Pure Storage Expands Operations Across EMEA …

Pure Storage, Inc. has expanded its operations across the EMEA region in response to demand for its all-flash enterprise storage array.

The company’s introduction to the European market is a milestone in its expansion plans, which were outlined in the company’s most recent round of financing, led by venture firm Index Ventures.

"EMEA represents a substantial market opportunity for all-flash storage systems; we believe Pure Storage is best positioned to address that opportunity," said Mike Volpi, partner at Index Ventures. "Their North American momentum sets them up to extend naturally into EMEA and we are very pleased to see the company executing on its planned global expansion."

During the last quarter, Pure Storage established its European HQs in the UK and signed key reseller, distribution and support relationships across the EMEA geographies, from Norway to South Africa. The company will extend the same tier 1 support it delivers to its North America install base to its EMEA customers, with 4 hours onsite service.

"The all-flash array space is one of the hottest topics in enterprise IT right now, and in the last few months we’ve seen a surge in interest that validates the approach and demonstrates that AFAs are not just a ‘flash in the pan,’" said Simon Robinson, research VP, storage and information management at 451 Research. "Pure Storage’s initial traction indicates that customers are writing cheques for innovative, ground-up approaches to using flash in enterprise storage architectures, making this a good time for the company to expand overseas to maximize its opportunity. I’m sure organizations in EMEA will prove receptive to Pure Storage’s offering."

 The company also announced it has appointed storage industry veteran John Silva to lead its EMEA operations. Prior to joining Pure Storage, Silva served as EMEA sales director for HP’s 3PAR storage division, where he scaled its business throughout the European market. He has held similar positions at 3PAR Data, Hitachi Data Systems and EMC. Since joining Pure Storage in Q4 2012, he has led the creation of a world-class team, signed partnerships across multiple countries and built out the support and distribution infrastructure that the company’s EMEA-based customers will expect and need.

"We see exploding demand for all-flash storage systems in Europe, particularly as more companies struggle to support their performance-sensitive applications with disk or hybrid storage solutions," said John Silva, EMEA regional director at Pure Storage. "European customers need a strong foundation of support from international suppliers, which is why we’ve invested aggressively in building our distribution, channel, and support infrastructure in the region."

"It’s an exciting time for Pure Storage," said David Hatfield, president at Pure Storage. "The company’s accelerated expansion is being driven by customer and partner demand in the region, which validates that our go-to-market approach, technology and customer support are well-aligned with the needs of the European marketplace. We will continue to aggressively scale our international operations to support our enterprise customers across the UK, Europe and beyond, and look forward to bringing the benefits of the FlashArray to even more customers in the region."

"A leading supplier of storage and backup solutions in the Nordics, Purity is committed to unearthing next generation storage solutions like the Pure Storage FlashArray, that support building more efficient IT infrastructures through the deployment of virtualization strategies and green storage initiatives," said Kjell Rune Øyrås, partner and co-founder at Purity AS, Norway. "We’re proud to be partnering with Pure Storage to bring its leading edge enterprise storage array to the Nordic market flashArray delivers dramatic storage consolidation benefits that will help our customers to reduce their data centre footprint, while delivering strong performance gains and simplified management."

"For more than 20 years, Polcom has been among the first resellers to identify the world’s most promising IT technologies, like the Pure Storage FlashArray, and bring them to the European market," said Marcin Gwozdz, CEO at Polcom, Poland. "Polcom has been responsible for building one the biggest and most modern data centres in Poland and is dedicated to continuing to staying at the forefront of technological innovation, by partnering with groundbreaking solution providers like Pure Storage to deliver the best emerging technologies to our customers."