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2003 Top Ten: Mergers & Acquisitions: Page 5 of 6

No. 9 McData Sweeps Up Nishan, Sanera

Nishan Systems Inc. makes a lower-end switch than Sanera and cost McData $85 million, but we like this deal better because it spurred a nasty lawsuit (see Nishan Founder: VCs Screwed Me). Nishan co-founder Aamer Latif claims two of Nishan's venture capital backers, two Nishan executives, and McData cheated him and other of the startup's common stockholders out of their fair share of the proceeds from the deal. Despite the legal bills, the deal will probably be worth it for McData in the long run because the company has high hopes for the Eclipse 1620 that supports iSCSI and iFCP.

No. 10 Veritas Moves up the Stack

As it did with Precise, Veritas announced this deal first, then took a long time to close it. Veritas struck the $62 million deal with Jareva Technologies last December, but it closed in 2003. The acquisition broadens Veritas’s software portfolio, adding automated server provisioning to its storage management arsenal.

And there you have it. Not all this year's acquisitions made it into our Top Ten, though. Following is a snapshot of the also-rans from 2003: