Part I: BlueArc’s challenge to get past the low-hanging fruit
This is the first article in a continuing series that will feature case studies and anecdotal stories from entrepreneurs, consultants and veteran marketers about their efforts to develop, implement and measure marketing programs to bring technology to market and grow market share. We invite your feedback.
By Francis Moran and Leo Valiquette
Last month, BlueArc Corp., a 13-year-old maker of network storage systems based in California, was acquired by Hitachi Data Systems for a reported $600 million.
BlueArc’s business was networked attached storage (NAS), the kind of high-end storage system for managing unstructured data — files, spreadsheets, digital content and images — in high-performance computing applications. However, the company struggled for years to achieve profitability despite periods of strong revenue growth.
“BlueArc, while it had received funding somewhere north of $200 million, couldn’t dominate the NAS market on its own. It needed a partner. With the acquisition by Hitachi and its intellectual property girth, it has nailed that market down,” InformationWeek’s Deni Connor wrote shortly after the deal was announced.
