Western Digital To Acquire Flash Tegile Systems

Enterprise storage specialist Western Digital is to buy its smaller rival Tegile Systems, helping to bolster the former’s data centre strategy and expand its customer footprint if the deal closes, as expected, in September.

Since 2012 Tegile, has been operating as one of a number of players offering data centre oriented Flash-based storage. The firm specialises in hybrid and all-flash arrays, and competes against some big names in the storage sector including the likes of Dell EMC, IBM and HP.

Flash Move

Western Digital was attracted to Tegile because of its IntelliFlash architecture, which allows for a “comprehensive storage platform that delivers storage at the speed of flash memory.”

This helps satisfy the growing demand to deploy scalable storage architectures for an expanding range of big data and fast data applications. Another key factor was Tegile’s 1,700 customer base, as well as its solid-state and hybrid array product range.

“The Tegile acquisition will fit perfectly in Western Digital’s long-term strategy to deliver high value solutions that address customers’ rapidly evolving storage needs,” said Mike Cordano, Western Digital COO.

“The addition of Tegile’s technology and talented team will advance our goal of solving customers’ most significant challenges in capturing, preserving, transforming and accessing data.

“We are excited to add this team of deeply experienced storage professionals to Western Digital. Not only will we gain an exceptional group of team members, but also expand our product offerings in the fast-growing solid-state and hybrid array segments.”

Long Term Move

“By combining Tegile’s innovative storage system software with Western Digital’s global scale and combination of components and systems, we expect DCS to capture a sizable share of flash array demand,” explained Phil Bullinger,  general manager of the Western Digital DCS business unit.

“Western Digital is focused on the systems business and this is a significant step forward in advancing our long-term strategy.”

At this stage there is no word about possible headcount reduction as a result of the acquisition and it should be noted that Western Digital was already one of Tegile’s funding partners.

Quiz: What do you know about Flash memory?