Bridgewater, NJ – Underscoring the importance of storage area networks (SANs) in the developing e-business economy, Dell Ventures and The Blackstone Group have made a combined $25-million strategic investment in StorageApps Inc, a leading provider of all-encompassing solutions, applications and appliances for storage-based network services.

“The Blackstone Group and Dell Ventures have worldwide reputations of being top-tier investors with a proven ability to spot relevant, emerging technologies,” said Dan Petrozzo, president and chief operating officer of StorageApps. “Their investments put further emphasis on the importance of storage technology in the worldwide Internet infrastructure build-out.”

A SAN is a centrally-managed, high-speed data storage network that provides a direct link between users and a single massive pool of stored business-critical information, enabling faster and more productive access to it throughout an enterprise. StorageApps recently introduced the world’s first complete SAN appliance, SANLink™, which provides a simple, intelligent way to create a SAN in order to manage, share and protect critical business information.

“StorageApps is quickly building a unique, heterogeneous storage network solution that’s grounded on a customer-centric service model. We are certain that StorageApps is well positioned for continued success in the future due to its unique combination of hardware, software and services for a rapidly-growing sector, and a superior management team,” said J. Tomilson Hill, senior managing director of The Blackstone Group.

“Dell continues to demonstrate leadership in the industry through investments in emerging companies and technologies aligned with our strategic direction,” said Kevin Reinis, vice president and general manager of PowerVault storage for Dell’s Enterprise Systems Group. “Storage is core to Dell’s strategy and we believe StorageApps has developed important technology that complements the SAN-focus of our PowerVault line of storage systems.”

About Dell Ventures

Dell Ventures is the business group at Dell responsible for strategic investment activity and for incubating early-stage private companies. Dell Ventures makes strategic investments that support Dell’s business initiatives, often opening the door to new technologies, services or customer markets.

About The Blackstone Group

The Blackstone Group is a New York based private investment bank founded in 1985 by its Chairman, Peter G. Peterson, and its President and Chief Executive Officer, Stephen A. Schwarzman. Blackstone’s current private equity fund, Blackstone Capital Partners III (with approximately $4 billion in equity capital) has been a leader in large-scale communications investing in recent years. In addition to its private equity business, Blackstone also is engaged in the Merger and Acquisitions and Restructuring and Reorganization advisory businesses, real estate investing, liquid alternative asset management, and mezzanine finance.

About StorageApps

StorageApps is a leading provider of all-encompassing solutions, applications and appliances for storage-based network services. From its Global Customer Center in Bridgewater, New Jersey, StorageApps serves a worldwide client base of Fortune 100 companies, including major financial services firms. The company provides 24/7 customer service for the Americas fom regional ofices in: Austin, Texas; Boston, Massachusetts; Lawrenceville, New Jersey; and New York, New York. Customer service or Europe is based in London, United Kingdom. Afiliates in Hong Kong, China and Tokyo Japan provide customer service for Asia Pacfic.

SorageApps offers the innovative SANLink storage appliance, SANSuite™ and SANOS™ sofware solutions, and 24/7 worldwide customer service. StorageApps, SANLink, SANSuite, SAN.OS and the “Diamond S” logo are trademarks of StorageApps Inc Other trade names and trademarks are the property of their respective owners.