Hewlett Packard (HP) has inked a definitive agreement to acquire LeftHand Networks Inc, a provider of storage virtualization and iSCSI storage area network (SAN) solutions for USD 360 million.
LeftHand Networks’ solutions enable midsize companies and remote offices or branches of large corporations to easily and cost-effectively protect critical business data. A pioneer of iSCSI SAN technology, LeftHand Networks delivers storage software on industry-standard hardware that supports existing technology environments.
With the acquisition, HP plans to extend its virtualization solutions to the midmarket with software that runs on both existing storage and industry-standard server hardware, reducing training time and overall complexity.
HP said it also plans to take advantage of LeftHand Networks’ intelligent cloning technology which has the capability to reduce the amount of disk space required for storage by up to 97 percent, while its thin provisioning features reduce power consumption by minimizing the over-provisioning of storage.
“Customers need a faster, less complex and more economical route to storage networking to better protect their critical business data,” said Dave Roberson, senior vice president and general manager, StorageWorks Division, HP.
“The acquisition of LeftHand Networks significantly expands our storage portfolio, enabling HP to deliver customers an expanded suite of storage functionality, scalable capacity and interconnect options for every budget and performance requirement. With our strong channel and leading position in the industry-standard server market, we are ideally positioned to deliver this technology to customers worldwide.”
Founded in 1999, LeftHand Networks is privately held and headquartered in Boulder, Colo. It has 215 employees and more than 500 resellers and distributors worldwide. The company has some 11,000 installations across 3,000 different customers.
“Joining with HP is a natural fit for our customers and channel partners, giving them an expanded portfolio of server, storage and networking products and services that are already supported by LeftHand Networks’ solutions,” said Bill Chambers, chief executive officer, LeftHand Networks.
“The combination of LeftHand Networks’ virtualization technologies with HP’s has the power to significantly accelerate server consolidation projects by making the deployment of shared storage much easier and more cost-effective.”
The transaction is subject to certain closing conditions and is expected to be completed in HP’s first fiscal quarter of 2009. Following completion, the business will be integrated into the HP StorageWorks division within the Technology Solutions Group at HP. |
