As an introduction to Steve Mills’ interview at our recently concluded FlashCUBE, John Furrier shared his thoughts about IBM’s move to invest a billion dollars in flash (full video below). This is the third time the company invested a billion-dollar amount to a specific space; first with open source, and then with analytics.

“I was really impressed,” shared SiliconAngle founder John Furrier. “Clearly, he’s the leader of the ship and he’s setting down the strategic objective. I think they’re putting their money where their mouth is. I think the marketplace noticed heavily. When you look at that acquisition, IBM is putting a stake in the ground and basically saying, ‘We’re here, we’re here to stay, and we’re serious.’

“Now, some say that’s just lipstick on a pig. I would say it’s more of an acknowledgment of being transparent in the fact that storage hasn’t been their shining star in the past few years. There’s been a lot of legacy, innovation within IBM, certainly on the research side, and I think what they’re doing is getting back on their route. I think that kind of message is very clear to the market place that this is now gonna be the epicenter of innovation. Like Steve Mills, backing it up with his wall of a billion dollars is significant.”

John also sees some form of organizational shake-up within IBM that’s going to center around storage.

“A billion dollars in the context of IBM is not a lot but it does move the market and we’re gonna see a lot of internal organizational changes within IBM that’s really snapping align around storage. As other groups come in to be more integrated, we’re seeing success at HP with this, the converged networking group and storage, etc. It’s a rallying cry internally, and externally, sends a clear message.”

Check out this video to watch the interview!