And StorageQuest's shifted its tack once again. We are shaving off our reseller agreements now to concentrate on bringing our MSM (Multi-services Storage Manager) virtualization appliance and software to market, said Mike Hornby, VP of marketing at StorageQuest.
But the company has issues to deal with. The current generation of its MSM product only supports direct-attached legacy storage. That appears to defeat the object of a virtualization appliance, which is supposed to support multiple storage devices and host operating systems across a network, instead of deploying a direct-attached model.
Hornby says the box will support iSCSI (SCSI over IP) once the standard is ratified and it has received code from Cisco to work on this. Until then, StorageQuest says the MSM can be used to extend the life of legacy storage that won't be upgraded.
StorageQuest also has its eye on the future. It's in talks with five VCs for a round of funding between $4 and $6 million, which it hopes to close before the end of the year.
All said, StorageQuests prospects are a little murky. It is jumping on a bandwagon already well overloaded with passengers, with a product that supports legacy systems. On top of that, it is trying to raise funding at the same time that it's shedding its only source of revenue -- its reseller agreements. Time will tell.