San Jose, Calif.-based Brocade claims more than 2 million servers are attached to its storage switches, which direct data traffic on more than 100,000 storage area networks (SAN). By adding software and services, it would be following in the footsteps of leading storage vendors such as EMC Corp. and Network Appliance Inc.

Last week, Brocade's vice president of worldwide marketing, Tom Buiocchi, and its chief technology officer, Dan Crain, sat down with Computerworld to discuss the company's technology and marketing road map, as well as to address a recent exodus of executive staff.

Crain said the company wants to increase revenue from its software and services sales from 1 percent today to 10 percent over the next couple of years. Without offering specifics, Buiocchi and Crain said some of the new storage management software will be developed internally; the rest will come from partnerships, and much of it will likely be used on Brocade's Tapestry "intelligent" switch platform. The products will be unveiled over the next year, Buiocchi said.

Some users weren't fired up about the company's planned shift to more software and services.

Scott Saunders, director of MIS at Paxson Communications, in West Palm Beach, Fla., has been a Brocade customer for six years and currently owns eight Brocade Silkworm switches that connect a SAN made up by EMC and Dell storage subsystems. Saunders said he's been largely oblivious to Brocade's internal problems because his SAN is serviced by EMC and Dell. But he's not interested in purchasing software or services from a switch vendor.