Before we tell you what we think will happen in the storage world in 2007, we thought wed go back and look at how well we told you what would happen in 2006.
We've dredged up our intrepid 2006 forecast with 20/20 hindsight and graded ourselves on how closely each prediction came to reality. (See 2005 Top Ten: '06 Storage Predictions.) Feel free to weigh in with your own grades.
Prediction: The Big Get Bigger
Reality: Switch, Tape Library, WAFS, Chips Firms Hook UpGrade: A-
A year ago, we thought we would see a handful of top-tier storage companies consolidate. And while the acquisition frenzy of 2006 consisted mostly of large companies buying smaller firms to fill holes in their product lines, there was a good bit of consolidation.
The most notable example was Brocade's $713 million pickup of switch rival McData, but the biggest deal of the year was LSIs $4 billion payout for storage chip rival Agere. The tape library industry also consolidated with Quantum's $770 million acquisition of ADIC and Tandberg's $28 million buyout of Exabyte. There were also two WAFS consolidation acquisitions -- Packeteer picked up Tacit for $78 million and Citrix bought Orbital Data for $50 million.
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