In technology, there are partnerships and then there are partnerships. When one company tacks another company’s thingamajig onto its own portfolio, it’s generally nothing to get too excited about. Other partnerships can change the fortunes of companies in their global market reach and revenue outlook. The team-up between Lenovo Group Ltd and NetApp Inc. would be the latter type.

Lenovo’s storage business — especially its flash unit — has grown significantly over the last year. However, the company still serves only about 15 percent of the global storage market. Thanks to its partnership with NetApp, that is about to change radically.

“After this announcement — and shipping now, today — we’ll cover over 90 percent of the market in over 160 countries,” said Kirk Skaugen (pictured, left), president of the Data Center Group at Lenovo.

Skaugen and Brad Anderson (pictured, right), general manager and senior vice president of the Cloud Infrastructure Business Unit at NetApp, spoke with Stu Miniman (@stu) and Rebecca Knight (@knightrm), co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the Lenovo Transform 2.0 event in NYC. They discussed how the partnership will expand market horizons of both companies. (* Disclosure below.)

Two-way customer on-ramp

NetApp’s modernized storage offerings with data management and data fabric infuse Lenovo with a much thicker storage portfolio with which to lure customers. The two are focusing intensely on China, where they will pool research and development dollars on solutions tailored to that market, according to Skaugen.

Lenovo’s business in some foreign markets — particularly China — is new and potentially highly fertile terrain for NetApp, Anderson pointed out. “I think not only is this going to give Lenovo the tools to compete, it’s going to give us a lot of information to go even build better products, better solutions for both NetApp and our Lenovo customers,” he said.

NetApp’s ONTAP operating system and its hybrid-capable data fabric now extend directly to Lenovo’s technology portfolio. “All those values extend to the Lenovo customer, so if they also have NetApp in their environment, or vice versa, they can share and move data between both platforms,” Anderson said. “Nowhere else in the industry is that possible across vendors, let alone within.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Lenovo Transform 2.0 event.  (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for Lenovo Transform 2.0. Neither Lenovo Group Ltd, the event sponsor, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE