7. The Storage Industry Will Consolidate

The storage industry already had its first acquisition in 2017, that of Exablox by StorageCraft. It is a fast start to what will likely be a big consolidation of the industry.

While some consolidation moves, like Exablox, are driven by a need to expand technology or markets, 2017 could see the closing of several smaller storage vendors that are not able to move quickly enough to meet the changes going on in the industry. This will include hard drive-based storage vendors that will see that part of the business shrink before they can take advantage of the shift to flash storage, as well as some flash storage vendors unable to develop software capabilities quickly enough or that cannot otherwise compete with large vendors that are growing quickly.