chaz, interesting discussion re: NTAP as King or Gorilla candidate.
I am in a quandry about this. NTAP was not first with its NAS concept. AUSPEX is probably considered "there first." AUSPEX did what it could do with the hardware available at the time, but it ended up with proprietary hardware which was very expensive, expensive to upgrade, expensive to write code for and almost impossible to adapt to new communications standards and storage systems.
NTAP turned the tables on AUS by developing a unique software kernal and a unique data storage/retrieval scheme and a unique system recovery architecture. NTAP's family jewel is the ONTAP OS with all of the bells and whistles that have been built around it (SNAPSHOT, clustered failover, multiprotocol, cross-protocol security, etc.)
I would have to conclude that NTAP does not have any "enabling technology", but provides "the best solution for storage of online information in a transaction laden environment."
Their patents do make their solution difficult of clone or copy, so the barriers to entry are high. Someone will have to come up with a better method of storage, recovery, and reliability at a lower price to knock them out of the cat bird seat of NAS.
So, regretfully, I must conclude that NTAP is/will be a King of the NAS marketplace. It may never be a Gorilla.
OTOH than means that EMC can never be a Gorilla, either. Same rules apply.
PS: love your other picks. I sold EMC last week and bought more JDSU. Having a great time with PMCS. QCOM will be a homerun in two years time. |
