Maranti Makes a Monster

Startup Maranti Networks is hoping to give the storage networking world a jolt next October when it plans to come out of stealth mode and unveil a monster multiprotocol SAN switch.

The switch will have more than 400 ports, the company says, which makes it more than four times the size of the beast being developed by Andiamo, the Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO) spin-in (see Ciscos Secret SAN Strategies Revealed).

A big deal? Well, it might be if it weren’t for the fact that plenty of other startups are planning monster switches -- and appear to be further ahead than Maranti in developing products and raising cash. Maranti has raised a mere $6 million so far and the VC firm putting up the cash doesn’t want to be identified, which might be significant.

It’s also worth noting that at least one startup developing a truly monster switch, Cereva Networks Inc., has run into a few problems (see Top Ten Private Storage Networking Companies).

Another thing that’s disconcerting about Maranti is its Website. The news section declares that “news is history,” which is a bit ironic -- unless they subscribe to the Henry Ford corollary, "History is bunk!" For the section is empty, and the company clearly has more history than it cares to divulge to the average onlooker.Its Website says that the company was founded in October 2000, when in fact it’s existed since 1999, according to Harish Nayak, a founder and VP of marketing at Maranti. And that raises some other questions -- notably why the company is trying to draw a veil over its past, and whether it’s running out of cash, bearing in mind that Nayak says it’s got close to 100 on staff.

Still, the management team appears to have plenty of credentials. The company was founded by Kuldeep Sandhu, now president and CEO, and Santosh Lolayekar, now VP of software engineering. Sandhu was previously VP of engineering at Efficient Networks Inc. (Nasdaq: EFNT), and Lolayekar was with Cisco. The company’s chief scientist is Yu-Ping Chen, who was in charge of software development for Auspex Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: ASPX), a pioneer in NFS (network file system) technology.

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