netapp

Three U.S. senators are asking Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to investigate recent reports that Internet-monitoring gear made by two California-based companies has found its way to Syria.

In a letter (PDF) made public today, the senators ask Clinton to investigate reports that devices made by NetApp and Blue Coat Systems were sold to Syria in a possible violation of U.S. law. The companies are both publicly traded and located in Sunnyvale, Calif., about an hour's drive south of San Francisco.

"We are deeply concerned about the reported sale of Internet monitoring and censorship technology to … Read more

A recent frenzy of storage acquisitions--with 3PAR going to HP, Isilon to EMC, and now Compellent to Dell--brings storage full-circle. Your next enterprise storage purchase? Almost guaranteed to be from a leviathan.

One of the once-amazing changes in the computer business was the birth of independent storage vendors. For decades there've been a few odd after-market and third-party storage vendors. But they were mere pilot fish congregating around the truly big, important swimmers: systems vendors. When you bought storage, it generally came from the same company that made your computer. That was the natural order.

But in the 1990s, … Read more

Enterprise IT tends to see waves of interest and productivity related to new technologies that ebb and flow with interest from users and developers. Cloud computing in a variety of forms--compute power, storage, etc.--has been the recent poster child for reducing cost and complexity.

There is little question that users want to make their technology life easier, which is why cloud services have been embraced so heartily to date. And because users are interested in the cloud, large enterprise vendors are looking to capitalize on the interest and adoption.

This obviously makes sense. Corporations exist to make money. And … Read more

NetApp's new CEO is Tom Georgens. Georgens steps in as Dan Warmenhoven, NetApp's CEO since 1994, moves on to the position of chairman of the board and a partnership development role under the direction of Georgens.

Warmenhoven's accomplishments were many, but he may be remembered most for turning the small niche-market opportunity that NAS once was as a dedicated file server attached to a LAN into the major networked storage platform NAS has become. Along the way, he built NetApp up to a 3.4 billion dollar company with 8,000-plus employees focused on storage.

NetApp co-founder … Read more

The fight to win Data Domain is over.

EMC and Data Domain announced Wednesday that the two have entered a definitive merger agreement. EMC will buy Data Domain for $33.50 a share in cash, a deal worth $2.1 billion.

Data Domain's board said it determined that EMC's offer was "advisable, fair to and in the best interests of Data Domain and its stockholders." The board is recommending that Data Domain investors tender their shares to EMC.

EMC was determined to buy Data Domain by continually outbidding NetApp over the past five weeks and is … Read more

EMC has proven tenacious in trying to outbid NetApp in the battle to buy Data Domain. But NetApp isn't going down without a fight.

After Monday's announcement that EMC had upped its offer for Data Domain to $33.50 a share, NetApp countered with two responses, the first noncommittal but the second quite clear.

The first word from NetApp:

"In response to EMC's revised, unsolicited offer, the NetApp Board of Directors will carefully weigh its options, keeping in mind both its fiduciary duty to its stockholders and its disciplined acquisition strategy," Dan Warmenhoven, chairman and … Read more

The stakes have been raised yet again in the ongoing saga to acquire storage vendor Data Domain.

EMC announced Monday that it has upped its bid for Data Domain to $33.50 per share in cash, a deal worth about $2.1 billion. The company said its all-cash offer is "clearly superior" to NetApp's proposal of $30 per share in cash and stock.

In a letter to Data Domain Chairman Aneel Bhusri, EMC further strengthened its claim by stating that it has removed all deal-protection provisions from the offer as a way of maximizing value for Data … Read more

The corporate soap opera between Data Domain and potential suitors NetApp and EMC has a new episode.

Two law firms have launched class action suits against the board of Data Domain, alleging that the process used to accept NetApp's offer may not have been fair and open.

Attorneys at Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann filed suit in Delaware on June 12 on behalf of the Police and Fire Retirement System of the city of Detroit and "similarly situated shareholders of Data Domain," according to the firm's press release.

The suit contends that Data Domain's board … Read more

Much drama has ensued since NetApp announced the intended acquisition of Data Domain on May 20 for the whopping sum of $1.5 billion.

EMC countered with a $30-per-share offer valued at $1.8 billion. NetApp then raised its offer to $30 a share, valued at $1.9 billion. Data Domain essentially said, "Thank you, EMC, but we like the new NetApp offer more than yours." EMC then claimed that it had been unfairly shut out of the bidding process and appealed directly to Data Domain employees.

NetApp countered with a claim that EMC's potential acquisition of … Read more