EMC selling off Syncplicity unit to Skyview Capital
EMC announced on Tuesday morning it is selling off its Syncplicity unit, just three years after buying the previously independent company.
This time the buyer is Skyview Capital, a private investment firm based in Los Angeles with a brewing portfolio of enterprise tech companies heavily centered around mobile and networking.
Financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed, although EMC noted it will "retain a financial interest" in Syncplicity. The sale is expected to close by the end of the month.
Since 2012, EMC has been trying to integrate and promote the cloud-based file sync and sharing service within its own platform.
But the cloud storage market has been crowded from the beginning, with significant competition from Google, Microsoft, Dropbox and Box, among many others pursuing similar endeavors.
Most recently in April, Syncplicity added the ability for customers to manage their keys to control rights managed content -- a move that could have been construed as playing catch up to other services that already doled out such privileges.
EMC's sale of Syncplicity could signal a long-coming consolidation in the cloud storage vertical after years of burgeoning competition left and right.
Jeremy Burton, president of product and marketing for EMC's Information Infrastructure department, noted in Tuesday's announcement that the "standalone" market is "a step away from EMC's core infrastructure strength."
Nevertheless, don't expect everyone to give up just yet -- or count out any new players on the scene.
On Monday, Amazon made waves in expanding its cloud empire and ambitions once again with a new upgrade for Cloud Drive.
Although the line of service is still rather bare and pales in comparison to some of the aforementioned leaders in this space, followers still speculate Amazon is already putting the likes of Box, Dropbox and Google Drive on notice.