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Lefthand Grabs Another Fistful: Page 2 of 3

This makes sense in light of the company’s product roadmap. Gigabit-Ethernet-supported products are expected to ship in the third quarter of 2001 with a base unit selling for under $15,000. In early 2002, Lefthand will support a Fibre Channel interface enabling the product to sit on the SAN for block-based storage delivery.

Only a small number of players (or potential players) have figured out how to make their subsystems "data structure agnostic," i.e., offer files when required or blocks when required from the same platform.

And the innovation is all happening in the startup arena. At the very high end are 3PARdata, Cereva Networks Inc., Yotta Yotta, and Exanet Inc. (See Top Ten Private
Storage Networking Companies
.) The mid-tier companies include Lefthand, Panasas, and Tricord Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: TRCD) -- and plenty more highly stealthy startups. Then there are the software plays, like Sistina Software, PolyServe, InterMemory, and Ibrix. Lefthand will also have to contend with giants EMC Corp. (NYSE: EMC)
and Network Appliance Inc. (Nasdaq: NTAP), once they eventually build or buy this technology.

On the customer front, Lefthand is targeting all the big financial services companies, including Goldman Sachs & Co. and Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc..

Former GE honcho Bill Chambers (no relation to John) is the CEO of Lefthand and formed the company with John Spiers, the CTO, whom he was trying to recruit to join his previous company, Tango Technologies, a software services organization.