Malavalli to head InMage Systems

Kumar Malavalli, the man who was responsible for finding well-known Storage Area Networks company, Brocade, is back in action. Malavalli has announced the launch of InMage Systems Inc. in India. This company would cater towards a new category of products "" data continuity.

InMage was founded in September this year and is headquartered in Santa Clara, California. The company has already bagged its first set of clients in the US and is now in India to announce its presence.

Malavalli, who is the chairman and CEO of the company, said, "For the first three months, we spent time by talking to customers in order to understand the requirements. While there are products to address data continuity and management, they are most catering the Fortune 500 companies. It has not benefitted the SMEs. Using special algorithms and methodologies, we will be able to offer our product for a lesser cost."

InMage has received a Series A funding of $7.3 million. A majority of the investment has come from the venture capital firm called Hummer Winblod, while Malavalli has invested nearly US $ one million.

Highlighting the key differenciators in InMage's products, besides benefitting SMEs, Malavalli said that it is capable of catering to multi-tier applications (i.e involving multiple servers).

"These products also capable of information tiering, which is the culmination of classification of data," he added.

Explaining the significance of data continuity as a new space that needs to be addressed, Malavalli said, "The market is now ready to accept solutions for replication of data, both locally and remotely. InMage will specifically deal with data protection, back-up, replication and recovery."

"Companies are increasing their focus data management and back-up. As a company, we will focus on the entire lifespan of the data. Even SMEs have realised the importance of data. Our products have proven that the total cost of ownership will be reduced by 50 per cent," Malavalli added.

Reiterating his stand on the significance of data management in any organisation, Malavalli said that Gartner identifies data replication and back-up as US $ 6 billion market opportunity.

Interestingly, InMage has already bagged one of its first big clients in India "" Tata Consultancy Services "" to whom it is working on a disaster recovery project.

Though InMage is not the exclusive service provider for TCS in this particular space, Malavalli did not wish to comment on this deal, citing the terms of the agreement signed with TCS.