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Springtime Top Ten: Page 14 of 17

It's a tiny outfit, but GlassHouse already has 22 paying customers. The ones we can mention include Air Products and Chemical, GiantLoop Network Inc.,

Network Plus, RISO Inc., Brockway Smith, Charles River Labs, Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ), ISO New England, Shipley (a Rohm and Haas Company), and State Street Global Advisors.

Its competitors include Imation Corp., Storability Inc., and Calisma Inc. But for now, we think GlassHouse cuts the mustard.

Startups acquiring startups. We love this. Why? Because it demonstrates two important traits in a young company: One, that it has enough cash; and two, that it can spot market trends and isn't afraid to buy expertise rather than taking years to grow it in-house.

And why is all this relevant to our new No. 10 entrant, you ask? Well, LeftHand Networks recently snapped up North Fork Networks (see LeftHand Grabs North Fork) to move into a new area.

LeftHand was first to market a year ago with a NAS box that operates over standard Ethernet networks and supports both block and file transfers. But the capacity of its so-called Network Storage Module (NSM) was a little on the small side. Prices for a 160-Gbyte NSM system, including hardware, software, and a three-year service and remote support warranty, begin at $15,000, which is pretty low for this kind of gear. Compare it with offerings from BlueArc Corp., Network Appliance Inc. (Nasdaq: NTAP), and EMC Corp. (NYSE: EMC), which start at around $50,000.