Costa Mesa’s Emulex Corp., a maker of electronics for data storage networks, on Thursday 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.
It’s ambitious projections hinge on it’s 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 an earlier announcement on Monday, 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 IBM’s computers.
The adapters are set to go into blade and virtualized servers, which pack in multiple slim servers into one box.
Investors seemed nonplussed by the news.
Shares closed flat on Thursday on a recent market value of $750 million.
