SanDisk Corp said on Monday it will purchase Fusion-io Inc for about $1.1 billion to bolster its fast-growing business of providing flash storage drives to companies.Fusion-io has struggled with losses since its initial public offering in 2011, but SanDisk sees its technology as a major component for its own lineup of storage products. SanDisk is using its NAND memory chips to build and sell its own solid-state drives. The flash drives offer higher margins than SanDisk's traditional business of selling memory chips for smartphones and cameras."(SanDisk) was already positioning the company as more of a enterprise storage company. ... What the Fusion-io deal does is it enhances that significantly," Cross Research analyst Steven Fox said.The deal follows a trend toward vertical integration in the storage market, with chipmakers buying smaller companies with specialized technology.
Fusion-io Inc (Fusion) is a provider of datacenter solutions that accelerate databases, virtualization, cloud computing, big data, and the applications that help drive business from the smallest e-tailers to some of the largest data centers, social media leaders, and Fortune Global 500 businesses. Shares of FIO traded higher by 22.41% or $2.08/share to $11.36. In the past year, the shares have traded as low as $7.77 and as high as $15.59. On average, 2716180 shares of FIO exchange hands on a given day and today's volume is recorded at 53473088.
SanDisk Corporation designs, develops and manufactures data storage solutions in a range of form factors using its flash memory, controller and firmware technologies. Shares of SNDK traded higher by 3.58% or $3.53/share to $102.00. In the past year, the shares have traded as low as $53.09 and as high as $100.81. On average, 3752740 shares of SNDK exchange hands on a given day and today's volume is recorded at 4330877.
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