Dive Brief:
- Western Digital Corp. recently acquired Tegile Systems, a flash and persistent-memory storage manufacturer for enterprise data center programs, according to a company press release.
- Western Digital also bought Upthere, a cloud services company providing comprehensive personal storage services.
- The company is heading a consortium to purchase Toshiba Corp’s chip business and hopes to announce the deal Thursday, according to Reuters. Toshiba is the world’s second largest maker of NAND chips, which are used in flash memory.
Dive Insight:
Western Digital's buying spree is indicative of the company's efforts to modernize its offerings and become more cloud-based. The provider of storage technologies and solutions — and one of the largest computer hard disk drive manufacturers in the world — was founded in 1970 but has adjusted to the changing tech landscape more slowly than several rivals.
Western Digital says the acquisition of Upthere will enhance its cloud-based offerings. The purchase of Tegile will allow its Data Center Systems unit to better address changing storage needs of customers and boost cloud-based storage and enterprise systems, according to a company announcement.
The Upthere and Toshiba purchases are important for Western Digital's response to growing demand in the increasingly lucrative flash-array storage market. IDC recently estimated the market will grow to nearly $20 billion by 2020.
Western Digital rival Samsung recently announced plans for $18.2 billion in new investments into NAND production lines, according to Reuters.
