Alas, poor Xiotech. The company has labored for a decade to carve out a place in the enterprise storage market, first with the Magnitude enterprise SAN array and later with the midrange Emprise line. They were acquired by Seagate in 1999, spun back out in 2002, and took over that company’s clever Intelligent Storage Element (ISE) technology in 2007. Yet Xiotech never reached the mass attention or customer adoption that this wide product line seems to call for.
Today marks the next step for Xiotech, with a new round of funding and a clever and proven new CEO at the helm. I met Alan Atkinson back in my StorageNetworks days, and he impressed me with his vision and charisma. This was proven out with WysDM, Atkinson’s storage and backup metrics startup which he sold to EMC last year. Alan seems to agree with my suggestion that we need a real storage revolution, and Xiotech’s ISE hardware and software gives him a workable platform to build on. In an interview with SearchStorage, Atkinson hints that ISE and cloud storage are two areas of focus for him.
But this new role includes serious challenges. Although financial information is not available, the private company must face cash shortages given their recent funding and debt announcements. And while ISE has certainly won friends, one wonders if a steady 100 or so sales per month will meet the investors’ expectations. One also wonders if the hubbub over Dave Donatelli’s departure from EMC for HP will be repeated with Atkinson and Xiotech. Finally, the relationship between Xiotech and Seagate remains cloudy and the former parent could become a hurdle to product development. Still, it is good to see that some life still remains in the enterprise storage industry.
Go, Alan! Good luck with your new job.
Stephen – you have it mostly right. Life does indeed remain in the storage industry, and lots of it, actually. Alan is exactly the right man at the right time, as well. But some of your other comments are off the mark. Xiotech is quite financially healthy, thank you, with a killer balance sheet, are able and continuing to plow significant dollars back into R&D, unlike a lot of our brethren in the industry. Plus, our relationship with Seagate is terrific; the mere fact that Steve Luczo is on our Board of Directors is full testament to that fact. Hurdle to product development? Quite the contrary – our group in Colorado Springs is, as many know, deep in Seagate experience and has stronger ties than any single group of developers around. It's puzzling why folks keep repeating the same myths that were perpetuated years ago as FUD. The only reason I can see for this is that many wish us to fail, and we haven't – still here, still innovative, still successful. But thanks for your post – your last sentence is right on and we intend to show the world that indeed, life remains in the storage industry.
Rob, I can imagine other reasons that folks question Xiotech's financial health, and can assure you that I do not “wish [Xiotech] to fail” as you seem to suggest. It is a small company; it has been through acquisition, spin-out, and product line assumption; it has announced both financing and (importantly) debt; it has seen fit to announce low-thousands sales of its premier product line.
The best thing (in my opinion) for Xiotech to do is to prove the doubters wrong with exciting announcements, customer wins, and similar evidence of execution. I can not imagine that the company would release more sales or financial information than has been already shown (15,000 ISE sales in 12 months).
Hi Stephen, I certainly did not mean that you personally wish us to fail…that's why I constructed my sentence above the way I did, as 'many', meaning many others in the industry. We are not small; in fact, we are the world's largest privately held storage company. We have a top 10 market share in SAN storage. We have not announced debt; we announced a line of credit which we can tap into, if necessary, which is a prudent thing to do, since we are private and do not dine at the public trough. We have plenty of exciting announcements and dozens of customer wins/case studies out there; have a look.
Well thanks for clearing that up then!
I assume you have read Chris Mellor's piece in The Register:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/10/02/xiotech…
Rob, I can imagine other reasons that folks question Xiotech's financial health, and can assure you that I do not “wish [Xiotech] to fail” as you seem to suggest. It is a small company; it has been through acquisition, spin-out, and product line assumption; it has announced both financing and (importantly) debt; it has seen fit to announce low-thousands sales of its premier product line.
The best thing (in my opinion) for Xiotech to do is to prove the doubters wrong with exciting announcements, customer wins, and similar evidence of execution. I can not imagine that the company would release more sales or financial information than has been already shown (15,000 ISE sales in 12 months).
Hi Stephen, I certainly did not mean that you personally wish us to fail…that's why I constructed my sentence above the way I did, as 'many', meaning many others in the industry. We are not small; in fact, we are the world's largest privately held storage company. We have a top 10 market share in SAN storage. We have not announced debt; we announced a line of credit which we can tap into, if necessary, which is a prudent thing to do, since we are private and do not dine at the public trough. We have plenty of exciting announcements and dozens of customer wins/case studies out there; have a look.
Well thanks for clearing that up then!
I assume you have read Chris Mellor's piece in The Register:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/10/02/xiotech…