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Case Study

Partnering in the cloud (A): 2009

By James E. Henderson and Polina Bochukova

18 pages

June 2012

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Reference: IMD-3-2317

In 2009, the leading two storage hardware companies, NetApp and EMC were both faced with how to approach the cloud based computing infrastructure opportunity. As members of the “best of breed” players, they were both seeing partnerships with another “best of breed” player, Cisco, the leading networking equipment player and an emerging server player, in order to best integrate their offerings for the market. Case-A describes this situation leaving the reader with the questions of what would be the best strategic partnership structure to pursue? A non-equity alliance, an equity alliance or a joint venture. Case-B outlines the decisions taken opening up the possibility to discuss the potential implications of the choices made by these two rivals, EMC and NetApp.

Learning Objective

The case is about structuring strategic partnerships. What are the best strategic partnerships for a particular market opportunity? Equity alliance or joint venture? And what are the implications of this choice? The case allows us to examine these questions in the context of the cloud based computing infrastructure market.

Keywords

High Technology, General Management, Strategy

Settings

Northern America, United States of America
NetApp, Cisco Systems, EMC, Consumer Goods, Computers
2009

Type

Published Sources

Available Languages

English

Related material

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