Next BRCD news release on Sept 27?
Like A Bull In The Storage Market
(09/20/99, 9:35 a.m. ET)
By Joe Kovar, Computer Reseller News
The storage bandwagon is getting crowded as another systems vendor prepares a SAN initiative that hinges on a new VARrecruitment effort.
Bull Information Systems will unveil its worldwide Storage Server Business Unit (SSBU) on Sept. 27, thereby marking a major expansion of its storage business, company officials said.
The company will not manufacture storage components, but instead will rely on components from established vendors such as EMC, Data General's Clariion division, HighGround Systems, Legato Systems, Brocade Communications Systems , and Veritas Software.
"Because we're not wedded to a particular vendor or technology like [Hewlett-Packard] or Compaq are, we can go out and shop for the best components," said Robin Harris, director of U.S. marketing. "The benefit to resellers is that with such low margins, they don't want to manage vendors, and instead want to manage customers."
Bull's value-add to the SAN space is in its services and its SAN Solutions Lab, Harris said.
"It's a real live working lab with equipment from people we're working with," she said. "We test it to see if it works together. If not, it goes back to the vendor, or we make our own solution."
Bull will provide service and support for VARs that sell the company's StoreWay solutions, or these can be done by the VARs, said Scott Hansbury, vice president of worldwide marketing for the SSBU.
"We want to have resellers who can do the necessary service and support," Hansbury said.
Bull has quietly started recruiting VARs and will expand recruitment activities this fall and winter, he said. The company hopes to sell 30 percent of its storage products through the indirect channel next year, he said.
Bull's VAR plans are still being polished, but the company is a serious player in the IT industry and can be a player in the storage field as well, said Mike Kahn, president of The Clipper Group, a Wellesley, Mass.-based analyst company.
"Bull is not in the component business," Kahn said. "It is taking what they think are best-of-breed components from several vendors and wrapping them with their own tools."
Remember that not all of the players will be winners. If SUNW rolls it can outsell them all? |
