With Pure Storage Inc.’s recent grabs at artificial intelligence and big data software markets, it might soon have to drop “storage” from its name, according to Matt Kixmoeller, vice president of marketing and product management at Pure Storage.

Recalling Kixmoeller’s prediction during an interview at the Pure//Accelerate event this week in San Francisco, California, Dave Vellante (@dvellante) (pictured) and David Floyer (@dfloyer), co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile live streaming studio, asked if this is valid or just a marketing SOS from a storage company with shrinking prospects. (* Disclosure below.)

What will become of Pure if it does not remake itself from pure-play storage into a cloud-like hardware-software amalgam?

Would it have to sell-out like other storage and converged infrastructure companies, such as Nimble Storage Inc. and EMC, or could it survive independently?

It could likely not, according to Floyer, unless it makes an aggressive OEM play, which it appears to be doing with Cisco Systems Inc.’s hyperconverged products.

However, “If they go after it as a data company, as an information processing company and focus on the software that’s required to do that along with the processes, I think they can [survive independently],” Floyer said.

Can the big data and edge computing software Pure builds with its storage systems compete with those born and bred in their respective areas?

Can private storage cure IoT latency?

Internet of Things data has a very real latency problem that private cloud and compute at the edge might help solve, Floyer explained, noting Pure’s advantage there, not despite its storage DNA, but because of it.

“If data starts in the cloud, it should stay in the cloud; if it starts in the edge, you want to keep it there and let most of it die there; and if it starts in headquarters — again — no point in moving it just for the sake of moving it,” Floyer said.

This spot-computing is easier with private clouds that have intelligent storage in all of those locations, Floyer stated.

Even beyond IoT, Pure looks well positioned for private cloud, which is growing faster than many realize, Vellante added.

“True private cloud, [in Wikibon Research’s view], is going to be larger than Infrastructure as a Service in public cloud [but not as large as Software as a Service], and it’s the fastest-growing part of the market today — from a smaller base,” Vellante concluded.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s independent editorial coverage of Pure//Accelerate 2017.

Photo: SiliconANGLE