Moving and Storage Business News

The News Review:

- Pillar Data Systems lays off 30% of staff
- The Planet Launches Direct Attached Storage
- Metcalf Moving and Storage wins Integrity Award
- Above the street
- Symantec Corp. F2Q09 (Qtr End 10/03/08) Earnings Call Transcript
- F5 Networks and Data Domain Deliver Automated Storage Tiering Solution
- AMERCO Schedules Second Quarter Earnings Release and Investor Call

Pillar Data Systems lays off 30% of staff
San Jose Mercury News,  USA 
The step was taken to help the company “weather the storm” of the current economy, company spokesman Chris Drago told Mercury News reporter Scott Duke Harris, who. The pace of layoffs in Silicon Valley seems to be picking up, according to Janice Shriver from the state’s Employment Development Department.

The Planet Launches Direct Attached Storage
MarketWatch 
Customers are also able to manage and monitor both their Dell servers
and DAS devices through the Dell OpenManage management console. The Planet DAS features a serial attached SCSI (SAS) architecture, which
provides higher availability than traditional SCSI technology. It also
outperforms SCSI devices, operating at 3Gbps. “Web sites are the lifeblood of every company
that operates an online business, so having a high-speed, highly
available site is critical, especially during the upcoming holiday
season,” said Rob Walters, The Planet’s
general manager of storage and data protection. “Our
new DAS product provides online retailers — and SMBs of any kind —
enhanced redundancy with clustering and failover capabilities. DAS is an
affordable way to keep critical data protected, so companies can
experience peace of mind any time of the year. ”

The company offers DAS in three configurations to suit a wide range of
business requirements.

Metcalf Moving and Storage wins Integrity Award
Post-Bulletin, MN 
Paul, packed up some valuables of its own last night. Metcalf was one of three companies presented a 2008 Integrity Award by the Better Business Bureau of Minnesota and North Dakota at a ceremony held at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. The company, which is an agent of Mayflower Moving, has been in Minnesota since 1919 and in Rochester for more than 40 years. Lisa Rosaane is the manager of this location. Corporate Account Manager Jeff Felten says the company’s approach to business has yielded many positive results over the years. Many of the core staff in Rochester have been with the company for more than 20 years. Metcalf has maintained a strong relationship with Mayo Clinic and IBM.

Above the street
London Free Press, Canada 
About a year later, Dick Berdan purchased the building and started City Centre Storage. He converted the upper floors to self-storage units while the main floor was an antique furniture store. The company now has 770 storage units. Berdan’s son, Stan Adams, took over when Berdan retired in 2002. Adams, now president of the company, preserved the building’s architecture through renovations. The building still boasts detailed stonework.

Symantec Corp. F2Q09 (Qtr End 10/03/08) Earnings Call Transcript
Seeking Alpha, NY 
Moving on to our non-GAAP revenue by segment. The consumer business generated revenue of $440 million equivalent to 29% of total revenue and grew 2% year-over-year. Moving to the enterprise arena, the storage and server management segment generated revenue of $573 million up 12% year-over-year and representing 38% of total revenue. Our security and compliance segment generated revenue of $403 million up 1% versus the year-ago period. This segment accounted for 26% of total revenue. Our services segment generated revenue of $107 million up 16% year-over-year, representing 7% of total revenue. We continue to focus on improving the cost efficiency of our services operations and we?re pleased with the contribution improvements that the group has made during the past few quarters.

F5 Networks and Data Domain Deliver Automated Storage Tiering Solution
TechWhack (press release), India 
The thorough, end-to-end solution testing helps take risk out of deploying a combined solution. ? Enterprises that deploy F5 and Data Domain products together can easily and non-disruptively move files onto the appropriate storage tier, without requiring changes from users or the applications accessing those files. Key benefits of the solution include:Considerably lowered storage costs. Users can reduce storage costs by moving appropriate data to a deduplication storage tier, which requires less physical storage and reduces associated power, space and cooling costs. Significantly reduced backup windows and costs. Users can reduce the overall size of their backups, thereby reducing the cost of the backup infrastructure and shrinking backup and recovery windows. Simplified administration.
Related: On Center Software Teams with Armstrong World Industries

AMERCO Schedules Second Quarter Earnings Release and Investor Call
MarketWatch 
For further analysis of quarterly results, please refer to the Company’s quarterly report on Form 10-Q, which AMERCO plans to file on or before November 5, 2008. About AMERCO

AMERCO is the parent company of U-Haul International, Inc. , North America’s largest “do-it-yourself” moving and storage operator, AMERCO Real Estate Company, Republic Western Insurance Company and Oxford Life Insurance Company. Since 1945, U-Haul has been the undisputed choice for the do-it-yourself mover, with a network of more than 15,650 locations in all 50 United States and 10 Canadian provinces. U-Haul customers’ patronage has enabled the Company to maintain a fleet size of 96,000 trucks, 75,000 trailers and 35,000 towing devices. U-Haul offers more than 391,000 rooms and more than 34 million square feet of storage space at more than 1,075 owned and managed facilities throughout North America.