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Ciprico Seeks Bigger Stage in SAN Arena: Page 3 of 3

For the company's third fiscal quarter of 2001 (ended June 30), Ciprico said it had $9.5 million in revenues, a decrease of 3 percent over the like quarter from 2000. Costs relating to layoffs earlier this year and the ECCS purchase pushed the company to a quarterly loss of 17 cents per share and a loss of 38 cents per share for the 2001 fiscal year to date. For the nine months ended June 30, Ciprico had sales of $27.9 million, 13 percent higher than the $24.8 million it recorded for the like period in fiscal 2000.

Analysts expect Ciprico to continue to post losses, with Needham predicting that it will take at least until Q4 of 2002 for the firm to return to profitability. In the meantime, Ciprico will mine revenues from current contracts, including a recent multiyear deal with the U.S. Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command.

What Kill wants is for his company to be among the first to provide "SAN performance and NAS simplicity" in an easily deployed "digital media appliance." By mentioning support for protocols like iSCSI and Infiniband, it's clear Kill knows the lines required to compete in the current and future SAN stage. The challenge, as always, is finding customers willing to listen.

— Paul Kapustka, Editor at Large, Byte and Switch http://www.byteandswitch.com