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Moshe Yanai Board's Director, Axxana
This is a Press Release edited by StorageNewsletter.com on Wed, February 23rd, 2011
Jump right to our comments
Known as Mr. Symmetrix
Mr. Yanai has served on Axxana's Advisory Board since it was founded in 2007. In his new position, Mr. Yanai will play a role in the strategic and technological direction of Axxana."I've been impressed with Axxana's novel Disaster Recovery technology since its earliest days, and I'm looking forward to working more closely with the company to accelerate its adoption in the marketplace," said Moshe Yanai. "Many companies claim to have developed a ‘ground-breaking storage technology,' but Axxana has really done it."
Mr. Yanai has been instrumental in the development of many storage technologies in the history of the industry. He began his career in the 1970s, building IBM-compatible mainframe storage based on minicomputer disks. He went on to develop high-end storage systems for Nixdorf and in the late 1980s, joined EMC, leading the team that developed EMC's Symmetrix Storage systems. As Vice President of EMC's Symmetrix group, Mr. Yanai was responsible for design and development of all hardware and software products for EMC's enterprise storage systems. EMC's Symmetrix group grew from only one employee in 1987 to more than 3,500 under Yanai's leadership. Before leaving EMC, Mr. Yanai became an EMC Fellow.
Mr. Yanai later founded and led XIV Information Systems, a storage technology company which was acquired by IBM in January 2008. Moshe Yanai became an IBM Fellow and continued leading XIV until his departure in 2010. He holds over 40 patents for various innovative storage hardware and software-related technologies.
"Moshe Yanai's increased involvement with Axxana is a significant endorsement of our technology and its market potential," said Eli Efrat, Axxana's CEO. "His unparalleled expertise and reputation in the storage industry will be a welcome addition to our well-rounded leadership team."
Our comments :
We suspect that Moshe Yanai couldn't be elected Axxana's director of the board before leaving IBM, the start-up being involved in a storage technology developed with rival EMC, for CLARRiiON. Apparently Big Blue, with strict rules concerning employees, accepted his former roles of Axxana's advisor and investor, but no more.
The same Yanai was also part owner of another Israel start-up, Diligent, sold to IBM in 2008 for a reported $200 million.
He joined of IBM after selling another company he co-founded, XIV, for $300 million in 2008.
After getting a lot of money at EMC, and then selling Diligent and XIV, Yanai is one of the healthiest man in the storage industry. And his fortune could continue to grow with Axxana, a start-up that could finish in the hands of ... EMC for another hundred of millions of dollars.
But it's curious to see him - current IBM fellow - being more active in a firm in relationship with EMC, a company he left - or was fired? - because he disagreed on the pricey acquisition of Data General (at the origin of CLARiiON) for $1.1 billion in 1999, as he wanted the company to design its own open storage system with his engineers, according to several sources.
We met Yanai once, several years ago, during a conference he did on XIV - he was a poor speaker -. But we never had the chance to see him for a face-to-face interview because we would have many questions for one of the greatest figures in the history of the storage industry.
Read also:
Start-Up's Profile: Axxana
In zero loss disaster recovery
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