McDATA, Corp.
McDATA, Corp. is a company.
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Leadership Team
Key people at McDATA, Corp..
McDATA, Corp. is a company.
Key people at McDATA, Corp..
Key people at McDATA, Corp..
McDATA Corporation was a Broomfield, Colorado-based provider of high-availability storage area network (SAN) director switching devices and networking equipment that connected data storage machines to servers, enabling enterprises to build scalable, shared storage infrastructures.[1][2][3][4] It served large enterprises shifting from direct-attached storage to networked SANs amid the data-intensive Internet economy of the late 1990s and early 2000s, solving bottlenecks in data access and management for high-growth computing needs.[1][3] The company experienced explosive revenue growth—from $36.5 million in 1998 to $95.7 million in 1999, and $170.4 million in the first nine months of 2000—positioning it as the No. 2 supplier behind Brocade Communications Systems.[1]
Founded in 1982 by Jack McDonnell and five colleagues from Storage Technology Corp. in Louisville, Colorado, McDATA started as a spin-off focused on storage networking hardware.[1][2] McDonnell served as CEO, leading the company through its early development of fibre channel switches essential for SANs.[1] A pivotal moment came in 1995 when McDonnell sold McDATA to EMC for $234 million in stock, expanding reach but restricting sales to EMC's rivals; this ended amicably in February 2001 when EMC distributed its 81 million shares, granting independence.[1] McDATA had gone public the prior year, surging to a $900 million market value in one day, fueled by booming demand.[1]
McDATA rode the 1990s SAN revolution, as enterprises transitioned to shared storage networks amid exploding data demands from the Internet boom, replacing siloed direct-attached storage with efficient, centralized systems.[1][3] Timing was ideal: revenue tripled in two years as Wall Street valued its hot commodities, reflecting broader shifts in enterprise computing.[1] Favorable market forces included surging e-commerce and data-intensive apps, positioning McDATA to influence the "fiber backbone" of storage infrastructure; however, its later "quiet collapse" highlights vulnerabilities in specialized hardware amid commoditization and tech shifts like cloud computing.[3]
McDATA's arc—from 1982 founding to 2001 independence and peak valuation—epitomizes the SAN hardware boom, but its trajectory faded as storage evolved toward software-defined and cloud-native solutions.[3] Post-2001, it likely faced consolidation (historical records note acquisition by Broadcom in 2008), underscoring risks in niche infrastructure plays. Future influence lingers in modern data center fabrics, with trends like AI-driven storage demanding resilient networking; successors build on McDATA's fibre channel legacy, tying back to its role fueling the Internet economy's data explosion.[1][3]