Joint Venture Between Lenovo and NetApp
Especially to deliver storage products and data management solutions in China
This is a Press Release edited by StorageNewsletter.com on September 17, 2018 at 2:36 pmAt Lenovo’s Transform 2.0 conference, Lenovo Data Center Group and NetApp, Inc. announced a global multi-faceted, partnership to bring technology and a simplified experience to help customers modernize IT and accelerate their digital transformation.
In high-performance computing and flash storage solutions, the two companies are positioned to bring technology and scale to enable customers worldwide to modernize their IT architectures from the edge to the core network to the cloud.
The two companies are co-developing a large range of new Lenovo-branded storage products that combine NetApp’s all-flash data management solutions with Lenovo’s ThinkSystem infrastructure. These new products will utilize core software technology from NetApp and will be manufactured by Lenovo, leveraging Lenovo’s supply chain, which is ranked in the top five by Gartner for all global technology companies.
Additionally, the two firms announced a new joint venture company in China to deliver storage products and data management solutions localized and tailored to meet China’s specialized requirements and distinct cloud ecosystem. The new venture is expected to be operational by spring 2019, pending local approvals.
“Lenovo is committed to driving the new IT – Intelligent Transformation – through an expanding customer-centric set of data center offerings,” said Yang Yuanqing, chairman and CEO, Lenovo. “Lenovo is committed to both organic and inorganic growth to meet the needs of our customers, and maintaining the strongest global partnerships in the data center industry.“
“In today’s global economy, customers demand new approaches to IT infrastructures that support their digital transformation; through this partnership, Lenovo and NetApp will offer a comprehensive portfolio of products, solutions and service that is unrivaled in the market today,” said George Kurian, CEO, NetApp. “Combining our complementary strengths in customer-centric innovation, Lenovo and NetApp will establish a new standard to accelerate our customers’ success.”
“Lenovo and NetApp are uniquely positioned to deliver the next-generation of high performance data management solutions across the globe offering customers unprecedented new performance, value and choice,” said Kirk Skaugen, EVP, Lenovo and president, Lenovo. “Lenovo, now the world’s fastest growing server company, remains committed to our vision of being the most trusted data center partner for our customer’s digital transformation. We are bringing these new storage and data management solutions immediately to companies in more than 160 countries with an unmatched supply chain and services network, and through an ever-strengthening global channel partner ecosystem.”
The first solutions from this partnership – Lenovo ThinkSystem DE and DM Series – will be globally available for purchase immediately.
More on the partnership and other announcements from Transform 2.0
Comments
The Chinese multinational technology company wanted to be a big force in enterprise storage since many years and worked successively with EMC, IBM and now NetApp to try to succeed.
Lenovo first began a partnership with EMC in 2012 for servers and storage in 2012 under a joint venture (51% Lenovo, 49% EMC) named LenovoEMC to sell NAS, and, at the same time, acquired EMC's subsidiary Iomega becoming a Chinese company that disappears.
In 2014, it decided to OEM IBM Storage as the two companies had several business relationships. Lenovo acquired IBM's PC business in 2005 including the ThinkPad laptop and tablet lines, paying $1.25 billion for the deal and assumed an additional $500 million of IBM's debt. Big Blue acquired an 18.9% shareholding in Lenovo in 2005 as part this deal and reduced its holdings of Lenovo stock. In July 2008, IBM's interest in Lenovo fell below the 5% threshold that mandates public disclosure.
Also in 2014, IBM's Intel-based server lines, including IBM System x and IBM BladeCenter were bought by Lenovo which also resold some IBM's storage products.
But the relation between the two companies was not a success.
Back in 2016, Lenovo decided to partner with Nimble Storage aggregating its ThinkAgile CX series of converged infrastructure solutions with start-up's AFAs. It also worked with Cloudian, Datacore, Nexenta, Pivot3, Scale Computing and Veeam.
Finally Lenovo now will try to ramp its storage portfolio using NetApp software with its ThinkSystem brand to fight with Dell EMC, HPE and Chinese competitor Huawei. In addition, the two companies will form a joint venture (51% Lenovo, 49% NetApp) in China to target the local cloud service market.
For IDC, Lenovo was number six in enterprise storage systems in 2Q18, with revenue of $397 million or 3% of the worldwide market, an increase of 133% compared to 2Q17.
Here are the specs of the DE and DM series systems available as all flash or hybrid.
Click to enlarge
Click to enlarge
Other Lenovo storage products include:
Tape
- * LTO drives: IBM TS2250, TS260, TS2270, TS2280
- * LTO autoloader: IBM TS900 (9 slots)
- * LTO library: IBM TS4300 (3U, 40 slots)
DAS
- * Lenovo D1212, D1224, D3284 (5U, 84 3.5-inch HDDs)
- * Lenovo Optane vSAN ReadyNode systems (AFAs up to 12TB)
- * Flex System for SAP
SAN
- * IBM Storwize
- * Storage V series (hybrid, maximum 240 drives)
Read also:
Lenovo to OEM IBM Storage
Storwize disk and tape systems
2014.01.23 | Press Release
Lenovo and EMC in Strategic WW Partnership for Servers and Storage
And joint venture formed with Iomega with majority interest for Chinese firm
2012.08.01 | Press Release
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