Katana Becomes Virtual Iron

Its all change at data center startup Katana Technology Inc., which has changed its name to Virtual Iron Software Inc. and hired a new CEO as it prepares to launch its first product.

Virtual Iron is hoping to make its name in the growing market for data center virtualization products. The Acton, Mass.-based firm is pinning its future on a software technology that creates virtual servers from any number of physical servers.

But what was wrong with Katana? “We came up with a better name,” is the simple explanation from the company’s new president and CEO John C.Thibault, who has taken the reins from founder Scott Davis. Prior to joining Virtual Iron, Thibault was CEO of GeoTel Communications Corp., which was snapped up by Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO) in a $2 billion deal back in 1999.

Davis will remain with the company as CTO and executive vice president of strategy.

At this stage, company execs are unwilling to give away too much detail about Virtual Iron's software other than that it's built around open standards.Thibault tells NDCF that the software will work with Linux and other industry-standard operating systems, as well as running on commodity servers. Alex Vasilevsky, Virtual Iron’s chief scientist and co-founder, adds that it will not require major changes to existing applications. There will be "no recompiles, no rewrites,” he says. “Existing applications will run without changes on this virtualized platform.”

Virtual Iron is planning to unveil the software at next month’s Demo conference in Scottsdale, Ariz.

Thibault also tells NDCF that the company has around 40 employees and there are plans to expand the workforce, although he is unable to provide any specific figures. “I think that we will be in growth mode for some time -- that will be driven by the adoption of the product."

Founded in 2003, Virtual Iron has so far amassed $20 million in funding from Goldman Sachs & Co., Highland Capital Partners, and Matrix Partners.

Virtual Iron is one of a number of startups, including UXComm Inc. and Symbium Corp. that are aiming to automate the data center (see Startups Angle for Autonomy ).Name changes appear to be something of a startup trend at the moment. Earlier this week, 10-Gigabit Ethernet specialist S2io Technologies Corp. morphed into Neterion Inc. and overhauled its core technology (see S2io Becomes Neterion).

— James Rogers, Site Editor, Next-Gen Data Center Forum