BlueArc extending its circle

BlueArc will likely not want Avere accelerators installed in front of its products because then customers could get the performance they need from the Avere boxes with commodity filers used to store the bulk data and no need for BlueArc's enhanced performance filers at all. It means BlueArc needs to nullify any performance advantage Avera has.

Gustafson said BlueArc had recovered from the recession and has resumed a growth curve. "We've taken market share in the past four years. The first quarter this financial year was down but we returned to sequential quarterly growth in Q2 and returned to year-on-year growth in the second half."

He said that Mercury sales had helped, with more than 100 new customers, and that HDS was doing very well for BlueArc.

This is a year in which privately-owned BlueArc needs to execute well, and he says: "We're positioning this year for break-end in EBITADA (Earnings before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization) terms." This doesn't mean the firm is profitable, as profitability is calculated after depreciation and taxes. If it does reach EBITADA break-even, then an IPO might be considered looking ahead, assuming that the market situation is favourable.

BlueArc is extending its product arc so it covers more of the filer market and aiming to offer higher-performance and better-scaling filers at the high-end, mid-point and low-end of the file storage market, but not with commodity products. It wants to show the storage world, and customers, that it is a high-growth company that will progress to profitability and then on to an IPO.

That's Gustafson's pitch; he's aiming to show us there's gold at the end of BlueArc's rainbow. We'll see. ®