IBM gobbles storage upstart Cleversafe

IBM is buying object storage startup Cleversafe for an undisclosed amount of cash or shares. Why? Big Blue says the deal will enable it to "support clients' drive to next-generation mobile, social and analytics applications." It will integrate the Cleversafe dsNet software portfolio into its Cloud business unit with on-premise …

[cloudguy]

How Clever is IBM?

Well, IBM may also have been interested in the 350 patents granted to Cleversafe. Seems like every other month Cleversafe was being awarded a patent. The United States CIA is reputed to be one of Cleversafe's big customers, and an "investment arm" of the CIA participated in one of Cleversafe's funding rounds. Cleversafe's funding rounds also have a very odd character to them in terms of the amounts and timing. Cleversafe and Amplidata share a litigious past with each company filing suits and counter suits against the other. Amplidata was purchased this year by the HGST division of Western Digital. Cleversafe, like Amplidata, only uses erasure coding to protect data. Most other object-based storage software vendors like Caringo, Cloudian, Scality and SwiftStack support both replication and erasure coding. The object-storage market has been slow and steady, which may account for the relatively small amount of M&A activity over the past several years.

[Anonymous Coward]

didn't know, now don't care

Gee, never heard of this company *before* IBM bought them, and now they've been acquired by The Beast of Armonk they'll be thoroughly FUBARed within a year or two. So then they will be irrelevant. Nice run for you guys, too bad it's all over now.

[Anonymous Coward]

Did anyone else...

...think of Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest when they saw the picture?