HPE acquires SimpliVity to strengthen hybrid IT position
$605m acquisition "fits squarely within our strategy" says Whitman
HPE has acquired software-defined, hyperconverged infrastructure firm SimpliVity in order to improve its position in the "hybrid IT" market.
The $650m cash deal pales in significance to a market which HPE believes was worth $2.4bn in 2016, and from which the company clearly wants a big chunk of the pie, with a mooted 25 per cent sector growth rate annual, clocking $6bn of value by 2020.
"This transaction expands HPE"s software-defined capability and fits squarely within our strategy to make Hybrid IT simple for customers," said HPE CEO Meg Whitman.
"More and more customers are looking for solutions that bring them secure, highly resilient, on-premises infrastructure at cloud economics. That"s exactly where we"re focused."
Founded in 2009, SimpliVity's edge may lie, reckons HPE, in its hyperconverged infrastructure being "designed from the ground up to meet the needs of enterprise customers who require on-premises technology infrastructure with enterprise-class performance, data protection, and resiliency, at cloud economics".
This could conceivably fit in fairly well with HPE's existing portofolio, such as storage management software under the 3PAR brand, which HPE acquired in 2010.
"Over the past 8 years we"ve been on an incredible journey and joining HPE is the logical next step for SimpliVity," said SimpliVity CEO Doron Kempel.
"HPE"s broad sales reach, extensive partner channel, complementary technology and commitment to innovation will accelerate SimpliVity"s journey and significantly strengthen our ability to deliver the best-in-class hybrid IT solutions our customers are looking for."
HPE says it intends to begin offering SimpliVity's Omni Stack software for its own ProLiant DL380 servers within just 60 days of closing the acquisition. By the second half of 2017, this will have expanded to "HPE SimpliVity hyperconverged systems" based on those HPE ProLiant servers.
The future plan for HPE's hybrid schemes includes "workspace controls" - self-service portals for virtualised and containerised services, and greater levels of predictive analytics and insights through better-connected services and software.