Parallan Computer was founded in July 1986 in Mountain View, California, by Gianluca Rattazzi, Charlie Bass, and William Patton.

[6] Industry analysts initially remarked that IBM's stake in Parallan—later increased to 12 percent—had saved Parallan from the brink of collapse, as they had a $14.4 million deficit at the time.

Parallan's revenue constricted roughly $2 million between the second and third fiscal quarters of 1993, and by April 1994, the deal between the two companies had reportedly fallen through.

"Unfortunately for Parallan, IBM loves their partners to death", remarked John Dunkle, a president at a competing server manufacturer.

[10] Though Parallan had $36 million in cash reserves in the aftermath of the IBM partnership, the company ceased to be a manufacturing concern and had very little backstock of products.

[11] In 1996, the combined Parallan and Meridian Data began pivoting to hard drive–based network-attached storage (NAS) devices, introducing their flagship Snap!