EMC To Aim New Chameleon NAS Box At Solution Providers
The company will unveil features and strategies Tuesday morning
(URL: crn.com
By Joseph F. Kovar
CRN
Hopkinton, Mass
7:09 PM EST Thurs., Nov. 30, 2000
EMC next week will hit the NAS (network attached storage) market with a new product aimed
squarely at market leader Network Appliance.
And in a new twist for the company, the new NAS subsystem, code-named Chameleon, is
expected to become a major channel play for EMC as well.
The Chameleon, to be announced on Tuesday, is expected to offer a maximum capacity of more
than 3.5 Tbytes and take advantage of technology used in EMC's Clariion brand storage
equipment, say system integrators and other industry observers, all of whom spoke off the record.
EMC is already a player in the NAS market. However, unlike its competitors, the company's
Celerra NAS product connects to huge Symmetrix storage systems. The Chameleon, on the other
hand, is a stand-alone NAS box, with its own storage.
EMC will surprise a lot of people with the Chameleon, says a solution provider who has seen
information on the new system. "This will be a price/performance leader in this space," he says.
"At least that's what they say."
Because of the nature of the NAS market, EMC will be making a big push to sign on channel
partners with the Chameleon, the solution provider says. "They will use the channel a lot for this,"
he says.
While EMC is best-known for one of the industry's most aggressive, and most successful,
direct-sales forces, both its Symmetrix high-end line and Clariion mid-range line are available to
indirect channels. In September, EMC named Avnet Hall-Mark its only two-tier distributor for
Clariion products.
Network Appliance is not taking EMC's challenge lying down. In September, the company
introduced NAS boxes with storage capacities of up to 12 Tbytes. This week, company
executives said Network Appliance's NAS units have been tested to work with IBM's OS/390
mainframe operating system and now support IBM's DB2 database and include new antivirus
software functionality.
About 30 percent of Network Appliance's sales currently go through indirect sales channels. |
