COSTA MESA, Calif. (

TheStreet

) -- The list of companies using

Emulex's

(ELX)

server and storage

technology -- including

IBM

(IBM) - Get Report

,

DELL

(DELL) - Get Report

,

Hewlett-Packard

(HPQ) - Get Report

and

Cisco

(CSCO) - Get Report

-- just keeps growing.

In recent months, the company has talked about 15 "design wins" for its components, although CEO Jim McCluney admitted that the number is much bigger during a

conference call

organized by analyst firm Canaccord Adams.

"Not to be facetious, but we're running out of fingers and toes for our design wins," he quipped. "

In the first half of this year, the majority of those 15 will come to market."

McCluney explained that the company had "ratcheted up more than 20 design wins," in response to a question from

TheStreet

. "The key message is that top-tier OEMs are adopting Emulex's technology."

The company's shares closed up 72 cents, or 6.35%, at $12.06 on Tuesday, far outpacing the modest advance in tech stocks that saw the Nasdaq climb 0.87%.

The data center equipment specialist, which competes with

QLogic

(QLGC)

,

Brocade

(BRCD)

and

LSI

(LSI) - Get Report

, recently announced

strong second-quarter results

and has emerged as something of an

analyst darling

.

Last year McCluney told

TheStreet

that the

tech rebound

is underway, spurred on by companies' cloud computing efforts.

During Emulex's conference call on Tuesday the CEO added that companies are also shifting from 1-Gigabit Ethernet to higher performance 10-Gigabit Ethernet systems, as well as the latest versions of

Intel's

(INTC) - Get Report

Nehalem chip, all of which are driving demand.

"Whether it's a V-shaped recovery or not remains to be seen," he said, in response to an analyst's question. "Certainly, a lot of the reports that I have seen,

CIO surveys

, say that people are moving from cost-cutting to growth."

Emulex nonetheless faced questions on its gross margins after predicting a 66% gross margin for the March quarter. McCluney admitted that the firm's push into 10-Gigabit Ethernet products will result in some margin erosion, but said that this will be about 1% to 2% over the year.

"If we're more successful in 10 gig, we might see a lot more margin pressure," added Jeff Benck, the company's chief marketing officer.

-- Reported by James Rogers in New York

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