TLC =
Terminally Limited and Cheap
With SanDisk joining the ranks of all-flash array vendors, that makes 15 AFA suppliers I know of: far, far too many for industry stability. There are: Cisco with Invicta currently in hibernation Dell with all-flash Storage Centre EMC with XtremIO and coming DSSD HDS with HAF module in VSP/HUS HGST with Skyera skyHawk HP …
At least not in the list you have. It is a new category. Like hfa , and AFA , we now have a new category of big data AFA . Agree w u on WD/HGST w skyera will go after this same space. SANdisk , HGST are not storage controller companies in any way shape or form compared to EMC, ibm and HDS! WD/HGST , SANdisk are becoming the tape drive/tape library storage companies of this millennium!
If the IDC n gartner forecasts are close to the actual growth of AFA space, then I think you and others are totally wrong about the AFA market in scramble mode or frantic and casualties.! There is plenty of $room for pure, EMC, ibm, netapp, kaminario, Solidfire, and Hds! But agree , that is about it for number of companies to play in this space for the next 3-4 years. But plenty of opportunity and exciting competition , great fun AFA games for next 3-4 yrs and then maybe interesting Super Bowl of AFA in 2020! :)