UPDATE: Sterne Agee Initiates Coverage on Violin Memory on Market Leader Position

In a report published Friday, Sterne Agee analyst Alex Kurtz initiated coverage on

with a Neutral rating. In the report, Sterne Agee noted, “Violin has emerged as one of the leading vendors in the All Flash Array market with what we view as a differentiated hardware engineering lead. That said, the long-term outlook for the stock will be heavily correlated to their execution on their new Software platforms, which, given the early stages of market maturation, is difficult to gauge.” Violin Memory closed on Thursday at $6.65.