EMC is in talks with XtremIO to purchase the company for between $400 and $450 million (248 - 279 million), according to reports.
Globes, a business news site from XtremIO's home country of Israel, published the rumour this morning, citing market sources who claim a deal is "close at hand."
Senior executives from the storage giant have reportedly visited the country for discussions, including chief executive (CEO) Joe Tucci and VMware chief technology officer (CTO) Stephen Herrod.
There are already links between the two firms as XtremIO's co-founder, Shuki Bruck, also set up Rainfinity, a file virtualisation platform he sold to EMC back in 2005.
EMC has been heavily investing in Israel for several years, acquiring five firms in the country and opening up a research and development centre there in 2011.
XtremIO was founded in 2009 and is known for its flash memory-based storage arrays. It claims "the power of flash" gives enterprise storage products better performance, whilst remaining simple, cost effective and eco-friendly.
EMC has been investing in flash technologies, with the likes of VFCache previously known as Project Lightning bringing a faster tier of storage into the server.
However, the Globe report says EMC is not the only firm courting XtremIO, with major rival NetApp reportedly making visits to the country as well.
The website did not mention the NetApp executives by name, but claimed visitors held the roles of head of business development and mergers and acquisitions, as well as the vice president for EMEA.
IT Pro contacted EMC for comment on the deal, but had not received a response at the time of publication.
