Signage with logo at the Silicon Valley headquarters of computer manufacturer Lenovo, Santa Clara, … [+]
Lenovo surprised industry watchers, announcing that it intends to acquire Infinidat, a privately held enterprise storage provider with solid success in the high-end enterprise storage business — an acquisition with tsignificant implications for Lenovo, Infinidat, and the broader enterprise storage industry.
The acquisition will allow the tech giant, which already dominates in 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’s currently finding strong success with its server offerings.
The financial terms of the deal, which is expected to close in the second half of 2025, have not been disclosed.
Why Infinidat?
Founded in 2011 by Moshe Yanai, a veteran in the storage industry, Infinidat specializes in scalable, high-performance storage solutions designed to handle mission-critical workloads. Its product portfolio includes:
- InfiniBox: A hybrid storage array offering high throughput and petabyte-scale capacity.
- InfiniBox SSA: An all-flash storage solution designed for ultra-low latency and consistent performance.
- InfiniGuard: A data protection appliance tailored for rapid backup and recovery with cyber-resilience capabilities.
Infinidat’s architecture leverages advanced caching 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-resiliency and AI-driven workflows, catering to industries like 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:
- ThinkSystem DG (all-flash), DM (hybrid arrays), and DE SAN arrays, which are predominantly engineered by NetApp but sold with Lenovo branding as part of a wide-reaching OEM agreement.
- Software-defined and hyperconverged infrastructure offerings under the TruScale platform, which provides consumption-based as-a-service models.
While these products have grown Lenovo’s leadership in lower IDC price bands (
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.
Importance of Cyber-Resilience
This move also highlights the increasing importance of cyber-resilience and AI in enterprise storage. Infinidat’s industry-leading focus on these areas aligns with industry trends and positions Lenovo to address emerging challenges in data security and intelligent data management.
Infinidat’s chief marketing officer Eric Herzog agrees, telling me that Infinidat’s cyber-protection capabilities are “broader and deeper than NetApp,” going on to reenforce that Infinidat’s RTO and RPO numbers are among the best in the industry.
New Engineering Capabilities
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 shouldn’t be ignored.
What About NetApp?
The wild card for Lenovo is the potential impact the acquisition may have on its strategic relationship with NetApp, a relationship that began in 2018 It’s a collaboration that’s grown to encompass 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 utilizes NetApp’s ONTAP software, while the DE-Series employs NetApp’s SANtricity OS.
Lenovo and NetApp also established a joint venture in China to deliver 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 demands across the China and broader Asia markets.
Most recently, in May 2024, the companies introduced the 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.
Lenovo’s acquisition places a fresh strategic emphasis on delivering its own proprietary high-end storage solutions, which could influence the dynamics of the collaboration. NetApp doesn’t share products with Lenovo in this segment, and the two companies don’t otherwise compete. This deal changes that.
Lenovo doesn’t seem concerned. I spoke with Stuart McCrae, executive director and general manager of Lenovo’s data storage business. He told me that he sees the acquisition as “complementary” to its NetApp relationship, going on to say that “the focus there is really in the entry and mid-range space.” It’s too early to gauge whether NetApp agrees with that take.
Analyst’s Take
The enterprise storage market is fiercely competitive, with major players like Dell Technologies, IBM, and NetApp vying for dominance. Acquiring Infinidat will position Lenovo as a more competitive player in the enterprise storage market, extending the company into high-end segments already well served by its compute 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 firm foothold.
- Address the growing demand for hybrid multi-cloud architectures, combining Lenovo’s TruScale platform with Infinidat’s on-premises expertise.
- Offer cost-effective alternatives to traditional all-flash arrays, appealing to cost-conscious enterprises without compromising performance.
Beyond giving Lenovo access to the high-end storage market, the deal also brings longer-term benefits to the company by significantly increasing the reach of its in-house engineering teams.
This is Lenovo’s first acquisition in over a decade, showing 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. The long-term impact of the acquisition, however, will depend on Lenovo’s ability to execute its integration strategy effectively while navigating a fiercely competitive landscape.
The deal’s ultimate success 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 high-end enterprise storage. If executed well, the acquisition promises to change the dynamics and intensify competition across the high-end enterprise storage market, particularly 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 exploit those skills to make this integration successful.
Lenovo is an aggressive competitor and will bring that aggressiveness to the high-end of the enterprise storage market. Extending its existing infrastructure business with a new reach into the upper echelons of the enterprise storage market promises to make Lenovo a disruptive storage powerhouse. We’ll be watching.
Disclosure: Steve McDowell is an industry analyst, and NAND Research is an industry analyst firm, that engages in, or has engaged in, research, analysis and advisory services with many technology companies; the author has provided paid services to every company named 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 positions with any company mentioned.
