Western Digital has revealed its commitment to the cloud with the acquisition of cloud services company Upthere.
Although neither company has explained exactly how they will work together, Western Digital explained Upthere's technology and consumer products portfolio including its cloud-based photos, videos, documents and music storage solutions will add to Western Digital's cloud-based offerings.
"Upthere is delivering on its mission to transform the personal storage market and we share their focus on providing consumers more rich and meaningful experiences with their data," said Jim Welsh, senior vice president and general manager of Client Solutions at Western Digital.
Upthere's CEO Chris Bourdon will join Western Digital as a strategic leader, applying his software expertise to accelerate the company's user experience and cloud services imperatives across all aspects of the Client Solutions business, Welsh added.
"Western Digital has a very symbiotic relationship with the cloud," said Dinesh Bahal, VP of product management for client solutions at Western Digital.
"All of the cloud vendors today use Western Digital hard drives, they use our Sandisk flash products inside there. The Upthere acquisition is a technology acquisition, and over time, we will be announcing products that will incorporate that technology, either into existing products, or new products."
Western Digital also said it will buy data centre storage firm Tegile Systems to build a bigger customer base. The deal will also see WD expand its product portfolio with Tegile's IntelliFlash products for fast data combined with it's own ActiveScale products focused on big data.
"The Tegile acquisition will fit perfectly in Western Digital's long-term strategy to deliver high value solutions that address customers' rapidly evolving storage needs," said Mike Cordano, president and chief operating officer of Western Digital.
"The addition of Tegile's technology and talented team will advance our goal of solving customers' most significant challenges in capturing, preserving, transforming and accessing data.
The exact financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, although it is expected to close at the end of next week.
