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IBM negotiating purchase of Israeli startup

Computer giant may make seventh Israeli purchase by buying Storwize, which produces data compressing system

IBM is currently negotiating the purchase of the Israeli hi-tech company Storwize, for an estimated $140 million. So far $39 million has been invested in the company, so investors stand to gain 3-4 times their investment.

 

In line to profit from the purchase are Gal Naor and Jonathan Amit, who founded the company, and its 70 option-holding employees.

 

IBM and Storwize have been partners for some time now, with the former using the latter's data compression services. Storwize makes a type of communications box installed within existing networks to compress data without stunting performance.

 

The company boasts that its system can take 50-90% of the system's load without harming its performance in the least.

 

Storwize has partnerships with a number of large firms, such as EMC and HP, but IBM is its main distributor. Dieter Muenk, the general manager of the computer giant's engineering and technology services, personally initiated the negotiations.

 

The Israeli company's clients include Mazda, Polycom, and Dreamworks animation, which was also the first to try Storwize's system in its film 'Bee Movie', starring Jerry Seinfeld. Production time was shortened by 30% thanks to the new addition.

 

But Storwize's big break came in 2008, during the global financial crisis. "Our product doesn't make storage systems faster or bigger, but cheaper," Gal Naor told the Calcalist.

 

If negotiations succeed, Storwize will be IBM's second Israeli purchase in a year, and the seventh overall. In December it bought Guardium for $225 million. Like Storwize, Guardium also held a management division in Massachusetts.

 

Neither of the negotiating sides agreed to comment on this report.

 


פרסום ראשון: 06.15.10, 07:23
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