Costa Mesa’s Emulex Corp., a maker of electronics for data storage networks, recently broke protocol and revealed a customer,IBM Corp.,for a new type of networking technology.
Emulex said it’s set to provide IBM with a “virtual fabric adapter” for a lineup of servers.
The adapters allow IBM’s customers to get data faster and to upgrade their storage networks to what’s known as converged technologies.
The announcement is an important step for Emulex, which has spent months talking up its design wins for the new technology but hadn’t yet named any customers.
The company has to prove to investors and analysts that it’s better off on its own than as part of spurned chipmaker Broadcom Corp., which attempted a hostile takeover a few months ago.
In fending off a takeover bid by Irvine-based Broadcom, Emulex raised the prospect of big growth a few years from now as a reason for rejecting Broadcom’s offers.
Its ambitious projections hinge on its ability to secure market share for converged networking gear, which promises to bridge everyday corporate networks of servers and desktop PCs with more robust, specialized data storage networks.
In another announcement last month, Emulex said it inked a cross-licensing deal with IBM.
The deal allows Emulex to speed up the process of integrating its converged network adapters with Big Blue’s computers.
The adapters are set to go into blade and virtualized servers, which pack multiple slim servers into one box.
For now, sales of converged network adapter cards are small for Emulex. It’s seen about $1 million in sales of the cards so far.
But it’s still early in the game. The cards are seen as taking hold in 2010 or 2011.
That led Emulex, in the middle of the takeover drama, to boost its guidance for the 12 months through June 2012. It said it projects to earn profits of roughly $120 million on revenue of more than $600 million.
Emulex’s 2012 fiscal year forecast represents a big jump from where the company is now. For the 12 months through June of this year, it reported profits of $7.5 million on sales of $378 million.
Social Network
Irvine’s Toshiba America Business Solutions Inc., a unit of Japan’s Toshiba Corp., is set to launch its own social networking Web site in September.
The company makes and services printers, copiers and all-in-one office machines that print, scan, fax and copy. It sells them di-rectly to businesses and through resellers.
The company created “Toshiba Ex-change,” a site designed to connect thousands of Toshiba sales, service, administrative and corporate workers around the country.
The site is designed not so much as a friend-following portal, but as a way for employees to share tips and sales practices with each other.
“It’s estimated that only 20% of an organization’s knowledge is actually captured in written documents, while the remaining value-rich information resides exclusively in the heads of employees,” said Bill Melo, vice president of marketing and enterprise services and solutions.
The site will also reach out to Toshiba’s resellers, dealers and direct sales staff.
It’s set to feature online profiles of members, blogs, video clips and feeds of related information.
Toshiba America Business Solutions, which doesn’t disclose revenue, has roughly 350 workers in Irvine.
BlizzCon Bursting at Seams
Irvine’s Blizzard Entertainment Inc. may have hit its limit on its annual fanfest BlizzCon, which took place at the Anaheim Convention Center last month.
Some 28,000 people, including more than 1,000 Blizzard workers, attended the two-day event.
That’s more than four times the number that attended the first BlizzCon in 2006.
“It’s going to be pretty difficult to get much bigger here,” said Paul Sams, Blizzard’s chief operating officer. “So we’ll have to think about what that means for next year.”
The convention center can hold up to 90,000 people, depending on the configuration.
But the Blizz-Con layout features a lot of open space and long cordoned-off areas where attendees can pick up badges.
The company said having it in Anaheim is perfect because oth-er Southern California attractions,not to mention Disneyland across the street,draw out-of-towners.
“Having it in Anaheim is wonderful because it gives people all the more justification to come if they are coming from out of state or from a distance,” he said. “If you put it on in some other city, I don’t know if you will have as much of a draw.”
Taking BlizzCon out of Anaheim would also make it much more expensive to put on the show. Blizzard flies in its workers from offices in Texas, Ireland and Paris for the event.
Obviously the Irvine workers don’t have to be flown in at all.
“That makes it all the more costly for us if we take it away from Anaheim, because we still are going to want to have a huge contingent of our employees there,” Sams said.
