Pure Storage to Buy Data-Storage Provider Portworx for $370M

Pure Storage  (PSTG)  definitively agreed to acquire cloud-management firm Portworx for $370 million cash.

The deal, unveiled on Wednesday, would be Pure Storage’s largest acquisition to date and indicates the growing importance of multicloud data services, the company said.

Portworx is the Los Altos, Calif., provider of container data services to streamline processes between software development and IT teams. Its clients include companies like GE, Comcast, T-Mobile and Lufthansa.

This acquisition would expand “our Modern Data Experience to cover traditional and cloud-native applications alike,” said Charles Giancarlo, chairman and chief executive of Pure Storage, in a statement. Modern Data Experience is what the Mountain View, Calif., company calls delivery of data storage as a service. 

Amazon  (AMZN)  is a major force in the cloud-computing market to supply corporate America with remote computing power. But Microsoft  (MSFT)  and other rivals have also been trying to capture a bigger slice of what Gartner says is a $266 billion market, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Portworx, based on the Kubernetes data-services platform, is used by a number of public-sector companies to store, protect and secure data.

Kubernetes is an open-source system for automating the deployment, scaling and management of computer applications.

“The traction and growth we see in our business daily shows that containers and Kubernetes are fundamental to the next-generation application architecture and thus competitiveness,” said Murli Thirumale, CEO at Portworx. 

Pure Storage said the deal is subject to certain closing conditions it didn’t specify. Either of the two companies may terminate the deal if it doesn’t close by Nov. 13, Bloomberg reported.

At last check shares of Pure Storage were up 0.7% at $15.38.