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Byte and Switch Shakes Up Top Ten: Page 2 of 2

Zambeel is building a NAS appliance that will offer both NAS and SAN virtualization under one roof, as well as being “infinitely scalable in capacity, bandwidth and performance.” It’s about the hottest trend to hit the market, and Zambeel has good people, great backers, and plenty of cash, guaranteeing it a place on the list. To move it up further though, we need some results -- so we’re keeping a close eye on this one. (see Khosla's Back, Backing Stealth Startup).

Dotcoms may be dead and optical networks passé, but the venture capitalists still have money to spend, and right now they are throwing it at storage networking firms. 3PARdata is the latest to cash in on the trend, scoring a cool $100 million in a third round of financing. And just in time, too, as it was about to run out.

3PAR is taking on EMC Corp. (NYSE: EMC) and Network Appliance Inc. (Nasdaq: NTAP) with a giant virtualization system. A bold move, considering the dominance of these two players, but this massive cash injection provides 3PARdata with solid ground from which to attack and pushes it up to number five in the list.

And finally, saving the best until last, is the rather tasty Pirus Networks, our new numero uno. Word has it the Pirus people are on the verge of penning a deal with a major bank. But even better than that, we hear they're designing their own line of clothing AND will star as themselves in a modestly titled biopic: Pirus Maniacs – The Film. Coming to an independent storage networking festival NEAR YOU. Watch this space for more details.

— Jo Maitland, Senior Editor, Byte and Switch http://www.byteandswitch.com