"Fusion-io, a company who can count Facebook and Apple as customers and specializes in solid-state storage systems, is now part of the SanDisk Empire, and SanDisk acquired Fusion-io for cash. $1.1 billion in cash to aid in its datacenter push.
SanDisk's Headquarters
SanDisk, like many in the solid-state storage business, has long been courting the darling in the industry specializing in the development of flash-based PCIe hardware and software tools. According to many industry insiders, however, Fusion-io, unlink SanDisk, lived in a ""boom or bust"" bubble.
Several unsteady quarters made the company a bit of a wildcard, one that SanDisk was very willing to gamble on. SanDisk brought the cash, where Fusion-io, brought the diversity in clientele and moved SanDisk up the ""datacenter stack"" with its ""Flash-transformed datacenter"", and created quite the juggernaut of a company.
Fusion-io, went public back in 2011 at $19 per share, and SanDisk will acquire the company at $11.25 per share with the funds coming from its balance sheet (basically, SanDisk is paying cash for Fushion-io.) The acquisition of Fusion-io by SanDisk is slated for completion in the 3rd quarter of the year, and will add to non-GAAP earnings in the second half of fiscal 2015.
According to Sanjay Mehrotra, CEO of SanDisk: ""'¦SanDisk's enterprise business can deliver $1 billion in revenue and Fusion-io would only accelerate the pace'¦."" (the deal will) ""'¦position us well in enterprise storage,"" said Mehrotra. SanDisk had been investing in research and development for PCIe technology, but won't have to with Fusion-io'¦""
This type of peer acquisition should lead to several other similar companies merging. Industry insiders believe that this particular merge will be a groundbreaking one, as more and more flash and solid-state storage companies pair up and get themselves space on the data center floor.
Fusion-io's Utah Based Operation
As Mehrotra believes: ""'¦with SanDisk behind it, we believe customers will deploy Fusion-io more widely, we will be able to reach out to a broader set of customers.""
Not only will the acquisition put Fusion-io on less shaky ground, it should pave the way for more solid-state, flash-based hardware ""transformed"" datacenters.
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