A Look at Past Top 10 Startups: Part 2

With the publication of our third and most recent list of Top 10 Storage Startups to Watch, we've waxed nostalgic about earlier versions of this list.

Last month, we reviewed our first round of choices to see how the first set of companies we chose have actually performed. And now we're back to review the list we made in March 2007.

As ever, we've scanned our past choices with an eye to how they have, or have not, lived up to their promise. And once again, we are taking our share of the credit or blame by ranking our picks according to the following scale: 5 = outstanding choice; 4 = good choice; 3 = not a bad choice overall; 2 = what were we thinking?; 1 = egg facial.

Enjoy! And as ever, feel free to hit the message board, write to us individually, or email us at [email protected].

The List:

To Page 2

Akorri made it onto the initial Top 10 list thanks to its ability to gauge application performance across storage and network servers and apply capacity planning, change management, and root-cause analysis.

Akorri's close relationship with VMware was a factor as well. Akorri's flagship, BalancePoint, aims to optimize the performance of databases, email, file systems, streaming media applications -- and virtualized environments.

Six months ago Akorri had just two channel partners, although CEO Richard Corley told Byte and Switch that the firm is now working with a dozen resellers and systems integrators. The vendor also has three OEM partners now, although Corley would not name names. Akorri also has built out its direct sales force to cover the entire U.S. instead of just one region. The addition of 8 sales staff over the last 6 months brings the vendor's total workforce to 58.

But sales seem slow. Akorri's managed to rack up just 11 paying customers for its software, up from 4 or 5 back in March.Help may be on the way. Akorri also closed a $15 million funding round in August, bringing total funding to $38 million. "That money is going to be used for sales expansion growing our sales force and reseller channel," explains Corley, adding that the firm is eyeing international opportunities. "The U.K is an interesting market for us to look at in 2008, as is the Pacific Rim."

Akorri is planning to bulk up BalancePoint, which already supports VMware and HDS TagmaStore virtualization, sometime in late 2007 or early 2008. "You will see us looking at additional server and storage virtualization support," explains Corley.

We're rooting for you, Richard! But it's not like Akorri's in a slow market segment. Until we see better results, we're scratching our heads a bit on our choice.

Our self-rating on this choice: 3

To Page 3This switch specialist appears to have gained some real momentum, recently adding NEC to its existing partners HP and IBM. More deals are also in the pipeline, according to the startup's CEO, Vikram Mehta. "Watch this space -- we're working it fast and furious," he says.

Blade now OEMs 12 products, up from three earlier this year.

The vendor's blade-based technology is also gaining traction among end users, thanks largely to growing demand for 10-Gbit/s Ethernet. "We have passed three million ports in production deployment," explains Mehta, adding that this is up from 2 million just six months ago.

Blade Network Technologies, which is up against the likes of Cisco in the switching space, has also started a services business and is now touting consulting and design services on top of its hardware offerings.

And the startup is looking to get into network-based virtualization, thanks to the imminent launch of a product called Smart Connect. "It will be software-based and it will be running on our switches," says Mehta, explaining that the software will be available sometime before the end of November."This will essentially virtualize the network infrastructure associated with blade server systems," he says, explaining that his firm is now seeking partnerships with storage and virtualization vendors. "Much as VMware virtualizes the server infrastructure, we will virtualize the network infrastructure."

The virtualization software will be followed by additional 10-Gbit/s Ethernet switch offerings in early 2008, according to the exec. "We're actively looking at the market for low latency, low-cost, loss-less switches," he says. "We see that as a huge opportunity."

With all these product announcements, Mehta is planning to double the size of the vendor's sales force to 30 people over the next couple of months. Blade Network Technologies' current headcount is 110, up from around 60 six months ago.

The Menlo Park, Calif.-based startup was spun out of Nortel in February 2006, although Mehta is not planning to dive into VCs' wallets anytime soon. "We have been frugal with our cash and running our business as a tight ship -- we have still got the majority of what we raised intact in the bank," he says, although he would not reveal specific dollar amounts.

Our self-rating on this choice: 5To Page 4

Cleversafe remains a science project, but it's one that officials expect to start yielding commercial results in 2008. After introducing its Dispersed Storage Project in February 2007, the vendor implanted its software at 11 Internet public POPs (points of presence) in March, just as a general Internet trial.

Since then, co-founder and CTO Chris Gladwin says that 15 DSPs (data service providers) have opted to start trialing Cleversafe's software in their networks. By this time next year, Cleversafe hopes the idea of a storage grid will have caught on enough to enable it to start offering commercial services to help folk build links and augmentations to the network.

Cleversafe has also added personnel, including CEO Jon Zakin (ex-Proxim and US Robotics); VP of development Jamie Bellanca (ex-Ingenious Inc.); and VP of product management Russ Kennedy, a former CTO of Sun's ILM unit, who also worked at Pillar.

On the downside, Cleversafe occupies a market area that some influential IT professionals view as a back-burner niche. If that attitude persists, we at Byte and Switch will be wearing the egg for having suggested that dispersed storage might catch on. In the meantime, we think that if anyone has a shot at changing the present perspective on this technology, it's Cleversafe.Our self-rating on this choice: 3

To Page 5

Scant details have emerged in the last six months about mysterious startup Grid-X, which is working on a TCP/IP offload engine (TOE) it claims will scale all the way to 100-Gbit/s Ethernet.

Although 100-Gbit/s Ethernet is still some way off, Grid-X is attempting to get in ahead of the curve by launching a beta version of its TOE sometime in late 2008. This will accelerate the speed at which grid computers, clusters, and high-performance computing machines process data.

The secretive startup is still playing its cards close to its chest with regard to its core technology. A source close to the company nonetheless told Byte and Switch that the firm is within about a week of emerging from stealth, although this depends on clinching a major research deal with NASA.NASA is not the only government body that Grid-X is involved with, according to the source. The vendor has also teamed up with the Argonne National Lab as part of a project for transferring large amounts of data between labs.

The vendor has not provided any details about other customers, although a note on the Grid-X Website says the vendor has racked up $250,000 in government contracts, with beta tests underway at both government labs and defense firms. The source close to Grid-X says the startup has also raised an unspecified amount of additional funding from its seed investors.

The identity of these investors is still shrouded in secrecy, except for former oil trader Bill Poires. The one-time senior vice president of supply at Global Petroleum is one of Grid-X's financial backers and is also responsible for negotiating deals with customers.

The small amount of funding, the secrecy, and the lack of commercial traction appear to be signs that Grid-X is a science project whose long-term future appears to be tied closely to U.S. government labs. The vendor's prospects in the commercial storage market are, it appears, a long shot.

Our self-rating on this choice: 1To Page 6

Holographic specialist InPhase is still quietly plotting its entry into the storage market after grabbing our attention earlier this year.

A subset of optical storage, holographic storage goes beyond the surface recording of traditional disk to lay down data in layers, which is where the technology derives its density advantage. InPhase has already demonstrated densities of as high as 515 Gbits per square inch in its lab, compared to around 20 Gbits per square inch for Blu-Ray disk. It claims a 50-year lifespan for its technology.

"At the end of this year, we will start shipping beta units [of our holographic drives] to customers," says Kevin Curtis, the InPhase CTO, explaining that these will be 300-Gbyte drives with a transfer rate of 20 Mbytes per second.

"The disks are removable, it's like a CD or DVD," explains the exec, adding that the product will be generally available in May next year. So far, only one beta customer, Turner Broadcasting, has been made public by InPhase, although the vendor says that around 10 users will initially test the technology.The startup has also been busy in the partner space over the last six months, signing Rorke Data as a reseller in April and clinching a deal with electronics manufacturer Ikegami, which will OEM the holographic drive. InPhase has also snuggled up to Panasonic, which will recommend the vendor's drive as the archive solution for its P2 range of camcorders.

These connections are impressive, but InPhase and its holographic story are still largely in the planning stages. We're hoping our choice was just premature.

Our self-rating on this choice: 2

To Page 7

Startup Lucid8 caught touts a combination of CDP and email management, two technologies which are fast gaining traction among users.Sure enough, since we compiled the Top 10 list earlier this year, Lucid8's customer base has grown from 900 to 1,100 organizations. "We're getting all sorts of different large customers," says the Lucid8 CEO Troy Werelius, explaining that Netflix is a recent addition to the firm's customer list.

The vendor is also looking to add to its partner list, which currently includes EMC, Symantec, Zantaz, and EqualLogic. "There are some that are in the works now, but they are not done yet," explains Werelius, adding that Lucid8 has "a lot" of OEM agreements in the pipeline.

Despite this imminent partner activity, progress on the latest version of Lucid8's DigiVault CDP product has been somewhat slower than anticipated, according to the exec. "We're behind schedule on that," admits Werelius, explaining that the firm has shifted some resources to its DigiScope e-discovery product. "It was for some of the core features and functions that some of our partners and OEMs wanted to see done," he says, adding that DigiVault 1.7 will be launched by the end of this year.

A number of big-name vendors are currently fleshing out their CDP strategies, although granular "full CDP," such as DigiVault 1.7, is still relatively scarce. One of Lucid8's main competitors, XOsoft, has already been snapped up by CA for a rumored $100 million.

Could Lucid8 be next? Werelios told Byte and Switch that he is largely unmoved by the prospect of M&A. "We have had about six different offers this year, but nothing interesting enough yet."Our self-rating on this choice: 4

To Page 8

Moonwalk has been growing sales of its object-based file-moving software, and now boasts nearly 30 customers, compared with 17 in March. Of these, officials says two are large, but unnamed, government agencies who recently signed on.

Moonwalk continues to widen its scope of applications to include object-based file-moving software and disaster recovery.

Though the need for client-side agents remains a downside in the view of some ITers, that apparently isn't standing in the way of Moonwalk's sales effort, which includes channel partnerships in the U.K. and the U.S.Moonwalk could use a couple of big OEMs and its employee roster remains tiny at 12, but its progress appears to be solid, albeit not very dramatic.

Our self-rating on this choice: 5

To Page 9

PostPath's ability to drop into a Microsoft network and work just like an Exchange server remains compelling. Some customers aren't willing to do the 64-bit upgrade that Microsoft requires to obtain better performance of the Exchange database -- performance that PostPath claims to best by a factor of five in some instances.

Since March, PostPath has continued its push, upgrading to reflect Exchange enhancements, publicizing benchmarks for Intel servers, and adding support for mobile devices.The 80-employee startup claims "hundreds" of paying customers and says its software supports more than 100,000 end users overall.

Our self-rating on this choice: 4

To Page 10

Solix Technologies' take on database archiving appeared to be well-honed in March 2007. Based on years of experience as an IT services company, Solix seems well positioned to compete against the likes of Applimation, HP, and Princeton Softech.

Solix appears to be building traction. While it doesn't enumerate its current customers, twelve are listed by name on the company's Website. Further, partnerships have formed with EMC, NetApp, Oracle, and SAP. At least two of these are part of planned appliances, scheduled for release within the next few months, that combine Solix's structured data archiving with unstructured archiving from leading suppliers.Sounds like a winning combination to us.

Our self-rating on this choice: 5

To Page 11

Storewiz, newly renamed Storwize, offers a hitherto unique take on data reduction, based on compression. And it seems to have taken off.

Since we named Storwiz(e) to our list in March, the company claims to have signed over 200 customers and formed partnerships with Agami and Landmark, a subsidiary of Halliburton. There's been $9 million in new funding. And a new compression appliance is being readied for debut next week.This traction isn't surprising, given the overall mindshare associated with any form of data reduction, including data de-duplication. Storwize says it can improve compression ratios from 3:1 to 4:1 for files, saving 67 percent of capacity. Databases can achieve up to 5:1 compression, the vendor claims.

Storwize's approach of compressing data "on the fly" as it travels from switch to server or storage competes with Asigra, EMC (via Avamar), and Symantec, which compress data before it is sent to backup. Newcomer Ocarina also has a compression bid, but its actual product remains unproven.

Overall, we think Storewize has a bright future, and we're standing proudly by our pick.

Our self-rating on this choice: 5 Have a comment on this story? Please click "Discuss" below. If you'd like to contact Byte and Switch's editors directly, send us a message.