Pure Storage strikes back in 'round 2' against EMC
Sure the holidays are kicking off in the United States officially tomorrow, but that doesn't mean it's all cheer and sunshine (certainly not on the East Coast).
It's business and fighting words as usual in the brewing legal war between EMC and Pure Storage, and there is certainly no love lost in this debacle.
Following EMC's launch of a suit earlier this month, Pure Storage has retaliated in what it dubbed as "Round 2."
Pure Storage CEO Scott Dietzen kept up his company's defense in a blog post on Tuesday, reiterating that Pure Storage has never intended to "impede EMC’s go-to-market efforts," but rather just promote "ongoing competition."
EMC had accused the flash array maker of stealing trade secrets by concocting a "deliberate scheme" in "collusion with numerous former EMC employees" in obtaining trade secrets and other sensitive information belonging to EMC.
In its preliminary filing submitted at the U.S. District Court in the District Court of Massachusetts on November 4, EMC named all of its former employees that have jumped ship to Pure Storage in relation to this case.
The IT giant's suit against Pure Storage as a company follows up smaller legal cases filed against at least six former EMC/now Pure Storage employees over the last six months.
This week, the Hopkinton, Mass.-based corporation kept the ball rolling by throwing patents into the mix, charging that Pure Storage has violated at least five patents related to data storage that flowed in thanks to the 2012 acquisition of XtremIO.
On a related note, EMC made its big move into flash arrays in mid-November with the general release of its upgraded and fine-tuned XtremIO, touted for its deduplication, data protection and raw speed and efficiency improvements.
In response, Dietzen maintained an imperterbable front:
We are now in the process of reviewing the EMC patent claims, but as the first mover in all-flash arrays, we are very confident in the strength of our own IP portfolio. Moreover, Pure Storage is sufficiently well capitalized (and we have our entire $150m recent round in the bank) to successfully defend ourselves, as well as to indemnify our customers and partners from any fall-out, no matter how unlikely.