StorageApps

About StorageApps

Founded in 1995 as RAID Power Services by Daniel Gittleman, StorageApps emerged as a key player in the storage networking market. Gittleman, who served as the company's chairman and chief executive officer, guided the firm from its inception through a significant period of growth. The company's trajectory culminated in a pivotal milestone in September 2001, when it was acquired by Hewlett-Packard (HP) for approximately $350 million in a stock-for-stock transaction, subsequently becoming a wholly-owned subsidiary of HP.

StorageApps specialized in providing comprehensive storage virtualization solutions, applications, and appliances. Its business was centered on developing technology that allowed clients to connect and manage disparate storage devices from various vendors as a single, unified pool of resources. This approach addressed the growing complexity of corporate data storage, enabling businesses to add capacity and move data seamlessly across their networks, independent of server operating systems or network infrastructure. The company's offerings were designed to help clients, which included both large corporations and smaller internet companies, to manage the unpredictable growth of data and avoid being locked into a single vendor's storage ecosystem.

A cornerstone of its product lineup was the SANLink appliance, which provided an intelligent and simplified method for creating and managing a Storage Area Network (SAN). The company's revenue model was based on the sale of its hardware, software, and services, including OEM agreements with companies like Dell Computer. The firm attracted significant investment from prominent venture capital firms, including a $25 million round from Dell Ventures and The Blackstone Group, underscoring the strategic importance of its technology in the burgeoning e-business economy. The acquisition by HP was a strategic move to integrate StorageApps' virtualization capabilities into HP's own Federated Storage Area Management (FSAM) strategy, aiming to enhance the management of large-scale, heterogeneous storage environments.