25 Coolest Emerging Vendors For 2011

The Cool Kids

We've presented more than 170 companies in Emerging Vendors 2011 from every facet of the industry. There was a big cloud computing movement, virtualization started a fire and even established technologies like storage got freshened up.

Among those 170 plus are a handful of hot startups that up the coolness factor, either by tweaking how things are done, teaching an old dog a new trick or coming up with something brand spanking new. Here we take a look at the 25 coolest emerging vendors.

Actifio

Founded in 2009, virtualization player Actifio is changing the game with its Actifio VDP (Virtual Data Management) for data protection, disaster recovery and business continuity. The Waltham, Mass.-based company has about 50 partners globally, but is looking to bulk up its partnerships with new mid-market and enterprise focused solution providers, along with service providers.

ArcMail

Shreveport, La.-based ArcMail boasts 225 partners globally offering its Defender line of e-mail archiving appliances. And while ArcMail Defender ranges from 500 GB to 16 TB, even larger customized solutions are available. ArcMail was founded in 2005.

Avenda Systems

Avenda Systems was founded in 2006 in its quest to arm the channel with network access security solutions for wireless, wired and VPN networks. Santa Clara, Calif.-based Avenda's eTIPS includes identity-based policy services, AAA functionality, guest access and NAC in a single hardware or VM appliance. And with 20 partners worldwide, Avenda is looking to storm the enterprise.

BridgeSTOR

Poway, Calif.-based BridgeSTOR may have been founded just last year, but the company's advanced data reduction primary and backup storage appliances for Microsoft Windows applications have already brought aboard 16 hungry channel partners as it looks to make a splash in the midmarket.

Corelytics

Want to keep tabs on a businesses' financial performance? Look no further than Bellevue, Wash.-based Corelytics. Founded in 2005, Corelytics makes the Corelytics Financial Dashboard, which the company says is packed with industry intelligence to offer better insight and better business.

Delphix

Delphix, founded in 2008 and based in Menlo Park, Calif., makes its mission clear: It virtualizes databases. The company's software replaces physical copies with virtual databases that operate in one-tenth of the space, but still retain the full functionality and performance.

eGestalt Technologies

Santa Clara, Calif.-based eGestalt Technologies may have been founded just two years ago, but its SecureGRC is patent pending and has brought in a handful of awards. The cloud-based SaaS solution provides PCI and HIPAA/HITECH-based security and compliance management for SMBs.

Event Zero

Though based in Australia, Event Zero, which was founded in 2005, has already started bringing aboard U.S.-based partners with its award-winning Greentrac energy consumption monitoring application for enterprise PC fleets.

eZuce

Just about a year old, eZuce offers open enterprise unified communications software that it calls Communications-as-a-Service. Based in Newburyport, Mass., the company delivers next-generation voice, video and data communications and is looking to grow out its channel-base to tackle the growing market.

Gluster

Founded in 2007, Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Gluster makes its flagship GlusterFS, a software-only scale out NAS storage solution for public and private cloud environments. Gluster and its more than 30 partners create highly available, scalable and centrally managed storage pools that can scale to petabytes of storage.

ioSafe

Founded in 2005, ioSafe has spent the last six years putting its storage hardware through the ringer. It's taken bullets, survived explosions and made it out of all types of disasters (both natural and manmade) still intact. The Auburn, Calif.-based storage vendor means it when it says its storage hardware is "disaster-proof." And with 250 partners in the U.S. and about 500 globally, ioSafe has amassed an army to show just what its hardware can withstand.

IronKey

Sunnyvale, Calif.-based IronKey is looking to lock down data and online access. With its enterprise edition, IronKey prevents data breaches via portable, encrypted USB storage. It also offers Trusted Access for Banking to stop bank fraud with a secure browser. Founded in 2005, IronKey has 600 global partners preaching data security and secure online access to the enterprise.

LincWare

East Rochester, N.Y.-based LincWare was founded in 2007 and since that time has sharpened its LincDoc family of eForm creation and documentation automation tools. The company looks to empower businesses and municipal organizations to better serve their customers and constituents, reduce costs and better leverage bottom line critical information.

Marketo

Founded in 2006, San Mateo, Calif.-based software maker Marketo has been making a major splash with its Revenue Performance Management solutions, tools for marketing automation and sales effectiveness that have the ability to change how marketing and sales teams work to drive increased revenue and boost business growth.

Mendix

Boston-based software maker Mendix touches all points of the application lifecycle. Mendix, founded in 2005, makes the Agile Business Platform, a complete agile application lifecycle management solution is used to develop, deploy and manage applications that integrate with existing systems.

MokaFive

Redwood City, Calif.-based MokaFive provides an end-to-end desktop management solution that harnesses the power of virtualization to change how enterprises control and manage desktops and laptops. At the same time, MokaFive, founded in 2005, vows to reduce costs and bolster security.

Nextivity

Founded in 2006, San Diego-based Nextivity is looking to thwart the eternal struggle of lack of connectivity and dead spots indoors with its Cel-Fi Indoor Coverage Solution.

OS33

Born in Brooklyn in 2009, OS33 stormed the market with an IT-as-a-Service delivery platform for MSPs. And in less than a year from its official product launch, OS33 has rounded up more than 30 MSP partners to bring its platform to market.

Palo Alto Networks

Don't be fooled, Palo Alto Networks is based in Santa Clara, Calif. But its mission is still the same: To provide next-generation firewalls to keep the network safe and secure. The company has become established enough that it may no longer be considered a true "emerging vendor." Since it was founded in 2005, Palo Alto has brought on 700 global channel partners.

SevOne

SevOne, founded in 2005, provides a distributed network performance management solution that delivers the fastest, most scalable and comprehensive real-time monitoring, troubleshooting and performance reporting solution. The Wilmington, Del.-based company targets the enterprise with 45 global partners.

TwinStrata

Four-year-old TwinStrata is an innovator in enterprise data storage, data protection and disaster recovery/business continuity and does all of this using cloud-based storage. The Natick, Mass.-based company is building upon its base of 10 domestic and 15 international partners.

Veracode

Veracode focuses on security from the cloud. The Burlington, Mass.-based company offers a cloud-based platform for fast and comprehensive security for internally developed, purchased or outsourced software applications and third-party components. Founded in 2006, Veracode has more than 50 partners worldwide.

Virtual Bridges

Virtual Bridges' VERDE solution combines online, offline and remote branch VDI solutions for anytime, anywhere access to virtual desktops. Based in Austin, Texas and founded in 2006, Virtual Bridges is recruiting to bulk up its enterprise-focused partner base.

VKernel

Founded in 2007, Andover, Mass.-based VKernel's vOperations Suite is an enterprise-class performance and capacity management solution that uses predictive and real-time analysis to simplify monitoring, capacity planning, reporting, chargeback and optimization of virtual environments. And in just four years VKernel has brought aboard 80 partners worldwide.

Wanova

Turnkey Desktop as a Service software? Yup. San Jose, Calif.-based Wanova, founded in 2008, makes it. Wanova explains its Desktop Cloud solution as a turnkey offering that centralizes PC images in the network, similar to VDI, but then enables a copy of the image to run locally on a laptop or desktop so users can leverage native PC performance capabilities like running multimedia applications and work while disconnected from the network.