Violin Systems LLC
today announced it has signed a Letter of Intent with X-IO Technologies
to acquire X-IO Storage, the division of X-IO Technologies that
developed the popular Intelligent Storage Element (ISE) flash and hybrid
storage array product lines. Financial terms were not disclosed. The
transaction is executed to be completed within 30 days.
Violin
Systems will add X-IO ISE arrays to its flash storage product lineup,
meeting the needs of a greater variety of customers and providing the
industry with a wide range of solutions spanning from terabytes to
multiple petabytes with enterprise-class performance, features, and
reliability. Ultimately Violin Systems intends to integrate its own
extreme performance technology with X-IO price-performance value to
deliver transformational economics for organizations of any size.
In
addition to the X-IO products and engineering team, Violin intends to
retain X-IO's world class service process and organization. This will
ensure that the X-IO customer installed base, with more than 8,000
arrays continues to get the same level of service. Violin's goal is to
transform overall customer experience by utilizing the best practices
from both organizations."
X-IO Technologies will be rebranded as Axellio Inc. to focus on its solutions for edge computing and hyperconverged infrastructures.
"This
acquisition will create substantial opportunity for Violin Systems in
price-sensitive mid-markets where X-IO has excelled, and down the road,
the opportunity to assimilate X-IO's product strengths so we can keep
shepherding customers into the ideal storage systems as their needs
evolve," said Mark Lewis, Chairman and CEO of Violin Systems. "Our
global network of partners will also welcome the ISE arrays as a
cost-effective alternative for common workloads like VDI and database
acceleration."
"With
the unmatched affordability of X-IO, and the extreme performance Violin
is known for, the market has a clear leader in extreme performance
storage solutions," said Bill Miller, CEO of Axellio Inc. "Whether it is
price/performance for midsized environments, or hyperscale density for
large enterprises, Violin will be able to deliver the fastest enterprise
storage in the world at the best value." Bill Miller will be joining
Violin Systems Board of Directors upon completion of acquisition.
Violin's
extreme performance platform enables a dramatic infrastructure cost
savings and cost avoidance of 40 percent or more by reducing the number
of servers and cores needed. Consolidated hardware in the data center
means less power and cooling requirements, less management and a reduced
need for the number of software and application licenses. With dramatic
improvement in application performance, there is an equally dramatic
improvement in the experience of the applications' end users, resulting
in improved customer satisfaction. Combined with Violin's performance
advantages, customers are able to realize dramatic competitive
advantages while simultaneously saving money.
X-IO
Technologies was born as XIOtech in 1997 and acquired by Seagate in
1999. Initially operating as Xiotech, part of Seagate's Advanced Storage
Architecture group, it was spun out in 2002 and sold to a venture
capital firm. Then, in 2007, Xiotech acquired Seagate ASA. The company
became X-IO Technologies in 2011. In 2017, X-IO introduced its first
Axellio edge computing product. For more information, visit https://axellio.com.