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To: SecularBull who wrote (9842)	1/23/2002 9:34:01 AM
From: riposte	Respond to of 10934

Storage startups still catching cash From SearchStorage.com: searchstorage.techtarget.com Alan Earls 23 Jan 2002 Storage startups still catching cash Procom Technology, a developer of intelligent storage technology and a pioneer in network attached storage (NAS), recently announced a new $9.75 million financing arrangement. The infusion of cash will provide Procom with operating capital of which, $5 million from this round will go towards repaying the remaining outstanding principal balance and accrued interest on the company's 6 percent convertible debenture. While that's good news for Procom, it's peanuts compared to what some storage outfits have been nabbing from venture capitalists, despite a tighter investment market. Consider, for example, the $50 million gathered by Fremont, California-based Rhapsody Networks. Or how about the $38.3 million that Sunnyvale, California-based Sanera Systems, a developer of carrier class storage networking infrastructure products for enterprises and service providers, managed to snare. No doubt about it, storage is still sexy. Apparently attractive enough to catch the eyes of VCs during a time when the overall VC market saw a 23 percent 3rd quarter decline in investing as reported by the PricewaterhouseCoopers and VentureOne MoneyTree survey. According to that report, in the third quarter a total of $6.5 billion was invested in 601 financing rounds -- a 16 percent decline in rounds compared to last quarter. Currently, quarterly investment is roughly one-fourth of its Q1 2000 peak. The survey spotted several other storage firms that bucked this downward trend and landed double-digit investments. They include: Yotta Yotta, Kirkland, WA ($26 million); Panasas, Freemont, Calif. ($25.4 million) ; Scale Eight, San Francisco ($23.3 million); United Devices, Austin, Tex. ($18.2 million); Silverback Systems, Mountain View, Calif.( $15 million); Storactive, Marina del Rey, Calif. ($11.7 million); iVivity, Atlanta, Ga. ( $11 million), and; MaXXan Systems, San Jose ($10 million). In a statement issued with the report, Tracy Lefteroff, global managing partner of the Venture Capital Practice of PricewaterhouseCoopers, noted that 1999 and 2000 were anomalous years. Despite the relative declines reported in the survey, investment totals for the year were the third highest ever recorded. The bottom line seems to be that storage customers will still be able to bank on more choice and more innovation in the year ahead.

To: SecularBull who wrote (9842)	1/23/2002 2:09:59 PM
From: riposte	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10934

Procom NAS To Get Microsoft Nod Microsoft pulled support for all NAS devices last spring because it couldn't guarantee the integrity of information that came through its own common Internet file-system protocol, which all NAS devices support. By Martin J. Garvey, InformationWeek Jan 22, 2002 (12:00 AM) URL: informationweek.com Procom Technology Inc. this week will get approval for its new NetForce 3000 storage to join Microsoft's Hardware Compatibility List. Making the list will be a boon to businesses that run Microsoft Exchange on network-attached storage devices. Microsoft pulled support for all NAS devices last spring because it couldn't guarantee the integrity of information that came through its own common Internet file system protocol, which all NAS devices support. At the time, Microsoft said it would only guarantee information integrity when the information is run through networked storage that processes blocks of data instead of files of information--a decision that has left users in a bind. "If customers run Exchange on storage not certified by Microsoft, that's going to lead to a lot of finger-pointing among vendors," International Data Corp. analyst John McArthur says. Procom delivers its NetForce 3000 NAS devices with its Duet storage area network controller attached. Duet can interface with SANs and run Exchange information through as blocks of data. Parsa Rohani, Procom's VP of marketing, admits that Procom didn't create Duet on its own. Procom came up with the idea after Microsoft's decision and added Duet through a deal with IBM's Mylex storage controller division. For National City Mortgage, the Miamisburg, Ohio, business unit of National City Corp., the Microsoft support is good news. Last year, it bought two Procom NetForce devices for $300,000, cutting its storage costs in half, instead of buying high-end Network Appliance Inc. devices. Each Procom device supports more than 2 terabytes of data and acts as a business-continuity system. "Without Duet, we would have built more disk [space] around our Exchange servers," says Kevin Marvin, IS chief architect at National City Mortgage. "The coolest thing about Duet is that I can also install larger Unix systems running Oracle this summer." He hopes to expand the lower-cost Procom disk space instead of buying more expensive disk space from one of the Unix players.