Network Computing is part of the Informa Tech Division of Informa PLC

This site is operated by a business or businesses owned by Informa PLC and all copyright resides with them. Informa PLC's registered office is 5 Howick Place, London SW1P 1WG. Registered in England and Wales. Number 8860726.

Chris Baldwin: Page 4 of 15

Baldwin: I came out of the industry to become a VC in 1999 when networking companies were growing on trees and quickly realised it was time to face a brave new world.

The storage networking market seemed to have some eerie parallels to the networking world of ten years ago. Back when Token Ring, Netware, and Banyan Vines were all proprietary network systems, Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO) came in with a multiprotocol device, sat right in the middle, and made it all work together.

Storage networks today are going through the same predicament with incompatible protocols. There’s iSCSI, Fibre Channel, virtual block level, file level, bridging, routing... and none of these will go away fast. So something has to sit in the middle and sort it all out. That would be where Pirus Networks fits in, as it supports IP, gigabit Ethernet, and Fibre Channel.

Byte and Switch: Pirus wouldn’t happen to be a Charles River Ventures investment, now, would it Chris?

Baldwin: Since you mention it yes, Pirus is.