EMC to Acquire Isilon in Storage Deal

The takeover battle for 3PAR raised expectations of more deals to come in the storage industry. One of the storage stocks that surged in the wake of the 3PAR deal was Isilon Systems (ISLN). The speculators proved right, as EMC announced this morning that it has agreed to acquire Isilon for $33.85 a share, valuing the deal at $2.25 billion.

Shares of Isilon surged 28 percent in early trading, gaining $7.49 a share to $33.79.

EMC cited Isilon's leading position in the fast-growing scale-out NAS (network attached storage), which allows companies to begin small and scale quickly up to 10 petabytes in size, with high levels of performance and availability. The Hopkinton, Mass. storage giant said Isilon's technology, together with EMC's native Atmos object storage, can provide a more complete infrastructure solution for large datasets.

"The unmistakable waves of cloud computing and ‘Big Data’ are upon us," said Joe Tucci, Chairman and CEO, EMC Corporation. "Customers are looking for new ways to store, protect, secure and add intelligence to the vast amounts of information they will accumulate over the next decade. EMC, in combination with Isilon, sits at the intersection of these trends with leading products, solutions and services to help customers get the absolute most out of what cloud computing has to offer."

"Our excitement about the opportunity to become part of EMC’s world-class team cannot be overstated," said Sujal Patel, CEO of Isilon. "EMC’s track record of successfully acquiring, integrating and growing leading companies and the complementary nature of our technologies are undeniable. I am most excited about Isilon’s ability to now leverage EMC’s unparalleled market reach and portfolio of leading technology assets to build on our already significant success in this fast-growing space. Together, Isilon and EMC are ideally positioned to take our company to the next level and accelerate Isilon’s growth and technology adoption by customers around the world.”