You
simply can't surf enthusiast sites these days without coming across a
new review of solid state drives (SSDs). SSDs are quickly becoming
the storage medium of choice for laptop enthusiasts and as boot
drives for desktop enthusiasts.
While
pricing for SSDs is still quite high for more mainstream users,
enthusiasts are flocking to them in order to have the highest
performing machines for gaming duties. According to Jon Peddie
Research, the "Enthusiast Class" which typically buys such
high performing SSDs is expected
to spend $12.5 billion by 2013.
Given
the high stakes in this emerging market, OCZ is no doubt looking to
further its position with SSDs. With larger companies like Intel
breathing
down its neck with second generation (and upcoming third
generation) SSDs and more traditional
competitors like Corsair ramping up their entries into the field,
OCZ is doing what it can to make SSDs a big part of its business.
OCZ
announced today that it has secured $15.45 million in funding
specifically for its SSD business through the sale of 5,151,662
shares of its common stock.
“Over
the course of the last few years, we have met the demand for a better
storage option head-on, by delivering high performance solid state
disk drives to a wide array of customer’s globally” said OCZ CEO
Ryan Petersen. “This round of funding will enable OCZ to continue
its growth in SSDs and accelerate the development of next-generation
solutions.”
Peterson
added, “We believe that OCZ is well-positioned to advance the
deployment of flash-based storage solutions. OCZ will continue to
design, develop and implement SSD technology with its current base of
over 300 customers while opening up new markets through targeting
enterprise and OEM customers seeking to adopt flash media as primary
storage.”
OCZ
was able to give us a glimpse at its 2010
roadmap for SSD products during CES and it looks like customers
will have a wealth of options to choose from in both internal and
external form-factors. Now if only OCZ could do a bit more to
consolidate the product lines and naming conventions...
