Hewlett-Packard has acquired LeftHand Networks to extend its
storage and virtualisation offering in the SME and branch office
market segments.
LeftHand Networks is a provider of storage virtualisation and
iSCSI storage area networks (Sans).
LeftHand Networks' systems enable midsize companies and remote
offices or branches of large corporations to easily and
cost-effectively protect critical business data.
HP has agreed to purchase LeftHand Networks for £200m, subject
to certain purchase price adjustments.
Founded in 1999, LeftHand Networks is privately held and
headquartered in Boulder, Colorado. It has 215 employees and more
than 500 resellers and distributors worldwide.
The company has more than 11,000 installations across 3,000
different customers.
A pioneer of
iSCSI San technology, LeftHand Networks delivers scalable
storage software on industry-standard hardware that supports
existing technology environments.
LeftHand Networks' portfolio extends HP virtualisation offerings
to the midmarket with software that runs on both existing storage
and industry-standard server hardware, reducing training time and
overall complexity.
As a result, companies can move to a San for significantly lower
cost, manage their data more easily, and scale their storage
infrastructures incrementally as their businesses grow, said
HP.
Additionally, for certain virtualised environments, said HP,
LeftHand Networks' intelligent cloning technology can reduce the
amount of disk space required for storage by up to 97%, whilst its
thin provisioning features reduce power consumption by minimising
the over-provisioning of storage.
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.