Around 20 IBM resellers have already signed up to offer mid-range storage systems that consist of IBM’s x86-based System x3650 servers running LeftHand’s SAN/iQ software, Lefthand says. More resellers will follow, the company promises.

A similar campaign to recruit Hewlett-Packard Co’s channel partners began last year, and is already accounting for around 20% of LeftHand’s revenue. Now LeftHand is hoping to do equally well with IBM’s partners.

Although about half of LeftHand’s sales involve the company’s software running on LeftHand-branded servers, that software was designed to create cluster-able, virtualized storage from any x86-powered servers.

As a necessary pre-condition to the IBM foray, LeftHand has completed the testing needed to gain see its software approved by IBM for use on the x3650 servers.

That is the same step that LeftHand completed for HP’s DL380 server late in 2005. By October last year LeftHand was claiming to have signed over 30 HP resellers, including gold and platinum partners.

HP’s channel was the test bed, according to LeftHand. We needed to understand how this meet-and-greet-in-the-channel worked, said LeftHand marketing vice president John Fanelli.

The recent release of IBM’s storage-heavy, SAS-disk powered x3650 server helped with the timing of LeftHand’s move into IBM’s channel.

This is IBM’s first server that crosses the line from serving CPUs into serving spindles, Fanelli said. The x3650 has an option for up to 1.8TB internal disk capacity across eight drives.

The HP and IBM channel initiatives are part of wider efforts by LeftHand to broaden its market reach. It says that in 2006 it increased it reseller count from 100 to 180. The non-HP and non-IBM resellers are offering LeftHand’s software running on LeftHand-branded gear.

LeftHand claims to be riding a wave at present, and says its saw more revenue during 2006 than it did across the four previous years combined. By the end of the third quarter last year it was claiming around 1,700 customers, with another 300 gained through OEM deals with Intel Corp and server-maker MPC LLC.

LeftHand’s storage spans the mid-range market, costing around $12,000 for a 1TB ATA configuration and moving up through around $34,000 for a 6TB ATA set-up to maximum configurations of over 50TB.

The target customers are mid-sized businesses with between 100 and 1,000 employees the same businesses that IBM is targeting with its LSI-made DS3000 and DS4000 disk arrays, and HP is aiming at with its MSA boxes.

In other words, LeftHand is using IBM and HP hardware to compete with IBM and HP. In the meet-in-the-channel we’re putting our software on x86 hardware that comes out of the server divisions, not the storage people, Fanelli said.