The Wall Street Journal reports that EMC has lost interest in buying scale-out filer supplier Isilon.

Isilon makes clustered filters that are used in movie post-production work and other applications with a great number of files needing multiple accesses. This is a growing application area unsuited to EMC's Celerra filer.

It has been reported that Isilon had turned to Frank Quattrone's Qatalyst Partners to assess potential buyer interest following Qatalyst's role in selling 3PAR to HP after a bidding war with Dell.

The Journal reports that Isilon wanted a high price, based on recent share price rises, whereas EMC wanted a lower price. El Reg has been told by people quite close to the matter that Isilon over-played its hand and blew it because it, or Qatalyst, wanted a bidding war along the lines of the HP and Dell battle over 3PAR.

EMC boss Joe Tucci, known to some now as the Cloudfather, found it was a deal he could refuse.

When news of EMC's disengagement broke Isilon shares dipped from $27.87 to $26.07, not a large fall by any means, indicating investors are still hopeful a deal can be struck. ®