CEO Blog

December 17, 2008

BLADE’s 2008 Report Card: Leadership in blade server networking, 10 Gigabit Ethernet and Rackonomics have BLADE hitting on all cylinders

I am extremely happy to report a record-breaking 2008 for BLADE Network Technologies with our FY08 concluding on a high note. A recent BLADE switch installation at Phorm (AIM: PHRM, PHRX) put BLADE’s total shipments past the 5 million ports milestone. An online advertising company with offices in New York, London and Moscow, Phorm has deployed BLADE’s top-of-rack RackSwitch data center switch for its innovative Open Internet Exchange (OIX), which enables its ISP partners to fully protect user privacy.

Here are some additional highlights that demonstrate that BLADE is indeed hitting on all cylinders as we prepare for the year ahead:

- During our most recent quarter, BLADE shipped more than 500,000 Ethernet ports to conclude its 2008 fiscal year with 54 percent shipment growth over the previous year. When we started BLADE, it took 19 months to ship our first 500,000 ports, so BLADE’s current rate of expansion is truly exhilarating.

- BLADE’s market share of data center switches for blade servers now stands in excess of 48.5 percent combined on HP and IBM blade servers and 66 percent on NEC blade servers. To date, BLADE's market share and Ethernet port shipments on both IBM and HP platforms are more than 2x greater than Cisco’s!

- BLADE’s new 10 Gigabit Ethernet "Virtual, Cooler and Easier" RackSwitch products, introduced in 2008, position the company to deliver the enhanced network performance required for data center consolidation, virtualization and cloud computing.

- During 2008, BLADE built up our world-class management team for more than 155 passionately committed team of “BLADErs” with the addition of Mark Verbeck as CFO, Mark Hudson as CMO, Dan Tuchler as Vice President of Strategy and Product Management, Atul Tambe as Vice President of Hardware Engineering and Tim Chao as Vice President of Software Engineering.

Today I am very fortunate to work for a very “Un-Silicon Valley” company. At BLADE Network Technologies, there are no Silicon Valley "rock stars," celebrity billionaires, or ex-Cisco executives – only the most talented and hungry people in the industry with a passion to serve our customers and produce tangible, real-word business results. While I am indeed proud of what we BLADErs continue to accomplish, here is a perspective on why BLADE continues to meet and surpass our expectations:

1. The Rise of 10 Gigabit Ethernet: Analyst firm IDC forecasts that adoption of 10 Gigabit Ethernet will accelerate due to falling prices, converged data, storage and media networks, higher density to reduce cabling and ports and other customer needs – such as for VoIP, IPTV, VOD, Surveillance, iSCSI, HPC, virtualization and backup. According to Dell’Oro Group’s Five-Year Ethernet Forecast (July 2008), 10 Gigabit Ethernet is expected to reach 15.1 million ports and will represent one quarter of all switch market revenue in 2012.

2. Servers, Consolidation and Virtualization: Data centers that are consolidating operations and equipping their infrastructures for virtualization are ideal for blade servers. In fact, according to IDC, blades were the only server form-factor to experience positive growth in the most recent quarter, with all major vendors exhibiting double-digit growth in blade volumes.

3. Rackonomics for the New Data Center Frugality: To aid data center managers seeking to consolidate and virtualize vital IT systems despite today’s tight economy, BLADE champions a new set of rules for the data center known as Rackonomics – an economical formula that empowers data centers to control costs and contain sprawl while realizing massive scale-out economies.

Our industry-leading data center networking products enable enterprise data centers to equip their infrastructures for the increased network loads introduced by consolidation and virtualization.

Our talented team continues to build BLADE’s trusted partnerships with industry leaders such as HP, IBM, NEC and Verari Systems.

And our approach to Rackonomics makes sound business sense in today’s economic environment.

I am excited about the year ahead and welcome your continued interest in and support for BLADE’s endeavor.

Labels: Rackonomics RackSwitch BLADE Network Technologies Vikram Mehta

posted by Vikram Mehta @ 6:51 PM   0 comments