Parallan Computer

Parallan Computer, Inc.

Company type	Private
Industry	Computer hardware
Founded	1 July 1986 (1986-07-01) in Mountain View, California, United States
Founder	Gianluca Rattazzi, Charlie Bass, William Patton
Defunct	1999 (1999)
Fate	Acquired Meridian Data; later renamed Meridian Data, Inc.
Headquarters	Mountain View , United States
Area served	Large enterprises using mainframe and LAN systems
Key people	Gianluca Rattazzi (president), Charlie Bass (chairman), William Patton
Products	High-availability application servers using Intel i486 CPUs and custom ASICs

Parallan Computer, Inc. was an American technology firm established in July 1986 in Mountain View, California by Gianluca Rattazzi, Charlie Bass, and William Patton. The company specialized in high-availability application server solutions that incorporated multiple microprocessor units. Gianluca Rattazzi, the main founder and president, previously led Olivetti's personal computing sector; Charlie Bass, serving as chairman of Parallan, was also a co-founder of Ungermann-Bass; William Patton had experience as CEO of Management Assistance, Inc. Parallan primarily served large enterprises that relied on mainframe systems alongside extensive local area networks composed of IBM PCs.

During its initial four years, Parallan secured $12 million in venture funding. Their servers, which ranged in price from $50,000 to $250,000, utilized Intel i486 CPUs combined with custom ASICs designed to boost data transfer rates through 64-bit-wide channels. These ASIC components were compatible with IBM's OS/2 and LAN Manager operating systems and were built upon IBM's Micro Channel bus technology.

By 1991, the company achieved sales nearing $10 million and held a 20% share of the high-performance server segment. In April 1992, IBM purchased a 10% ownership stake in Parallan for a decade and gained exclusive marketing rights for Parallan’s Server 290 within its PS/2 Server product line. This collaboration enabled Parallan to survive despite facing a $14.4 million loss. Nevertheless, reliance on IBM’s PS/2 Servers constrained revenue expansion due to competitive conflicts with IBM’s own offerings and ineffective marketing strategies. Between mid-1993 quarters, Parallan experienced an approximate $2 million drop in revenue, culminating in the dissolution of the IBM alliance by late 1994.

Following the cessation of its manufacturing activities but maintaining $36 million in cash reserves, Parallan acquired Meridian Data, Inc., a Scotts Valley-based innovator in CD-ROM storage devices founded in 1986, for $19 million in December 1994. Subsequently, Parallan adopted Meridian Data's name and moved its headquarters accordingly.

By 1996, the combined entity redirected its efforts toward hard drive–based network-attached storage (NAS) products, introducing the flagship Snap! Server in 1998. In May 1999, Quantum Corporation purchased Meridian Data for $85 million as part of its entry into the NAS market; this transaction was finalized in September 1999 with Quantum continuing to sell Snap Servers for several years thereafter.