High-Fibre diet keeps QLogic figures healthy

Increased Q3 sales and profit down to Fibre Channel, says SAN connectivity firm

SAN connectivity firm QLogic has cited its Fibre Channel business as the reason for increased sales and profit in its third fiscal quarter 2004.

The vendor, which makes adaptors and switches that power hardware from such companies as Cisco, EMC, Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Sun, reported $137.1m turnover, a 20 per cent increase on Q3 2003.

Profit was $37.9m, compared with a $29.1m profit in the same period a year earlier.

"The continued growth in our revenues during Q3 2004 was the result of a significant increase in sales of our Fibre Channel products," said HK Desai, chief executive of QLogic.

Des Lekerman, managing director of VAR Eurodata Systems, which deals in the storage sector, said it is no surprise that a company operating in the SAN market has done well.

"The market for SANs, and particularly Fibre Channel, is good, because it allows businesses to manage disparate systems more easily," he said.

"Customers are trying to do more with less and I expect demand will increase, because it fits in with server consolidation, which many firms are attempting to achieve."

Last April QLogic made steps to filter more widely into the UK channel, when it signed an agreement with Ideal Enterprise Solutions, in an effort to ramp up sales in the EMEA region.

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