HP buys LeftHand - brilliant, and cheap. $360M cash - not the $1B plus they wanted post Equallogic, but still a good deal. Why? It's all software - HP can use it for all their billion legacy server installations with direct attached storage, all their existing storage platforms, and all their new servers. The fact that LH can run as a hardware free virtual machine application makes it pretty unique.
Interestingly enough, they would have got more money if they had dumped the hardware that goofy Wall St. bankers told them they needed to keep selling in order to have a bigger top line. Silly Wall St.
It's cool stuff for sure, and HP can leverage it nine ways from Sunday. It gives them scale-out across their portfolio, and a big advantage specifically to VMware implementations - since they can make DAS work without new storage if necessary.
Quantum settled with Riverbed. Q gets $11M and they agree to stop suing each other. Could be Riverbed just tossed them a bone instead of fighting, but that patent Q got from RockSoft seems to be holding up well. RVBD didn't need to hassle as they are now in the market with their own de-dupe type functions, so the $11M could have been a "go away" play. Gag orders abound so we'll never know - until the booze starts flying that is. On second thought, who cares? Lawyers make me nuts. Get on with it people.
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