There are several reasons for this. Not only are Oracle, Sun, and Veritas influential suppliers to key storage service provider prospects, but the three are acting as more than just investors and helpmeets. They are also assisting 3PARdata in designing its wares.
With friends like these, competitors such as Cereva Networks Inc. have much to consider. At the very least, 3PARdata's backers are a tough act to follow. Indeed, as this went to press, Cereva was still pounding the pavement for its next round (see Cereva Closes In On Round Three).
In the meantime, 3PARdata is moving on. It has appointed William H. Kurtz to be chief operating and financial officer. Kurtz was formerly CFO at Scient Corp. (Nasdaq: SCNT), a company he helped to take public in 1999. He resigned from Scient in April 2001 and left in June, claiming he didn't want to relocate from San Francisco to Scient's new headquarters in New York. Also coming aboard is Farhad Kashani, who's taking the post of senior VP of operations, a job he formerly held at content networking company CacheFlow Inc. (Nasdaq: CFLO).
For his part, Kashani is also a veteran of public companies, having overseen operations first at Wyse Technology, then at headset supplier Plantronics.
Both men's backgrounds, particularly Kurtz's, fit 3PARdata's ambitions to go public. But before anything like that can occur, the vendor must produce its product. According to spokespeople, 3PARdata is talking to storage service providers about its developments and plans to start beta tests within the next two months. Product rollout is still slated for the first half of 2002.