Not all storage startups either went public or got acquired for big bucks over the past two years. Mendocino Software sold little of its  continuous data protection (CDP) software and found no takers for its intellectual property, so Wednesday it sold whatever was left at auction.

Mendocino did have five customers through an OEM deal with Heweltt-Packard, which rebranded Mendocino’s product as HP StorageWorks CIC.

According to an email HP sent to SearchStoage.com today, ”HP has assigned a task force and is working closely with each of its five HP CIC customers to understand their specific information availability requirements and to determine an appropriate plan of action.”

According to the email, HP  is offering to switch CIC customers to HP Data Protector at no charge for the software and installation, and will transfer CIC support contracts to Data Protector.