#Nimble storage lawsuit netapp update
#Nimble storage lawsuit netapp software

#Nimble storage lawsuit netapp software

That team is currently running Cisco's all-important Insieme unit, which makes Cisco's flagship Nexus 9000 router and the software that allows Cisco to compete in the 'software defined networking' market that threatens to upend its hold on the network equipment market.Ĭisco has previously leaned on these engineers for its famous 'spin-in' model. We're hearing that this new team may even involve the legendary triumvirate of engineers at Cisco known as 'the heart, soul, and brains' of the company: Mario Mazzola, Prem Jain, and Luca Cafiero.

One of new Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins' first acts was to kill the product and lay off the team. It bought a startup called Whiptail for $450 million in 2013, and after a couple of years the product still didn't work. Cisco is now partnering with everybody, including NetApp, IBM, Pure Storage.īut to really compete with HP and EMC/Dell, Cisco needs its own storage tech.Ĭisco actually tried to build its own storage offering and that was a disaster. It originally partnered with EMC for the storage part, but those companies don't like each other now. Pure Storage had a less-than-spectacular IPO, Nimble Storage is trading below $7 (from a year-ago high of $52), and Violin Memory's stock is now nearly worthless.Ĭisco was one of the leaders of the 'converged' computing market, with its UCS computers/networking/storage boxes. Meanwhile, some of the hot newer storage companies are also hurting. Storage vendors who are just selling storage are struggling. That means that companies are buying their computers, networking, and storage all together as a bundle, Miki Sandorfi, a vice president at major storage player Hitachi Data Systems tells us. The struggles in the storage industry come from a movement called 'converged' and 'hyperconverged' computing. NetApp paid dearly for it, too, spending $870 million in cash on SolidFire. If Cisco bought NetApp it would gain SolidFire, as well as all of NetApp's enterprise storage customers. The company just finally bought a flash startup, SolidFire, in December.īut this is years after its competitors were snapping up flash vendors. NetApp is cheap because it 'missed' the biggest opportunity in its industry, the shift to flash storage, another source told us. (The joke in the industry, another person told us, was that Cisco just needs to wait another 3 months and NetApp would be even cheaper.) With a $6.9 billion market cap today, NetApp isn't terribly expensive for Cisco.

#Nimble storage lawsuit netapp update

But the truth is Cisco's 'focus is on emerging technologies in storage,' and that the company is 'looking forward instead of backward.'įor the record, Cisco spokesperson Nigel Glennie declined comment, telling us, 'We don't comment on rumors and speculation.' (We've reached out to NetApp as well and will update when we hear back.) Not now, not ever.Ĭisco is aware of the all the talk and is being asked all the time, we hear from somebody close to the company. (And every few years, there's a new Cisco-buying-NetApp rumor.)īut we understand from people close to the company that such a deal isn't going to happen. People have been talking about it ever since Dell announced its plans to buy EMC last October. We've heard this Cisco-buying-NetApp scuttlebutt from multiple people in the last week. Now everyone is buzzing that Cisco might buck up and buy its partner NetApp, which is the No.

One of the hardest hit is NetApp, its stock now trading at its lowest point in about five years - the stock is about $22, a mere $6.9 billion market cap. It's lost almost half its value in the last year, and almost two-thirds of its value since 2011.

There's an implosion going on in the $36 billion enterprise storage market, which was the darling of the tech world just two years ago. Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders.