Lenovo and Netapp Form Global Strategic Partnership to Accelerate Customers' Digital Transformation

Includes a New Joint Venture in China to Deliver Localized Solutions for World’s Fastest Growing Storage and Data Market 

Dubai, United Arab Emirates, September 16, 2018 – At Lenovo’s Transform 2.0 conference, Lenovo, a Global Fortune 500 company and a technology leader in Intelligent Transformation, and NetApp, a Fortune 500 company and the data authority for hybrid cloud, announced a global multi-faceted, partnership to bring innovative technology and a simplified experience to help customers modernize IT and accelerate their digital transformation. As innovation leaders in high-performance computing and flash storage solutions, Lenovo and NetApp are uniquely positioned to bring leading technology and scale to enable customers worldwide to modernize their IT architectures from the edge to the core network to the cloud. 

The two companies are co-developing the largest range of new Lenovo-branded storage products that combine NetApp’s industry-leading all-flash data management solutions with Lenovo’s award-winning ThinkSystem infrastructure. These new products will utilize core software technology from NetApp and will be manufactured by Lenovo, leveraging Lenovo’s world-class supply chain, which is ranked in the top five by Gartner for all global technology companies.

Additionally, Lenovo and NetApp announced a new joint venture company in China to deliver storage products and data management solutions localized and tailored to meet China’s specialized requirements and distinct cloud ecosystem. The new venture is expected to be operational by spring 2019, pending local approvals. 

“Lenovo is committed to driving the new IT - Intelligent Transformation - through an expanding customer-centric set of data center offerings,” said Yang Yuanqing, Chairman and CEO of Lenovo. “Lenovo is committed to both organic and inorganic growth to meet the needs of our customers and maintaining the strongest global partnerships in the data center industry.” 

“In today’s global economy, customers demand new approaches to IT infrastructures that support their digital transformation; through this partnership, Lenovo and NetApp will offer a comprehensive portfolio of products, solutions and service that is unrivaled in the market today,” said George Kurian, Chief Executive Officer, NetApp. “Combining our complementary strengths in customer-centric innovation, Lenovo and NetApp will establish a new standard to accelerate our customers’ success.” 

“Lenovo and NetApp are uniquely positioned to deliver the next-generation of high performance data management solutions across the globe offering customers unprecedented new performance, value and choice,” said Kirk Skaugen, Executive Vice President, Lenovo and President, Lenovo Data Center Group. “Lenovo, now the world’s fastest growing server company, remains committed to our vision of being the most trusted data center partner for our customer’s digital transformation. We are bringing these new storage and data management solutions immediately to companies in more than 160 countries with an unmatched supply chain and services network, and through an ever-strengthening global channel partner ecosystem.”

The first solutions from this partnership – Lenovo ThinkSystem DE and DM Series – will be globally available for purchase immediately. For more information on this strategic partnership and other announcements from Transform 2.0, please visit www.lenovo.com/EmpowerTransformation