The data storage market is becoming an interesting one. I remember about 10 years ago, we were all jokingly saying that we will all someday work for Microsoft because they had all the wealth and was putting everyone else out of business. We live in interesting times today where jobs are hard to find, but for a select few, companies are insanely in a bidding war for these people.

Who ever thought that Apple would be where there are today? For you younger folks that think Apple is “King”, they were paupers once… in fact, they almost went out of business a few times! I know, it is hard to believe, but my point is that companies are adapting to culture and trends to survive or thrive. Some do it better than others.

For example, when I grew up, furniture stores were boring places where we walk around and look at furniture. For kids, it is a torturous venture to say the least. Today, we have IKEA where we can go and drop off the kids in the ball pit and then enjoy a hearty family meal sipping lingonberry juice afterwards. We have come a long way in a very short time!

As for your technology, there are a few companies that want to be your one stop shop… Your Walmart of technology. 20 years ago, Dell was just a home computer company, now they have acquired Equallogic, Exanet, Ocarina and Compellent to compete with NetApp, EMC, IBM, HP etc…

Oracle was just a database company, but they bought Sun. EMC was a storage company but bought Legato, Isilon and VMware. HP was a server and printer company, but bought 3Par and Lefthand Networks. These are just a few small examples that left me scratching my head. I am sure many other people were also.

The bigger picture is there that there IS a strategy in all of these acquisitions. The strategy is to be your “One Stop Shop” for all your technology needs. Essentially to own the data center. This is interesting because as technology advances, unlikely unions become common place. One time rivals become united in marriage. The bottom line is that “we”, the consumer are the winners. Better pricing, better technology and responsive support are constantly being improved.

So as I check my news every morning, it is like a technology soap opera for geeks like me. So what’s next? Is Dell going to buy Brocade? Cisco to buy EMC? NetApp to buy Citrix? Apple to buy Dropbox? We shall see…