Who are those guys?
Well, in a crowded software-defined storage world, being mysterious about how you actually do what you claim to be doing will generate some curiosity and buzz. That said, 35 smart people being paid $150K per person per year could burn through $30M in less than six years. The 50 patents awarded or pending could be researched for information about what StorONE is actually doing. Patents represent a reduction to practice and not just an idea. One patent is typically not enough and is usually accompanied by related and/or nuisance patents to protect the valuable IP. By comparison, Cleversafe, an object-based storage software and hardware startup acquired by IBM for $1.3B in 2015 had amassed 300 patents.
The suggestion that StoreONE is looking for additional funding or a potential acquisition could be plausible but it only has beta customers at this point. By comparison, Cleversafe had over 100 production customers including a three-letter U.S. government intelligence agency when it was acquired by IBM. At some point, StorONE will have to come clean about what they are doing and how they do it. A few years ago, the OpenStack startup Nebula burned through $25M in funding in a couple of years but was unable to attract additional funding despite having investors who were A-list players. Oracle picked up the company for a bargain price basically to hire the people working at Nebula.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
