The corporate world spends more than $24 billion a year on data storage. This is why industry titans EMC and NetApp are envy of all other up and coming data storage outfits and new technology. They are trying to unseat the pricier EMC and NetApp but still coming up short at this time.
Along with the fight with titans, there comes the technology. When it comes to data storage, two behemoths have been selling hard drives for ages. But many thinks that flash memory chips will soon take over the disk drive storage industry. Even though the technology is more expensive than the hard disks, they are faster and more power efficient.
Flash chip companies are acquired by many established industry outfits. Dell bought EqualLogic in 2007, EMC bought Data Domain in 2009 and HP bought 3Par after a battle with Dell in 2010. But there are still some others such as Nimble Storage and Skyera fighting with others for its share. Battle among flash chip providers may help to lower prices for flash chips. Disk drives cost $2 per gigabyte today and flash may produce a similar storage capacity for $1.10 in the future.