10 Hot Emerging Vendors For March 2011

Ready For Primetime

Step right up and get what may very well be your first look at 10 hot new IT vendors that are exploding onto the scene. Each month CRN profiles 10 new IT vendors that are looking to shake up the industry in various technology segments, from security to cloud computing, from software to hardware.

These tech startups know the importance of the channel and are looking to align with valued channel partners to get their names and products out.

Take a look and get introduced to 10 vendors that are ready for prime time.

Calxeda

Company: Calxeda
Tech Sector: Data Center
Key Product: Calxeda ARM-based Server Reference Design


The Lowdown: Founded in January 2008, Calxeda, formerly known as Smooth-Stone, leverages low-power mobile phone processors in order to bring high-performance, cost-efficient SoCs (System-on-a-Chip) to the data center. Calxeda's designs allow manufacturers to pack as many as 120 SoCs onto a 2U-sized chassis through a fabric that interconnects to other processors. Processors based on Calxeda design enable data centers to increase the density of their resources while reducing power consumption, cooling requirements, and physical space. Calxeda's reference design, based ARM's Cortex A9 SOC, consumes 5 Watts of power and aims to reduce data center CO2 footprint.

Cleversafe

Company: Cleversafe
Tech Sector: Storage
Key Product: Slicestor appliances, Accesser routers


The Lowdown: Cleversafe, a Chicago-based developer of cloud storage technology started in 2004, found that the easiest way to ensure data security is to hide the data in the open. The company's Dispersed Storage technology stores data by slicing it up into several slices and distributing the slices across multiple storage nodes, which can be either within a corporate data center, across multiple data centers, or in a storage cloud.

By slicing data into slices and distributing it across multiple nodes, the data is secure since any unauthorized person who got access to one slice would not be able to access the entire data set. One of its strategic investors is In-Q-Tel, an investment arm of the U.S. Intelligence Community.

Actifio

Company: Actifio
Tech Sector: Software
Key Product: Actifio Data Management Virtualization


The Lowdown: Actifio markets a virtualized data protection system with integrated data backup, disaster recovery and business continuity capabilities. Built on Actifio's VirtualData Pipeline technology and launched in August 2010, Actifio's applications can drive down costs by up to 90 percent, according to the Waltham, Mass.-based company. Actifio, founded in 2009, started a channel partner program in January to expand availability of the Actifio software suite through such VARs as Lighthouse Computer Services, Focus Technology Solutions and Nexus Information Systems.

Revolution Analytics

Company: Revolution Analytics
Tech Sector: Software
Key Product: Revolution R Enterprise


The Lowdown: Palo Alto, Calif.-based Revolution Analytics offers software and services that support users of "R," the open-source programming language for developing statistical software and data analysis applications. Founded in 2007, Revolution Analytics offers both commercial and free "community" versions of its Revolution R software. Last month Revolution Analytics issued a challenge to users of analytical software from SAS Institute, offering to convert SAS code to R for free to demonstrate that Revolution R Enterprise can produce the same results. Revolution Analytics works with a range of professional service, technology, OEM and VAR partners: Last week the company struck a deal with IBM to run Revolution R Enterprise on the IBM Netezza TwinFin data warehouse appliance.

Cloud Cruiser

Company: Cloud Cruiser
Tech Sector:Cloud Computing
Key Product: Cloud Optimizer


The Lowdown: Founded in 2010, Cloud Cruiser, Roseville, Calif., is a venture-backed company that delivers cost optimization offerings for enterprise cloud. The company's flagship product, its Cloud Optimizer, is a SaaS offering that optimizes costs across legacy, private, hybrid and public clouds via transparency, benchmarking, next-generation chargebacks and business intelligence.

AlgoSec

Company: AlgoSec
Tech Sector: Security
Key Product: AlgoSec Firewall Analyzer


The Lowdown: Founded in 2003, AlgoSec offers solutions to intelligently automate what were traditionally manual, time and labor-intensive tasks surrounding firewall, router and VPN management, to enhance security, boost performance and expedite compliance reporting. AlgoSec's Firewall Analyzer offers in-depth, intelligent analysis of the entire security policy leveraging unique algorithms that factor in network topology, all possible traffic variations and industry best practices resulting in a comprehensive identification of risks (and the specific rules that are causing them) and detailed and precise remediation guidance.

AlgoSec said is looking at 2011 as a big year for expanding its channel with resellers who versed in the firewall and network security markets.

Vineyard Networks

Company: Vineyard Networks
Tech Sector: Networking
Key Product: Application Intelligent Classification, Application Level Network Reporting


The Lowdown: Vineyard Networks' goal is application intelligence. The company, founded in British Columbia in 2008, develops and delivers network application intelligence products like Application Intelligent Classification and Application Level Network Reporting. Vineyard Networks partners with leading providers of network infrastructure solutions like security appliances, WAN optimization devices, and application delivery controllers. And the company recently launched a new release of its product that gives service providers and OEMs the ability to add application intelligent classification to their offerings.

Artisan Infrastructure

Company: Artisan Infrastructure
Tech Sector: Cloud Computing
Key Product: The Cornerstone


The Lowdown: Artisan Infrastructure offers wholesale infrastructure for cloud solutions with an on-demand platform supported by VMware, Cisco Systems, NetApp, Dell and Juniper Networks. VARs can leverage solutions such as BUDR, VoIP, virtual desktop and application delivery on a pay-as-you-grow model, according to the Austin, Tex.-based company founded in 2001 as a telephone services provider. Last summer, the company quadrupled its storage capacity to help enable customers to scale their private and public cloud computing growth, according to Brian Hierholzer, president of Artisan Infrastructure.

Omek Interactive

Company: Omek Interactive
Tech Sector: 3D Gesture recognition technology
Key Product: Omek Shadow Development Suite


The Lowdown: Founded in 2006, Omek Interactive is the brainchild of husband and wife team Dr. Gershom and Janine Kutliroff. The Israeli company specializes in software that enables gesture recognition and body movement tracking and transforms users' movements into a 3D avatar. Omek's SDK gives application developers and interface/display manufacturers the ability to add gesture recognition to their devices and platform, giving users the ability to interact with computers, televisions and other systems without physical controllers or keyboards.

Sokrati

Company: Sokrati
Tech Sector: Software, Services
Key Product: Sokrati Digital Advertizing Suite


The Lowdown: Software and services firm Sokrati was started in 2008 by Amazon alums Ashish Mehta, Santosh Gannavarapu, and Anubhav Sonthalia, who moved to India from Seattle to found the company. Sokrati provides technology and services to online merchants, which automatically optimizes the placements of their clients' online ads. Sokrati technology is built using Ruby-on-Rails for the front end, and Linux + MySQL + Java on the backend. The company uses Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2).

Check out the complete list of CRN's emerging vendors.