The storage industry got a little smaller this week as Dot Hill Systems acquired Chaparral Network Storage.
Dot Hill, a Carlsbad, Calif.-based vendor of storage arrays and software, acquired Chaparral, a Longmont, Colo.-based developer of storage appliances and mid-range RAID controllers and data routers, for $62 million in cash and the assumption of about $10.4 million in obligations.
The acquisition was a natural fit for Dot Hill, said Dana Kammersgard, CTO of the company.
Dot Hill's revenue tripled in 2003 compared to 2002, due largely to an OEM deal with Sun Microsystems for Sun's StorEdge 3000 series of storage arrays, which are based on entry-level controllers from Taiwan-based Infortrend, said Kammersgard.
Chaparral, on the other hand, develops midrange controllers, which Dot Hill hopes to use in its arrays to speed up time-to-market for its products, Kammersgard said. "We could have built them from scratch," he said. "But that might take two to three years. Chaparral is one of the only developers of this technology available (to be acquired) in this market."
