netapp

The disk storage market is the latest casualty of the recession. Worldwide sales for storage vendors in the first quarter of 2009 dropped 18.2 percent to $5.6 billion from $6.8 billion a year ago, according to a report from research firm IDC.

The market includes vendors such as IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and Dell, which sell complete disk storage systems to enterprise customers. IDC blamed the decline on the overall downturn in total server sales.

Among the top five vendors, HP fared the worst, hit with a 25.8 percent drop in sales to $975 million from $1.3 … Read more

The battle to buy Data Domain is in full swing.

Late Wednesday, NetApp upped its bid to acquire Data Domain to $30 a share after EMC jumped in earlier in the week with its own buyout offer. On the surface, both proposals seem similar. But EMC claims its bid is superior and predicts Data Domain shareholders won't approve the NetApp agreement.

The initial buyout agreement between NetApp and Data Domain was unveiled on May 20. NetApp's offer then was $25 a share, or $1.5 billion total, a deal that seemed to sit well with Data Domain. But … Read more

This was originally posted on ZDNet's Between the Lines.

EMC swooped in Monday with a $1.8 billion, or $30 a share, offer for Data Domain.

The rub: rival NetApp already had a plan to buy the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company for $1.5 billion, or $25 a share.

EMC said its all-cash offer is a 20 percent premium over NetApp's stock-and-cash offer on May 20.

Simply put, EMC wants to acquire Data Domain in order to thwart NetApp's offer--or at the very least make the acquisition more expensive. Joe Tucci, EMC's chief executive, said … Read more

NetApp said Wednesday that it will acquire Data Domain for $1.5 billion, or $25 a share.

Data Domain makes de-duplication storage systems designed to cut cost and make data management easier. NetApp said in a statement that its game plan is to take Data Domain's products and work it through NetApp's global sales channel. Data Domain's products will become a line in NetApp's operations.

Ultimately Data Domain and NetApp's VTL lineup is designed to move companies off tape backups. For 2008, Data Domain had … Read more

NetApp's IP patent infringement lawsuit against rival Sun Microsystems may throw a wrench in Sun's reported merger talks with IBM, according to a report on American Lawyer's AM Law.com site.

Two years ago, NetApp filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Sun, alleging its rival violated seven of its patents with its ZFS file system--a key element to its Solaris operating system. NetApp demanded Sun remove its ZFS file system from the open-source community and storage products, and limit its use to computing devices.

Sun, in response, filed a countersuit, alleging NetApp violated a dozen of its … Read more

Storage maker NetApp ranked No. 1 on Fortune magazine's list of the top 100 companies to work for, bumping Google from its perch, according to a report in the publication on Thursday.

NetApp, which employs nearly 8,000 people worldwide, was selected for its "employees enthusiasm," along with its benefits from nearly $11,400 in adoption aid to five paid days to do volunteer work.

And even better still, the company is one of the few in the hiring mode during these recessionary times, seeking to fill 55 positions as of January 13.

This year's ranking … Read more

Sun Microsystems has spent years getting bludgeoned by commodity hardware and software. Now it's planning to apply those painful lessons to its competitors in the storage industry, as highlighted by The New York Times reporter Ashlee Vance:

In the early part of this decade, Sun learned all too well just how disruptive ("good enough" technology at a significant discount) can be. Customers moved away from products built on Sun's own custom microprocessors and software to cheaper servers that relied on Intel processors and the open-source Linux operating system. While larger customers still wanted Sun's high-end … Read more

I received this update from Sun Microsystems on Tuesday on the ongoing ZFS patent litigation with NetApp. While colored by its source, the news seems positive for Sun (and, given the importance of ZFS, for the open-source development community). Sun has succeeded in getting the venue changed to California and it appears that its public request for examples of prior art have yielded fruit.

What follows was sent to me by Sun:

As of Friday, December 14, Sun has filed reexamination requests for three Network Appliance patents as part of its response to a lawsuit initially filed by Network Appliance against Sun on September 5, 2007. This follows the agreement last month with Network Appliance to transfer Network Appliance's lawsuit from Texas and litigate it along with the case Sun filed in California. The motion to transfer was filed on November 21 and the cases are now assigned to a mutually agreed upon judge. With each company being headquartered in northern California and the majority of inventors and innovation in dispute originating in California, it makes sense for this case to be litigated in this jurisdiction. We are pleased that Network Appliance agreed to Sun's request and retracted its imprudent choice of venue for this litigation.… Read more

Network Appliance's latest earnings report is fascinating. Dan Warmenhoven, NetApp's CEO, reported that enterprise spending is on the wane, with the financial services industry allegedly battening down the hatches and sitting out a soft economy.

If true, I suppose this is bad news for NetApp and many other enterprise IT companies (though it doesn't seem to have made a dent in Microsoft or Oracle). For open-source companies? It's manna from heaven. $1 saved on proprietary, pricey IT may well convert into $.50 spent on open-source software...which goes a long way for the new breed of open-source vendors.

But first, Mr. Warmenhoven's commentary:

(The enterprise spending weakness) is led by the financial services sector as you might imagine and they're quite substantial. But other companies are still as well....It was a challenge this year.… Read more