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As per news sources, Lenovo has inked a definitive agreement with IBM to acquire the entire storage portfolio of IBM, barring tape drives and libraries and some other fundamental R&D. The acquisition includes IBM Storwize family, IBM XIV, IBM SONAS, IBM System Storage DS8000, IBM Spectrum Storage, FlashSystem and associated software.
Lenovo has acquired it for $3.4 billion, of which approximately three billion will be paid in cash and the balance in Lenovo stock.The agreement builds upon a longstanding collaboration that began when Lenovo acquired IBMs PC business in 2005 and then server business in 2014.
Following the closing of the transaction, Lenovo will assume related customer service and maintenance operations. IBM will continue to provide maintenance delivery on Lenovo’s behalf for an extended period of time; so customers should see little change in their maintenance support.Approximately 6,500 IBM employees around the world, including those based in San Jose, CA, are expected to be offered employment by Lenovo.
While the transaction is being completed, both companies expect no change in their existing storage operations, including customer service and product availability.
For newspapers in some countries, it’s a tradition to invent crazy news on April 1. This press release, dated April 1, has been totally invented by StorageNewsletter.com.
It’s a joke but it could happen as IBM is losing regularly market share in storage and Lenovo wants to be more powerful in enterprise. Last year Lenovo acquires IBM’s x86 server business and the Chinese company already OEMed several storage products from Big Blue. Lenovo entered into storage with the acquisition EMC/Iomega in 2012 and has also some relationships continuing with EMC.