DataDirect Networks Inc. is rolling out new products in hopes of cashing in on the rising number of companies that have more data than they know what to do with. The Chatsworth firm unveiled a new series of storage offerings in early November aimed to give those firms a place to stash and process colossal volumes of files, photos, videos and more. “Organizations can no longer survive unless they have an IT infrastructure that can help them manage these images and video,” Alex Bouzari, DataDirect’s chief executive said. In November, the company announced new storage appliances to handle more data and access it faster. Revenue from 2008 to 2010 has grown 50 percent to $186.6 million. With companies in industries that range from media to life sciences coping with more data, especially from video and images, IT infrastructures have become overwhelmed, Bouzari said. A June study from Massachusetts-based research firm IDC found the amount of information created and replicated will top 1.8 trillion gigabytes this year — nearly nine times the volumes handled five years ago. DataDirect has also benefited from the growth of the cloud. “That is probably one of the fastest growth areas in our business,” Bouzari said. He said cloud computing accounts for a double digit percentage of the firm’s revenue, but declined to be more specific. And the firm’s revenue growth has translated into jobs. In 2011, DataDirect has added 94 full-time workers, including 25 at the Chatsworth headquarters. The firm currently employs 379 full-time workers and has 70 current open positions, the company said. Although some companies are holding back hiring while they wait to see if the recovery is for real, Bouzari said DataDirect sees boosting employee counts as a path toward continued growth and capturing a data market that is expected to grow. “We believe that we have to invest in order to achieve growth,” he said. Like many Valley businesses, DataDirect derives significant revenue from the entertainment industry. And change in Hollywood has been good for DataDirect, the firm said. The growing popularity of 3D movies, encouraged by box-office mega-hit “Avatar”, has doubled or tripled the amount of data organizations have to shuffle, said Jeff Denworth, vice president of marketing for DataDirect. “Overnight, we had a huge surge of business in that market,” Denworth said.
