Top Ten Private Companies: The Fall Lineup

The editors at Byte and Switch considered gathering a panel of highly qualified, thoughtful industry luminaries to advise us on potential candidates for our revised Top Ten Private Companies list.

Then we thought, "What the hell. If Ken Lonchar can make it all up, so can we!" [Ed note: Seriously, though, good thing he wasn't on our Top Ten Storage Networking Stars list. What a cheeky monkey! See Veritas Fires Veteran CFO.]

We also considered contacting Gartner Inc. but didn't have a spare half century on our hands to wait for a reply.

So here's an update on the companies we think stand the best chance, given the economic malaizzzzzzz, of being acquired or just sticking around for a few years without going bankrupt. Much has happened since we last updated our Top Ten list in July. (For those of you who may have forgotten, in addition to complying with the six original rules, our Top Ten must have shipping products and revenue-generating customers.)

• First off, we should congratulate Pirus Networks for successfully becoming the only company to date to depart our list without going through the Bit Bucket, via its acquisition by Sun Microsystems Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW). Good job, Pirus lads and lasses! We hope you will not be the last (see Sun Beams on Pirus).
• A major casualty in this reshuffle is InterSAN Inc., which has fallen from No. 1 to number nowhere at all (well, No. 7, actually we’re not that mean.)
• Worse: PolyServe Inc. and Alacritech Inc. are off the boil and into the Bit Bucket. For now, it's aufwiedersehen for these two.
• There are two new entries – OuterBay Technologies Inc. and CommVault Systems Inc. – and, in a dramatic turn of events, 3PARdata Inc. crawls out of the Bit Bucket to return to the list, at No. 10.
• And, we have a brand-new No. 1! A drum roll, please, for the Masters of the Universe, The One, The Only, The Invincible [ed. note: steady on, chief, they aren't all that]... Ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together for the BIG BlueArc Corp.