Bill,
Re: The time to worry about the "IBM Threat" would be if IBM spun off their storage division the way they did their
printing unit (Lexmark) many years ago. As long as it's IBM Storage they still fail the "neutrality test". Think IBM
will help a customer select a SUNW or an HWP box to go with that new storage they'll sell them? Sure, they'll
hold their nose and attach to a "non blue" box if that's what the customer has, but you can bet they'll take every
opportunity to explain to the customer how an IBM box is the perfect complement to that storage. As a result
IBM, like all the other "captive storage" vendors, will do the vast bulk of its selling to its own accounts.
EMC has claimed for some time that they have a 1-2 year technical lead over the rest of the field. That's a
lifetime in the technology business. Ignore the day-to-day gyrations and stick with the leader. EMC's best
years are still ahead of it.
I don't know, it depends on how IBM is organized. If the storage division is separate from the server(s) division, and has its own sales force, the salesmen could give a rat's a** what CPU box they might be attaching to. The way IBM has migrated over the last several years, whereby they'll sell anything to anybody, even to their toughest competitors, to raise revenue, I suspect their storage division will be quite independent and not kowtow to the server king. A good example of IBM's sell anything to anyone is their selling their System 390 CPU and associated chipset to rival Hitachi Data Systems. 390 ,and 370 and 360 before that, have been the crown jewels for IBM almost forever. I think that IBM will (continue to) be EMC's toughest rival, by far, because of their new organization and attitude that started back in the early 90s.
Tony |
