IBM to boost SME market

IBM unveiled a series of storage systems aimed at helping medium-sized enterprises to speed up the delivery of data, reports eWeek.

This reflects the company's $6 billion annual investment in research and development, according to Rod Adkins, senior vice-president of the IBM Systems and Technology Group.

IDC research reports that worldwide demand for storage capacity will continue to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 49.8% from 2009 to 2014.

HP, Oracle, IBM, Cisco Systems and Dell, with a collective $100 billion in cash, say they plan to keep making acquisitions, states Bloomberg.

The value of US technology deals has increased by 24% to more than $50 billion this year and has broken down decades-old barriers between industries. The tech giants are focusing on buying out companies involved in storage, software and security.

“A lot of tech leaders are repositioning themselves,” says Drago Rajkovic, head of technology mergers at Barclays Capital in California. “Tech merger and acquisition activity is going to remain very strong this year and going into next year.”

Drobo has released the DroboPro FS file storage system for home and small business users, says The Mac Observer.

The DroboPro FS offers networked data storage with up to 16TB of storage with user-replaceable hard drives.

This means the system lets users add and remove Sata hard drives without shutting down the unit, allowing for failed drive replacements or storage expansion on the fly.