EMC to buy network attached storage systems firm Isilon Systems for $2.25 billion

After lying low for a while on big-ticket acquisitions, the world's largest data storage company, EMC Corporation, yesterday unveiled plans to buy Isilon Systems Inc, a network attached storage systems company, for $2.25 billion in cash.

The proposed acquisition by EMC comes after it fought a nearly two-month bitter battle in July last year with arch rival rival NetApp to acquire Santa Clara-based Data Domain for $2.1 billion. (See: EMC wins $2.1-billion bidding war for Data Domain)

''The unmistakable waves of cloud computing and 'Big Data' are upon us and customers are looking for new ways to store, protect, secure and add intelligence to the vast amounts of information they will accumulate over the next decade," says Joe Tucci, chairman and CEO of EMC.

"EMC, in combination with Isilon, sits at the intersection of these trends with leading products, solutions and services to help customers get the absolute most out of what cloud computing has to offer,'' he adds.

Seattle, Washington-based Isilon Systems designs and sells clustered storage systems and software for digital content and other unstructured data.

Isilon is known as the leader in the fast-growing ''Scale-out NAS'' segment, which market research firm IDC projects will grow on average approximately 36 per cent annually reaching an estimated $6 billion dollars in 2014.