We design and develop storage networking infrastructure components sold to original
equipment manufacturers, or OEMs, distributors, resellers and system integrators.
We produce the controller chips, management enclosure chips, host bus adapters,
or HBAs, fabric switches and management software that provide the connectivity
infrastructure for every size of storage network. We serve customers with solutions
based on various storage area network, or SAN, technologies including Small Computer
Systems Interface, or SCSI, Internet SCSI, or iSCSI, and Fibre Channel.
Our products are sold directly to OEMs and through our authorized distributors
and resellers. Our customers rely on our SAN infrastructure technology to deliver
storage solutions to information technology professionals in virtually every
business sector.
Our technology is found primarily in server, workstation, storage subsystem
and hard disk drive solutions targeted at:
• Storage-intensive enterprise applications such as data warehousing, data
mining and online transaction processing;
• Media-rich environments such as film/video, broadcast, medical imaging and
computer-aided design, or CAD, and computer-aided manufacturing, or CAM;
• Server clustering, high-speed backup and data replication.
Our products are incorporated in a large number of solutions from OEM customers,
including Cisco Systems, Inc., Dell Computer Corporation, EMC Corporation, Fujitsu
Limited, Hitachi, Ltd., Hewlett-Packard Company, International Business Machines
Corporation, Network Appliance, Inc., Quantum Corporation, Storage Technology
Corporation, Sun Microsystems, Inc. and many others.
To ensure interoperability within the SAN, we work closely with independent
hardware vendors and software vendors, as well as developers and integrators
who create, test, and evaluate complementary storage networking products. We
have key alliance relationships with Cisco Systems, Inc., Microsoft Corporation,
VERITAS Software Corporation, Computer Associates International, Inc., Legato
Systems, Inc. and McData Corporation.
Our ability to serve the storage industry stems from our highly leveraged product
line that addresses virtually every connection point in a SAN infrastructure
solution. On the server side of the SAN, we provide enclosure management products,
HBA technology on the motherboard (“Fibre Down” technology), baseboard management
solutions and Fibre Channel HBAs. Connecting servers to storage, we provide
the network infrastructure with a full suite of Fibre Channel switches. On the
storage side of the network, we provide controller chips for RAID storage systems.
These include Fibre Channel host port connections and RAID controller to Fibre
Channel and SCSI disk drive port connections. In addition, we are a leading,
independent designer, developer and supplier of enterprise disk drive controllers.
One of our key strategies has been to provide our customers with solutions
that simplify their product design requirements. Complete storage networking
solutions that are pre-tested and easy to install significantly reduce the critical
implementation and time-to-market effort for OEMs. Today, our SAN infrastructure
components are found in solutions from most major server and storage OEMs worldwide.
We market and distribute our products through OEMs, system integrators, value-added
resellers, or VARs, and our direct sales organization supported by field sales
and systems engineering personnel. In addition, we utilize a network of independent
manufacturers’ representatives and regional and international distributors.
In national and in certain international markets, we maintain both a direct
sales force to serve our large OEM customers and multiple outside representatives
that are focused on medium-sized and emerging accounts. National distributors
carrying our products serve the VAR market. We maintain a focused business development
and outbound marketing organization to assist, train, equip and augment the
sales organizations of our major OEM customers and their respective reseller
organizations and partners. Recently, in order to expand into the Asia-Pacific
region, we opened a sales office in Taiwan to support both customers and partners
in that region.
Due to the broad array of components required in the SAN infrastructure, we
compete with several companies. In the Fibre Channel HBA market, our primary
competitors are Emulex Corporation, LSI Logic Corporation and Applied Micro
Circuits Corporation. In the SCSI sector of the I/ O market, we compete primarily
with Adaptec, Inc. and LSI Logic Corporation. Our switch products compete primarily
with Brocade Communications Systems, Inc., Cisco Systems, Inc., McData Corporation
and Emulex Corporation.
There are two markets in the Fibre Channel semiconductor controller business.
The first market is associated with server and storage controller interfaces.
In this market our primary competitors are Agilent Technologies, Inc. and LSI
Logic Corporation. The second market relates to controllers for enterprise disk
drives where our primary competitor is LSI Logic Corporation.
Finally, our enclosure and baseboard management semiconductor controllers compete
primarily with Vitesse Semiconductor Corporation and Hitachi, Ltd.