Logo sign at computer maker Lenovo’s Silicon Valley headquarters in Santa Clara, … [+]
Lenovo surprised industry watchers by announcing that it intends to acquire Infinidat, a privately held enterprise storage provider with strong success in the high-end enterprise storage business—an acquisition with significant implications for Lenovo, Infinidat and the wider industry. wide range of enterprise storage.
The acquisition will allow the tech giant, which already dominates the entry-level storage segment and is number four across all segments, to expand its footprint in the high-performance enterprise storage market, where it currently finds strong success with his server offerings.
Financial terms of the deal, which is expected to close in the second half of 2025, were not disclosed.
Why Infinitas?
Founded in 2011 by Moshe Yanai, a storage industry veteran, Infinidat specializes in scalable, high-performance storage solutions designed to handle mission-critical workloads. Its product portfolio includes:
- InfiniBox: A hybrid storage array that delivers high throughput and petabyte-scale capacity.
- InfiniBox SSA: A flash storage solution designed for ultra-low latency and consistent performance.
- InfiniGuard: A data protection appliance tailored for backup and rapid recovery with cyber resilience capabilities.
Infinidat’s architecture uses advanced in-memory algorithms to deliver performance comparable to all-flash systems, making it a cost-effective alternative for enterprises managing large-scale data environments.
The company also focuses on cyber resilience and AI-driven workflows, catering to industries such as finance, healthcare, telecommunications and cloud service providers.
Lenovo’s growing storage business
Lenovo has built a strong reputation in the entry-level and mid-range enterprise storage markets. Its storage solutions include:
- The ThinkSystem DG (all-flash), DM (hybrid array) and DE SAN arrays, which are primarily designed by NetApp, but are sold under the Lenovo brand as part of a broader OEM agreement.
- Software-defined infrastructure and hyperconvergence offerings under the TruScale platform, which provides consumption-as-a-service models.
While these products have increased Lenovo’s leadership in the lower IDC price bands (<$100,000), the company has not been a major player in the high-end storage segment.
The acquisition of Infinidat promises to change that, bringing Lenovo a complementary portfolio to compete in this space and address the needs of large enterprises and service providers.
The importance of cyber resilience
The move also underscores the growing importance of cyber resilience and AI in securing enterprises. Infinidad’s industry-leading focus in these areas aligns with Lenovo’s industry trends and positions to address new challenges in data security and intelligent data management.
Infinidat chief marketing officer Eric Herzog agrees, telling me that Infinidat’s cyber defense capabilities are “broader and deeper than NetApp,” going on to reinforce that Infinidat’s RTO and RPO numbers are among the best in the industry .
New engineering skills
While Lenovo has a capable software engineering organization, its reliance on NetApp for core enterprise storage expertise limits its flexibility to innovate in enterprise storage. Leveraging Infinidat’s expertise in this space opens the door to a more dynamic enterprise storage business. This aspect should not be ignored.
What about NetApp?
The wild card for Lenovo is the potential impact the acquisition could have on its strategic relationship with NetApp, a relationship that began in 2018. It’s a collaboration that has grown to include several key initiatives.
The companies work together to develop Lenovo-branded storage products that integrate NetApp’s all-flash data management technology with Lenovo’s ThinkSystem infrastructure. The ThinkSystem DM-Series uses NetApp’s ONTAP software, while the DE Series uses NetApp’s SANtricity operating system.
Lenovo and NetApp also created a joint venture in China to provide localized storage solutions tailored to the world’s fastest growing data market. This initiative combines Lenovo’s market presence with NetApp’s storage expertise to effectively address regional requirements across markets in China and beyond in Asia.
Most recently, in May 2024, the companies introduced NetApp AIPod integrated with Lenovo ThinkSystem servers optimized for generative AI workloads. This solution simplifies the deployment and management of AI models, a move to make advanced AI capabilities more accessible to enterprises.
The acquisition of Lenovo places a new strategic emphasis on providing its own high-end storage solutions, which can influence the dynamics of cooperation. NetApp does not share products with Lenovo in this segment and the two companies do not otherwise compete. This deal changes that.
Lenovo doesn’t seem concerned. I spoke with Stuart McRae, executive director and general manager of Lenovo’s data storage business. He told me he sees the acquisition as “complementary” to its NetApp relationship, going on to say that “the focus there is really in the entry-level and mid-range space.” It is too early to assess whether NetApp agrees with this position.
Analyst’s opinion
The enterprise storage market is extremely competitive, with major players such as Dell Technologies, IBM and NetApp vying for dominance. The acquisition of Infinidat will position Lenovo as a more competitive player in the enterprise storage market, expanding the company into high-end segments already well served by its PC business, allowing it to:
- Compete more effectively in high-end storage, a segment where Infinidat’s petabyte-scale solutions and performance optimization have already established a strong foundation.
- Address the growing demand for hybrid multi-cloud architectures by combining Lenovo’s TruScale platform with Infinidat’s on-premise expertise.
- Offer cost-effective alternatives to traditional all-flash arrays, attractive to cost-conscious enterprises without compromising performance.
Beyond giving Lenovo access to the high-end storage market, the deal also brings long-term benefits to the company by significantly increasing the reach of its internal engineering teams.
This is Lenovo’s first acquisition in more than a decade, indicating the importance of the high-end storage market to Lenovo’s long-term strategy. By integrating Infinidat’s advanced storage technologies and leveraging its global infrastructure and customer base, Lenovo is well positioned to succeed. However, the long-term impact of the acquisition will depend on Lenovo’s ability to execute its integration strategy effectively while navigating a tough competitive landscape.
The ultimate success of the deal will depend on Lenovo’s ability to manage an integration of two very different cultures while navigating its existing partnerships and executing a cohesive strategy for maintaining top-tier enterprises. If executed well, the acquisition promises to change the dynamics and intensify competition throughout the high-end enterprise storage market, especially for incumbents with legacy architectures.
As the acquisition progresses, all eyes will be on the company. Lenovo has always been an execution-oriented company, and there’s no reason to believe it won’t leverage those capabilities to make this integration a success.
Lenovo is an aggressive competitor and will bring that aggressiveness to the high end of the enterprise storage market. Expanding its existing infrastructure business with a new reach into the upper tiers of the enterprise storage market promises to make Lenovo a disruptive powerhouse. We will watch.
Disclosure: Steve McDowell is an industry analyst and NAND Research is an industry analytics firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis and advisory services with many technology companies; the author has provided paid services to each company mentioned in this article in the past and may again in the future. Oracle provided technical fact-checking for this article. Mr McDowell does not hold any equity position in any of the companies mentioned.
