This week’s Pure//Accelerate conference in Austin, Texas, was an opportunity for Pure Storage Inc. to unveil its hybrid cloud chops this week, and the company did not disappoint.

Pure fleshed out its enterprise strategy by announcing the release of Cloud Block Store for Amazon Web Services Inc. and CloudSnap for Microsoft Azure. The firm also unveiled Pure as a Service, which allows the company’s users to update storage arrays as an extension of the cloud.

“It’s a pretty clever move by Pure,” said Dave Vellante, co-host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the Pure//Accelerate event. “It gives customers an option for higher availability block storage that looks like Pure but runs on AWS in the cloud. Customers want the cloud experience, and a big part of that is a pricing model and utility model that’s cloud-like.”

Vellante and theCUBE co-host Lisa Martin discussed how Pure has focused on strengthening its enterprise portfolio and the market opportunity that lies ahead (see the full interview with transcript here). (* Disclosure below.)

Builds partner ecosystem

The announcements with AWS and Microsoft Corp. highlight another element of Pure’s strategy moving forward: partnerships. In addition to the cloud storage news, Pure also announced that it would team up with Cloudian Inc., Veritas Inc. and Comprise Technologies Inc. to offer FlashArray protection and data migration for FlashBlade.

“They have done a good job of building a robust partner ecosystem,” Martin said. “They also did a good job in the last 18 months of pivoting their small and medium customer business to the channel, allowing Pure to focus on more of the enterprise.”

Pure’s latest moves come at a time when the competitive storage landscape is undergoing transition of its own. The share value of NetApp Inc. dropped 17% in August after the data services firm trimmed its first-quarter sales and profit forecast.

“I feel like NetApp is so distracted with some of its struggles that Pure has an opportunity,” Vellante said. “Pure has an opportunity to really become the leader in this business.”

Here’s the complete video analysis, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Pure//Accelerate event. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the Pure//Accelerate event. Neither Pure Storage Inc., the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE