Hewlett-Packard has agreed to buy LeftHand Networks for $360 million in cash to expand its storage offerings.
Closely held LeftHand, based in Boulder, sells storage and data software to more than 3,000 companies, HP said Wednesday in a statement.
The purchase allows HP to reach midrange storage customers, the company said. LeftHand’s software is compatible with HP’s StorageWorks, which is marketed to the low and high ends of the market. Business storage and servers accounted for 18 percent of HP’s revenue last year.
“Customers need a faster, less complex and more economical route to storage networking to better protect their critical business data,” Dave Roberson, senior vice president and general manager of Hewlett-Packard’s storage division, said in the statement.
HP, based in Palo Alto, Calif., fell $1.27 to $44.97 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The stock has dropped 11 percent this year.
