Data Domain
At the start of 2006, Data Domain was among a handful of vendors using an obscure technology called data de-duplication. Now its the leader in what has become one of the hottest storage technologies. Data Domain is almost certain to go public in 2007, unless one of the major vendors puts up big bucks for its de-duplication wares. (See A Data Reduction Dossier, Insider: De-Dupe Demystified, Symantec Dips Into De-Dupe, and De-Dupers Demand Disk Mindset.)
McData Execs
McData is paying CEO John Kelley and five other executives bonuses totaling around $4 million to make sure they stay until Brocade closes the deal, although Brocade probably wont offer most of them permanent jobs. (See Kelley Gets 1.1M Reasons to Stay.) Kelley will receive more than $1.1 million if he remains with the company through completion of the acquisition. COO Todd Oseth is eligible for $740,000; CFO Scott Berman $568,750; engineering senior VP Michael Frendo $495,000; chief legal officer Thomas McGimpsey $495,000; and sales SVP Adrian Jones $410,000. The retention bonuses are an attempt to convince customers and shareholders of the Brocade and McData that there will be an orderly transition.
QLogic
Besides impressively expanding its HBA business, QLogic put itself in position to benefit from McDatas demise by expanding its Fibre Channel switch footprint. QLogic added a low-cost director to its fabric switches and hopes to pick up OEM deals that would not have been available if McData had stuck around. (See QLogic Grabs Director's Chair.) QLogic also dropped $169 million on InfiniBand companies PathScale and SilverStorm in anticipation of the high-speed interconnect becoming more than a high-performance niche technology.(See QLogic Inches Closer to Cisco and QLogic Bets on InfiniBand
Venture Capitalists
Many of the brave souls who invested in storage during the post-bubble years cashed in this year. Riverbed, Isilon, CommVault, and Double-Take all hit or beat their price targets when they went public in 2006, and their share prices have risen since their IPOs. Several acquisitions also brought big returns. Purchase prices for Kashya, Avamar, XOSoft, Tacit, and PathScale were all at least three times the amount those startups received in funding. (See EMC Picks Up Avamar, EMC Coughs Up for Kashya, Storage Shopping Spree, QLogic Bets on InfiniBand, and Packeteer Picks Tacit.) That sets the stage for more IPOs or larger acquisition prices in 2007. Mellanox has already filed for its IPO, and EqualLogic, 3PAR, Data Domain, Compellent, and LeftHand Networks are among the growing list of hopefuls. (See Mellanox Ready for IPO .)
Next Page: Losers
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