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Parallan Computer, Inc., was an American computer company active from 1986 to 1999 and based in
Mountain View, California Mountain View is a city in Santa Clara County, California, United States. Named for its views of the Santa Cruz Mountains, it has a population of 82,376. Mountain View was integral to the early history and growth of Silicon Valley, and is th ...
. The company was best known for their line of
server Server may refer to: Computing *Server (computing), a computer program or a device that provides functionality for other programs or devices, called clients Role * Waiting staff, those who work at a restaurant or a bar attending customers and su ...
s and collaborations with IBM for the latter's PS/2 Server range. In 1994, the company merged with Meridian Data, Inc., assuming the latter's name and marketing CD-ROM servers before moving into the
network-attached storage Network-attached storage (NAS) is a file-level (as opposed to block-level storage) computer data storage server connected to a computer network providing data access to a heterogeneous group of clients. The term "NAS" can refer to both the techn ...
(NAS) market with the Snap! Server. In 1999,
Quantum Corporation Quantum Corporation is a data storage, management, and protection company that provides technology to store, manage, archive, and protect video and unstructured data throughout the data lifecycle. Their products are used by enterprises, media and ...
acquired Meridian Data for $85 million.


History

Parallan Computer was founded in July 1986 in
Mountain View, California Mountain View is a city in Santa Clara County, California, United States. Named for its views of the Santa Cruz Mountains, it has a population of 82,376. Mountain View was integral to the early history and growth of Silicon Valley, and is th ...
, by Gianluca Rattazzi, Charlie Bass, and William Patton. Rattazzi, Parallan's principal founder and president, was previously the manager for
Olivetti Olivetti S.p.A. is an Italian manufacturer of computers, tablets, smartphones, printers and other such business products as calculators and fax machines. Headquartered in Ivrea, in the Metropolitan City of Turin, the company has been pa ...
's
personal computing A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or techn ...
division. Bass had founded
Ungermann-Bass Ungermann-Bass, also known as UB and UB Networks, was a computer networking company in the 1980s to 1990s. Located in Santa Clara, California, UB was the first large networking company independent of any computer manufacturer. Along with competito ...
, a computer networking company, in 1977; he was named Parallan's chairman. Patton was formerly the
CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especiall ...
of Management Assistance, Inc., a pioneering
mini The Mini is a small, two-door, four-seat car, developed as ADO15, and produced by the British Motor Corporation (BMC) and its successors, from 1959 through 2000. Minus a brief hiatus, original Minis were built for four decades and sold during ...
- and
microcomputer A microcomputer is a small, relatively inexpensive computer having a central processing unit (CPU) made out of a microprocessor. The computer also includes memory and input/output (I/O) circuitry together mounted on a printed circuit board (P ...
company. Parallan was founded to specialize in a class of
server Server may refer to: Computing *Server (computing), a computer program or a device that provides functionality for other programs or devices, called clients Role * Waiting staff, those who work at a restaurant or a bar attending customers and su ...
s known as application servers, designing their machines with multiple
microprocessor A microprocessor is a computer processor where the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit, or a small number of integrated circuits. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, and control circu ...
s to ensure
high availability High availability (HA) is a characteristic of a system which aims to ensure an agreed level of operational performance, usually uptime, for a higher than normal period. Modernization has resulted in an increased reliance on these systems. F ...
. The company targeted their products at large corporations such as airliners and banks, whose computer backbones usually consisted of
mainframe A mainframe computer, informally called a mainframe or big iron, is a computer used primarily by large organizations for critical applications like bulk data processing for tasks such as censuses, industry and consumer statistics, enterpris ...
s and large
local area network A local area network (LAN) is a computer network that interconnects computers within a limited area such as a residence, school, laboratory, university campus or office building. By contrast, a wide area network (WAN) not only covers a larger ...
s comprising
IBM Personal Computer The IBM Personal Computer (model 5150, commonly known as the IBM PC) is the first microcomputer released in the IBM PC model line and the basis for the IBM PC compatible de facto standard. Released on August 12, 1981, it was created by a tea ...
s and compatible systems. The company was able to accrue US$12 million in venture capital in the first four years of its foundation. Its initial range of servers cost between $50,000 and $250,000 and made use of
Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the devel ...
's
i486 The Intel 486, officially named i486 and also known as 80486, is a microprocessor. It is a higher-performance follow-up to the Intel 386. The i486 was introduced in 1989. It represents the fourth generation of binary compatible CPUs following ...
processors as well as custom
ASIC An application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC ) is an integrated circuit (IC) chip customized for a particular use, rather than intended for general-purpose use, such as a chip designed to run in a digital voice recorder or a high-effici ...
s, allowing certain software to send
packet Packet may refer to: * A small container or pouch ** Packet (container), a small single use container ** Cigarette packet ** Sugar packet * Network packet, a formatted unit of data carried by a packet-mode computer network * Packet radio, a form ...
s of data through 64-bit-wide data paths, allowing for greater
throughput Network throughput (or just throughput, when in context) refers to the rate of message delivery over a communication channel, such as Ethernet or packet radio, in a communication network. The data that these messages contain may be delivered ov ...
. Parallan's ASICs specifically supported IBM's
OS/2 OS/2 (Operating System/2) is a series of computer operating systems, initially created by Microsoft and IBM under the leadership of IBM software designer Ed Iacobucci. As a result of a feud between the two companies over how to position OS/2 ...
, their new general-purpose operating system, and
LAN Manager LAN Manager is a discontinued network operating system (NOS) available from multiple vendors and developed by Microsoft in cooperation with 3Com Corporation. It was designed to succeed 3Com's 3+Share network server software which ran atop a he ...
, OS/2's
networking Network, networking and networked may refer to: Science and technology * Network theory, the study of graphs as a representation of relations between discrete objects * Network science, an academic field that studies complex networks Mathematics ...
counterpart. Parallan's servers were additionally based on IBM's proprietary
Micro Channel Micro Channel architecture, or the Micro Channel bus, is a proprietary 16- or 32-bit parallel computer bus introduced by IBM in 1987 which was used on PS/2 and other computers until the mid-1990s. Its name is commonly abbreviated as "MCA", alth ...
bus architecture. The company posted roughly $10 million in sales in 1991, representing 20 percent of total sales in the high-performance server market, which netted less than $50 million in sales that year. In April 1992, IBM announced that they had signed a deal with Parallan for exclusive rights to market, distribute, and sell Parallan's Server 290—a dual i486 machine built into a large,
RS/6000 The RISC System/6000 (RS/6000) is a family of RISC-based Unix servers, workstations and supercomputers made by IBM in the 1990s. The RS/6000 family replaced the IBM RT PC computer platform in February 1990 and was the first computer line to s ...
—later in the year, in exchange for a 10-percent stake in Parallan for ten years. IBM's rebranded Parallan servers were eventually realized as the PS/2 Server 195 and 295—single- and dual-CPU versions of the Server 290, respectively. Industry analysts initially remarked that IBM's stake in Parallan—later increased to 12 percent—had saved Parallan from the brink of collapse, as they had a $14.4 million deficit at the time. The partnership even compelled Parallan to file to go public, in February 1993. However, the partnership had made Parallan's revenues totally dependent on the PS/2 Servers, which did not fare very well, owing to market conflict with IBM's higher-end mainstream
PS/2 The Personal System/2 or PS/2 is IBM's second generation of personal computers. Released in 1987, it officially replaced the IBM PC, XT, AT, and PC Convertible in IBM's lineup. Many of the PS/2's innovations, such as the 16550 UART (serial p ...
models and
PowerPC PowerPC (with the backronym Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC – Performance Computing, sometimes abbreviated as PPC) is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA) created by the 1991 Apple– IBM ...
-based RS/6000 offerings and poor marketing. Parallan's revenue constricted roughly $2 million between the second and third fiscal quarters of 1993, and by April 1994, the deal between the two companies had reportedly fallen through. "Unfortunately for Parallan, IBM loves their partners to death", remarked John Dunkle, a president at a competing server manufacturer. Parallan and IBM formally terminated their partnership by late 1994. Though Parallan had $36 million in cash reserves in the aftermath of the IBM partnership, the company ceased to be a manufacturing concern and had very little backstock of products. In December 1994, the company announced the acquisition of Meridian Data, Inc., of
Scotts Valley, California Scotts Valley is a small city in Santa Cruz County, California, United States, about thirty miles (48 km) south of downtown San Jose and six miles (10 km) north of the city of Santa Cruz, in the upland slope of the Santa Cruz Mounta ...
, for $19 million in cash. Founded in 1986, Meridian Data was a pioneer of the CD-ROM format who had marketed a wide range of CD-ROM storage devices and servers in the early 1990s. Parallan assumed the Meridian Data name and merged operations, moving their headquarters to Scotts Valley accordingly. In 1996, the combined Parallan and Meridian Data began pivoting to hard drive–based
network-attached storage Network-attached storage (NAS) is a file-level (as opposed to block-level storage) computer data storage server connected to a computer network providing data access to a heterogeneous group of clients. The term "NAS" can refer to both the techn ...
(NAS) devices, introducing their flagship Snap! Server in 1998. In May 1999,
Quantum Corporation Quantum Corporation is a data storage, management, and protection company that provides technology to store, manage, archive, and protect video and unstructured data throughout the data lifecycle. Their products are used by enterprises, media and ...
of
Milpitas, California Milpitas ( Spanish for "little milpas") is a city in Santa Clara County, California, in Silicon Valley. As of the 2020 census, the city population was 80,273. The city's origins lie in Rancho Milpitas, granted to Californio ranchero José ...
, announced their acquisition of Meridian Data for $85 million, allowing Quantum to enter the NAS market. The acquisition was finalized in September 1999, Quantum continuing to market the Snap Server for several years.


Notes


References


External links

* {{webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/19970205104231/http://www.meridian-data.com/, title=Official website, date=February 5, 1997 1986 establishments in California 1999 disestablishments in California American companies established in 1986 American companies disestablished in 1999 Computer companies established in 1986 Computer companies disestablished in 1999 Defunct computer companies of the United States Defunct computer companies based in California Defunct computer hardware companies Defunct computer systems companies IBM PS/2 Server hardware