What's that coming over the Dot Hill, is it is a monster? Is it a sales monster?

SAN maker Dot Hill is lifting its revenue forecast for the quarter. Why’s that interesting?

Because it confirms Dot Hill is climbing out of a deep ditch where it has spent the past four years hiding, and that the previous quarter’s sales increase wasn’t a one-off stunt. Summer really has arrived for Dot Hill.

For the first three quarters of this year, it's first quarter of fiscal 2015, Dot Hill expected revenues to lie between $55m and $59m. At the $57m mid-point that’s an 18 per cent hike up on a year ago. The uplifted Q1 forecast is for revenues of $60m to $60.5m, which represents a 25 per cent uplift on fiscal 2014’s Q1.

And this is before the expanded Quantum OEM and distribution arrangement takes effect, meaning Q3 and Q4 growth could even exceed 25 per cent, year on year.

If the 25 per cent revenue increase over 2014 continues for the rest of 2015, we’re looking at annual revenues of $272m, which is the highest in our Dot Hill records since 2010’s $252m, after which the slump started.

Dot Hill sees the growth coming from 60 per cent year-on-year growth in its vertical markets business, which more than offsets an expected eight per cent fall in its server OEM business.

These are non-GAAP revenues, by the way. We report GAAP numbers as they are comparable across companies, but the difference is relatively small. All will be revealed when the Q1 fy2015 results come out on May 7. ®