Crosswalk

Storage software startup Crosswalk Inc. is finally emerging from stealth, though its founder is well known in SAN circles.

Jack McDonnell, the former founder and CEO of McData Corp. (Nasdaq: MCDTA), is among three veterans of McData to start Crosswalk, and hes Crosswalk's primary investor. McDonnell founded McData in 1982 and served as CEO until 2002 (see Jack McDonnell, Chairman and CEO, McData, McData Appoints Kelley CEO, and McData Names Kelley as Chairman).

Two other former McData execs, Crosswalk VP of solutions Mark Stratton and CTO Rob Kelley, left the switchmaker to join McDonnell in starting his new company in February 2004.

Crosswalk, based in Westminster, Colorado, right down the road from McData’s Broomfield headquarters, aims to serve the small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) and SMB markets with storage management software, starting with the company's Crosswalk Storage Manager (see Crosswalk Launches SRM for SMBs).

The software is aimed at small and midtier customers with multivendor storage networks. Stratton says the idea is to give these companies a method of storage management they can understand more easily than the wares from big vendors or systems integrators (see Vendors Debate SANs for SMBs).