Yesterday Brocade announced that it was acquiring McData for $713 million. McData is another of the long time Colorado storage technology companies – it’s now joining its friend StorageTek (now owned by Sun) as part of a California company (Brocade). Look for lots of layoffs from this one as there’s plenty of overlap between Brocade and McData. This is par for the course in Colorado and is actually part of the basis for the entrepreneurial activity here – the great people will cycle out of Brocade (either during the layoffs or after a little while when they get bored or frustrated) and join other startups. I’ve seen this over and over again in the 10 years that I’ve lived in Boulder – it’s an interesting and powerful phenomenon.