Top Ten Private Storage Networking Companies: Page 21 of 23

Zambeel Inc. sneaks in at number ten as a new entry on the list. It's obvious why when you check out these stats.

The company plays in the virtualization space, which is just about the hottest sector of the market right now.

Plus, it's backed by VC-extraordinaire Vinod Khosla, a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Think: Redback Networks (Nasdaq: RBAK) and Juniper Networks (Nasdaq: JNPR). Kleiner Perkins was the lead investor in Zambeel’s first round, which raised $26.5 million earlier this year.

Khosla personally got involved with this crew, hiring their new CEO, Darren Thomas, from Compaq Computer Corp. (NYSE: CPQ). Thomas was VP of Compaq's enterprise storage division for 15 years, and he has big plans for Zambeel. “We can do in one year here, what it will take them three years to do at Compaq,” he told Byte and Switch (see Khosla's Back, Backing Stealth Startup).

He revealed that Zambeel is building a file-based NAS device that will deliver both scaleable capacity and performance. The problem with the NAS boxes out there today, according to Thomas, is scaleability: “They scale in terms of capacity but not performance."