NetApp

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Mre5765 (talk | contribs) at 06:55, 15 February 2006. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Network Appliance, Inc. NasdaqNTAP, founded in 1992 by David Hitz, James Lau, and Michael Malcolm, is a network storage company headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. It is a member of the NASDAQ 100 and employs more than 4800 people worldwide.

Network Appliance, Inc.
Company typePublic (NASDAQ: NTAP)
IndustryData storage devices
Founded1992
HeadquartersSunnyvale, California
Key people
Dan Warmenhoven, CEO
Tom Mendoza, President
Steve Gomo, CFO
David Hitz, Executive Vice President
Steve Kleiman, CTO
James Lau, Executive Vice President
ProductsFAS900, FAS3000, FAS200, R200, Decru DataFort, Kazeon IS1200, V-Series, NetCache
Revenue$1.6 billion USD (2005)
Number of employees
4332
Websitewww.netapp.com

Network Appliance is credited with the widespread adoption of Network Attached Storage or "NAS". Now Network Appliance storage products support a variety of storage protocols such as iSCSI, CIFS, NFS, and FCP. The key technology behind most of Network Appliance's product line is the WAFL file system.

Its major competition was Auspex until the company went bankrupt in 2003.

History

The company was founded in 1992. It had its initial public offering in 1995. Like many high technology companies, Network Appliance thrived in the internet bubble years of the mid 1990s to 2001, during which the company grew to $1 billion in annual revenue. After the bubble burst, Network Appliance's revenues quickly declined to $800 million in its fiscal year 2002. Since then, the company's revenues have steadily climbed, reaching $1.6 billion in its fiscal year 2005. As of February 14, 2006, according to Yahoo Finance, outside financial analysts were forecasting that Network Appliance woukd reach $2 billion in annual sales its fiscal year 2006.

Software

The operating system for most of Network Appliance's products is Data ONTAP. The distinguishing feature in ONTAP is its WAFL file system, and WAFL's data protection capabilities, including snapshots, file system mirroring, and RAID-DP.

Major Acquisitions