Xiotech saddles up, heads west, fires a few guys
'One-time streamlining' accompanies HQ move
In a decisive break with its past, Xiotech is moving its headquarters from Eden Prairie, Minnesota, to Colorado Springs in Colorado, and some people have been laid off as a result.
Marketing head Brian Reagan emphasised that this was a one-off exercise, saying: "Some roles have been eliminated in order to streamline operations. This was a one-time event."
An HQ move was rumoured just before Christmas. The background to it is that Xiotech developed its Magnitude storage arrays from its Eden Prairie base a few years ago, after it had first been sold by Seagate. Once Xiotech bought Seagate's Advanced Storage Architectures Group and its ISE (Intelligent Storage Element) technology, it possessed a development centre for that in Colorado Springs. The ISE technology has come to the forefront of Xiotech's activities and Xiotech's execs are now betting the business's future on it.
Reagan said: "ISE was originally developed in Colorado Springs, and that facility has been the home of the majority of the engineering and development teams, R&D lab, and executive briefing centers. We’ve now officially moved the company headquarters to Colorado Springs, in keeping with our 'ISE Company' focus. As a result, some roles are being moved from Minnesota to Colorado."
We understand that other roles have been eliminated as well. A source informed us that three sales positions and one sales engineering job have been canned in the western half of the USA. Chief strategy office Jim McDonald said: "Some other roles have been eliminated as part of a one-time streamlining of our operations in line with the focus on ISE."
Reagan says the ISE business is taking off: "Xiotech’s focus is now exclusively ISE, with exciting announcements planned for [the] end of January. "Xiotech experienced nearly 20 per cent year-on-year growth in the ISE business in 2010 and saw our enterprise penetration increase, with ISE now installed in 27 of Fortune 100 and 51 of Fortune 500 [businesses]. We also added significant new controller options in 2010 including NAS and a Scale Out Storage Controller, the Emprise 9000."
New year, new HQ, and new ISE developments. It's gonna be pretty much a make or break year for the company. ®
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