TWO OF the founders of Iona Technologies, Chris Horn and Sean Baker, have been reunited on the board of Gridstore, an Irish storage technology firm which broke cover this week.
Mr Horn is chairman of the company while Mr Baker has a seat on the board of directors. Gridstore, founded in 2007 but which released a beta or trial version of its first product in the US only this week, is headed by tech industry veteran Kelly Murphy.
Filings at the Companies Registration Office show that Paul Kerley, chief executive of quoted software firm Norkom, and Brian Caulfield, a long-time technology investor, also have shareholdings in the company.
The company has developed software that allows small and medium businesses to use their data storage resources in a more efficient manner.
The data is stored on small network attached storage devices which typically sell for a €300-€400.
Gridstore’s software allows these devices to be pooled in a “grid” fashion and managed as a single entity. It also ensures data is in multiple places should one of the devices fail. “It’s a simple idea but implementing it is quite complex,” said Mr Murphy.
The software also enables the processing power of PCs on the network to be used as additional storage processing.
“We’re providing enterprise class storage for a fraction of the usual cost,” said Mr Murphy.
Gridstore will not sell its software directly to end-users but instead will rely on a network of managed services providers. These are specialist technology providers who take over the IT function for smaller firms. Mr Kelly estimates there are about 8,000 of them active in the US market.
In the near future it will appoint storage manufacturers who will ship network attached storage devices with Gridstore’s software pre-installed.
“You don’t need servers,” said Mr Murphy. “To add it to the network you just plug it in and connect it to the network. The embedded software will connect it automatically to the grid.”
Mr Murphy was formerly chief executive of Marrakech, a Dublin software firm that developed an online trading platform. Founded in 1990 it raised more than $60 million in private equity but it made heavy losses following the dot-com crash. It was ultimately sold to one of its investors, AMT Sybex, in June 2006.
Following the sale Mr Murphy took a six-month break before beginning work on Gridstore. Funding to date has come from its shareholders and directors as well as Enterprise Ireland.
The company employs just a handful of people but will be recruiting sales and business development staff in the New Year. Gridstore has already established an office in Palo Alto, the heart of Silicon Valley.
