IBM bought Softek

IBM and Softek announced on Monday that IBM has acquired the 140-person data storage company for an undisclosed sum.

IBM officials say they want to integrate Softek’s data mobility technology with IBM’s expertise in storage and data services. The companies have been partners since 1996.

Storage is another murky backwater in HPC. We’ve spent all our time over the past several decades getting more and more bits into smaller spaces. But we’ve spent almost no time collectively in making that data easy to access.

We’ve made tremendous advances in improving the storage metaphor for our personal 200 GB hard disks, but invest $50M in new storage today and you’re going to use it the same way you did 15 years ago.

Maybe IBM can leverage this opportunity into HPC.