Newisys

About Newisys

Newisys emerged in July 2000, founded by former IBM executives Claymon A. Cipione and Phillip Doyce Hester, with its initial base in Austin, Texas. The company focused on developing server and storage technology for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). Its business model centered on designing and manufacturing server and storage products that OEMs and system integrators could deploy, tailoring solutions for data centers. Newisys quickly gained traction, securing nearly $28 million in venture capital by the end of 2000 from investors including New Enterprise Associates, Austin Ventures, and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD).

A significant milestone was reached in July 2003 when Sanmina-SCI Corporation, a manufacturing partner, acquired Newisys for an undisclosed amount. Following the acquisition, Newisys operated as a subsidiary and became an original design manufacturer for Sanmina. The founders, Cipione and Hester, later moved on to executive roles at AMD in 2005. Over the years, Newisys expanded its offerings, which included storage expansion platforms, integrated RAID server/storage applications, and JBOD (Just a Bunch of Disks) enclosures. The company's product line grew to encompass SAS and SATA disk drive enclosures, enterprise-class HDDs, and solid-state disk (SSD) solutions. A notable strategic move occurred in January 2006 with the acquisition of Adaptec's block storage division. For a period starting in May 2007, the company shifted its primary focus to storage solutions before re-entering the server market in 2013.

In November 2018, Newisys was rebranded as Viking Enterprise Solutions to better reflect its expanded product portfolio for hyperscale data centers and storage OEMs. This rebranding aligned the division more closely with Sanmina's existing Viking Technology brand. Under the new name, the company continued to provide advanced data center products, including disk-based and solid-state memory storage server appliances. Their offerings expanded to include high-capacity hybrid and all-flash products, NVMe-over-Fabric solutions, and application-specific storage software aimed at markets like high-performance computing (HPC) and media and entertainment. The client base consists of OEMs, system integrators, cloud service providers, and large enterprise businesses that integrate these platforms into their own products, which helps reduce development costs and speed up time-to-market.