will the appliance business become the same way, as it becomes more prominent by virtue of its rapid growth and attracts companies like IBM, CPQ, QNTM, HP and others?
The appliance business is really a software industry. These guys are assembling (except for Auspex) off-the-shelf components and inserting their software. Dan W. calls it "tin-wrapped software".
So, the opportunity to innovate remains very high. NAS will not become a commodity for a few years. NTAP has lots of patents on its innovations for "fast, simple, reliable, multi-protocol" features. It has historically been first to implement such third-party provided innovations as NVRAM, fibre channel, ATM.
NTAP's price/performance is way better than any of its competitors in the $25K to $250K configuration range. They will maintain that leadership for a while.
Very importantly, NAS and netcaching are ALL that NTAP does. The other guys have diverse businesses and they can take or leave success in NAS, SAN, (except for EMC and Auspex). |
