Tom Georgens, who used to run Engenio and almost took it to independence until LSI pulled its IPO, is NetApp’s president and chief operating officer.
LSI gets a recession-distressed business with reputable products, channels, technology and development assets. It can integrate the ONStor technology into its Engenio arrays, as well as selling it on an OEM basis if it wishes.”
