SUNNYVALE, CA--(Marketwire - Sep 5, 2012) - NetApp (NASDAQ: [ NTAP ]) today was ranked #51 out of 100 on Forbes magazine's "World's Most Innovative Companies" list for 2012. Innovation is at the heart of NetApp's culture, and drives its employees' commitment to delivering the best experience to its customers through every facet of how they do business with NetApp. It is this culture of innovation that enables customers to leverage IT for strategic and competitive advantages. Additionally, NetApp's relationships with technology and go-to-market partners deliver a best-in-class innovation stack experience that helps customers go further, faster.

Tom Georgens, President and CEO of NetApp:

"Innovation is part of NetApp's DNA and it has driven our growth throughout our history. Our 20 years of innovation has been about delivering the best technology and products, as well as innovating in everything we do to create a differentiated experience for our customers and partners around the world. Forbes's recognition is a testament that our innovative spirit continues to thrive today and help our customers achieve great business outcomes."

Andrew Henderson, CIO, ING DIRECT:

"Similar to NetApp, ING DIRECT has had a proud history of innovation since 1999. As the world's leading direct savings bank, we pioneered branchless banking and quickly grew to become Australia's fifth largest mortgage lender. NetApp helped ING DIRECT Australia bring new banking products and services to market more quickly via its 'Bank in a Box' project. In the past, it would take our software and application development team months to be able to test new ideas in our complex banking environment. Today, it takes minutes. NetApp's innovation met our own appetite for innovation and gave our business a competitive edge."

[ Watch NetApp's co-founder, Dave Hitz, discuss 20 years of NetApp innovation and reflect on how data has changed over the past two decades. ]

Innovating Across All Areas of NetApp's Business

NetApp innovation focuses on delivering an outstanding customer experience, developing industry-leading products and technology, developing best-in-class partnerships, and building the best team in the industry. NetApp's innovation across these areas of its business has enabled the company to accelerate success for its customers, partners, shareholders, and NetApp.

Currently, NetApp^® Data ONTAP^® is the industry's #1 storage operating system¹. More customers trust Data ONTAP than any other storage operating system because it is the key to unleashing an agile data infrastructure that is intelligent, immortal, and infinite. With the industry's leading storage operating system, NetApp customers can be confident that they have the agility to shift and grow their businesses in whatever directions necessary.

NetApp also currently ranks as the #3 world's best multinational workplace by the Great Place to Work Institute, based on a unique corporate culture that values creativity, teamwork, open communication, leadership, adaptability, and trust. By living these values, NetApp employees are empowered to develop new ideas every day and continue to make breakthroughs happen for the company's customers. It is NetApp's unwavering commitment to building a strong culture that has resulted in a company that customers and partners want to do business with.

About the ForbesMost Innovative Companies List

Forbes[ World's Most Innovative Companies list ] relies on investors, who vote with their wallets, to identify the companies they expect to be innovative today and in the future. For a full description of the methodology, please visit [ http://www.forbes.com/sites/innovatorsdna/2012/09/05/how-we-rank-the-worlds-most-innovative-companies/ ].

The full list of winners and related stories will appear in the September 24 issue of Forbes and are available now online at [ http://www.forbes.com/sites/innovatorsdna/2012/09/05/how-innovative-leaders-maintain-their-edge/ ].

Additional Resources

• Follow Tom Mendoza's [ Twitter ] and [ blog ] on culture and leadership.
• Learn about NetApp innovation in healthcare: [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkzRJFQ-mQY&feature=player_detailpage ]
• Follow the NetApp 360 blog: [ https://communities.netapp.com/community/netapp-blogs/netapp-360 ]
• Follow NetApp on Twitter: [ www.twitter.com/NetApp ]
• Join NetApp on Facebook: [ www.facebook.com/NetApp ]
• View NetApp videos on YouTube: [ www.youtube.com/NetAppTV ]
• Connect with NetApp on LinkedIn: [ www.linkedin.com/groups?about=&gid=111681 ]

About NetApp
NetApp creates innovative storage and data management solutions that deliver outstanding cost efficiency and accelerate business breakthroughs. Our commitment to living our core values and consistently being recognized as a great place to work around the world are fundamental to our long-term growth and success, as well as the success of our pathway partners and customers. Discover our passion for helping companies around the world go further, faster at [ www.netapp.com ].

NetApp, the NetApp logo, Go further, faster, and Data ONTAP are trademarks or registered trademarks of NetApp, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. All other brands or products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such.

¹ Source: NetApp internal estimates in terms of revenue and storage capacity in the worldwide open-networked storage market as of June 2012: VNX, VNXe, and Celerra NS can run any Flare or Dart operating system. The contribution of these products to the OS share has been estimated based on the proportion of NAS and SAN installations in these products (NAS -- Dart; SAN -- Flare).