The aim of buying Texas Memory Systems (TMS) would be to advance storage and server offerings, as well as the four-month old PureSystems product line, IBM stated in a release on the proposed deal. IBM noted that it would continue support of the TMS portfolio of SSD and flash and memory solutions as it integrated technology into its own offerings.
Alex Kurtz, analyst with brokerage experts Sterne Agee, said IBM’s interest in an outside flash memory provider indicate a market sector “finally reaching a threshold of disruption to the traditional Server/Storage markets and architectures.” To that end, Kurtz said in a release on the IBM deal that other larger storage vendors, particularly EMC, may need to review their buyout possibilities with niche vendors to keep up with the fast-paced market diversification.
The privately held vendor was founded in 1978 at first to address processing needs for the oil and gas industry, but soon after with a focus on digital signal processing and enterprise RAM rackmount systems. In 2009, TMS introduced its 5 terabyte capacity rackmount flash system.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. IBM expects it to close later this year.
IBM has been busy buying up various vendors throughout the first half of the year, but deals of late for Vivisimo and TeaLeaf mostly related to its analytics and customer data practices.
Justin Kern is senior editor at Information Management and can be reached at justin.kern@sourcemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @IMJustinKern.
