Storage giant EMC is going to continue its growth-via-acquisitions strategy this year; one which may turn out to be a pretty pricey one, according to President and Chief Operating Officer Pat Gelsinger. He said in an interview that EMC will leverage acquisitions to further branch out beyond storage and into big data, and continued to say that:

“We have to double down, we’re not done with our acquisitions in this space–I expect we’ll do more. The number one storage infrastructure application for us is big data.”

EMC says it has spent roughly $3.2 billion on acquisitions last year, on companies including Isilon and Greenplum. That means it plans on spending a relatively significant amount this year, buying some pretty high-profile companies. The growing competition from IBM, Oracle as well as Hewlett-Packard and SAP, two companies that sharply shifted their focus towards big data among other things, is yet another indicator of a potential upcoming shopping spree.

A couple months ago Gelsinger passed by theCube and discussed his vision for his company, consistently gaining more and more momentum both for its core storage business, and others. VMware represents a key aspect of EMC’s plans going forward, and the company is not planning on giving up the virtualization giant anytime soon. Chief executive Joe Tucci dismissed the prospect his company would sell its majority stake of VMware, even if a potential buyer would offer a 50 percent premium.

EMC is gearing up for more investments, but it’s not the only one to have done so. Dell will also be making acquisitions a n important part of its growth strategy, and networking vendor Brocade may just be one of its next deals. A study by analyst Paul Mansky details why the company would be the best choice for Dell compared to Juniper Networks and others.