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posted on 02 July 2008 11:21

Bernard Gilbert, the CEO of Ibrix, the supplier of Fusion, a highly scalable and parallel file system, is now the ex-CEO after little more than a year in the top floor corner office. He has been replaced, it appears by Milan Shetti.

Milan Shetti was previously the VP for marketing and business development and is now listed as the president on the company's management team web page. Bernard Gilbert (pictured left) is now a non-person on that page although Google's time-defying caches still have him as the CEO.

The Ibrix press kit web page also still has him as the CEO but clicking on his name takes you the current management page.

Both Shetti and Gilbert have spent time at Sun in the past.

Ibrix sells Fusion through partner deals with Dell, EMC, HP, and IBM. It has missed out on being used as the file system in HP's Extreme Data System product, the ExDS9100, which uses HP's acquired PolyServe software. Fusion might be being used as software on EMC's developing Infiniflex 10000 Hulk extreme scale-out storage system. Competition comes from Panasas with its parallel file system, also used in the HPC markets.

The vanishing CEO act has been accomplished with no statement from Ibrix, suggesting that there is a problem in providing an agreed statement, one agreed to by all the parties concerned. It suggests that, effectively, Bernard Gilbert has been fired.

The reasons for such a departure in a venture capital-funded firm facing increased competion, is often that the company's revenue growth and competitive prospects are not condusive to the venture capitalists getting a good return on their investment.

Shaji John is chairman of the Ibrix board and a managing partner at JT Venture Partners, who provided seed captial for Ibrix. He was the Ibrix CEO but voluntarily moved upstairs to the board chairmen position in June 2007 after inviting Bernard Gilbert to become the CEO.

It looks as if he has reached down from board level and lit the ejector seat fuse under the body of the CEO he himself brought into the company. That's a hard call.

Interestingly Shetti is called president. Presumably, if he does well then he will get the CEO title.

^{[Chris Mellor.]}