Buiocchi also said that the company has just completed its financial filings for 2005 with no restatements, which it had to do last year, and for the first time with full Sarbanes-Oxley compliance. He insisted that Brocade's financial missteps happened in 1999 and 2001 and "hopefully that's behind us. You have to separate the historical audits and investigations from how the company is performing today."

Brocade has suffered a steady revenue decline over the past four quarters, resulting in an overall US$22 million drop in revenue from 2004 to 2005. It has also seen key personnel resign, including the February 2005 resignation of CEO Greg Reyes, who left after the company had to restate several of its financial earnings reports, and the departure in December of CFO Tony Canova (see "Brocade CFO resigns "). The company also still faces an investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for questionable accounting practices regarding stock options.

Curry said he's not been concerned about the departures at Brocade because he believes the company "still [has] a strong position" in the market.

"I would predict that Brocade is acquired by a major player in the future, which will make them stronger and position them to be more competitive with Cisco," Curry said.

Schulz said that in many ways Brocade experienced problems similar to those faced by another storage "high flyer that ran aground," Legato Software Inc., which was purchased by EMC in 2003.