IPO Talk Strikes Voltaire

Could Voltaire be the next storage vendor to go public? Rumors are circulating that the InfiniBand specialist is laying the foundations for an IPO later this year.

Voltaire has already chosen the underwriters for a Nasdaq offering, according to Israeli technology Website Globes, with Merrill Lynch and JP Morgan the lead managers and RBC and Thomas Weisel as co-managers.

The vendor, which is based in Billerica, Mass., and Herzeliya, Israel, will reportedly raise $100 million in a third-quarter IPO, at a company value of between $350 million and $450 million.

The last few months have certainly been busy for Voltaire, which is looking to expand its international operations and recently announced a 10-Gbit/s Ethernet line card for its Grid Director switches. (See Voltaire Expands Global Presence, Voltaire Opens China Office, Voltaire Expands to NY, Japan, Voltaire Opens in Germany, InfiniBand Vendors Embrace 10-GigE, and Voltaire Readies Switches.)

The vendor also sells virtualization software that serves as a framework for connecting InfiniBand, Ethernet, and Fibre Channel devices, as well as Linux-based software for provisioning servers and networking gear. (See Cisco Topspins Into Virtualization, Voltaire Envisions Mondo-Provisioning, and Voltaire Simplifies Provisioning.)Voltaire, for its part, is not willing to talk about any IPO plans. "It's really just a rumor and I can't comment on it," was the response from Voltaire spokeswoman Christy Lynch.

At least one analyst told Byte and Switch that he would not be at all surprised if Voltaire went down the IPO path later this year. "It's certainly something that they have always planned on doing," says Mike Karp, senior analyst at Enterprise Management Associates.

The analyst says the InfiniBand market is getting hotter at the moment. "I am seeing more and more people interested in InfiniBand," he explained, adding that a lot of financial firms are now considering the interconnect for high performance computing.

Users have already cited the low latency of InfiniBand as ideal for storage networking, opening up the possibility of major storage grids. (See Interop: Mixed Messages on InfiniBand.) The technology was also the fastest growing interconnect on the most recent Top 500 list of the world's fastest supercomputers. (See InfiniBand Take 2.)

Despite InfiniBand's progress, however, it's questionable whether it can ever catch up to Fibre Channel and Ethernet. Still, Fibre Channel HBA vendor QLogic's acquisition of SilverStorm last October was seen as a move toward ending the technology's days as a niche play. (See InfiniBand Goes Mainstream, QLogic Bets on InfiniBand, and QLogic Grabs SilverStorm.)A number of storage vendors, including Engenio and DataDirect Networks, have started offering native InfiniBand storage systems, which let customers connect directly through InfiniBand switches, eliminating the need for Fibre Channel-to-InfiniBand bridges. (See InfiniBand Natives Stirring, Engenio Goes Native , and Verari Ships InfiniBand SAN.)

Certainly, Voltaire would not be the first InfiniBand specialist to take the IPO plunge. Last month, for example, chipmaker Mellanox opened with an impressive share price on its first day of trading. (See Mellanox Exceeds IPO Hopes, Mellanox Goes Public, and Mellanox Ready for IPO .)

James Rogers, Senior Editor Byte and Switch