Whitmore-
Let me respond for nic, as your arguments are about as half-baked as any I have seen on SI (and that's saying something)
Lets take this step by step. You start off with this gem:
"I can attest to the fact that they (Sun) do not just drop suppliers on the first hint of trouble but rather build a working relationship over time through thick and thin."
Thank you for dispelling all of those Sun is going to drop Ancor rumors that have been floating around. By your own admission, Sun will now stick with Ancor through "thick and thin". I feel better about my investment already.
"...after having messed up the leadership as the only player in the SAN field for years..."
What?! What the hell are you talking about. Ancor by its own admission has focused almost exclusively on the WAN and LAN market for years. Quite frankly, there hasn't BEEN a legitimate fibre channel SAN market until very recently, and that's still very much in the developmental stage. To imply, as you have done, that Ancor was the dominant leader in a mature market and has blown it, is both false and ridiculous.
"they would have held on to the SAN market and not fallen so hard to the onslaught of better products coming from VIXEL, BROCADE and GADZOOX"
I have been following Ancor closely for over three years, and to the best of my knowledge they have not lost one (that's zero, nada, nil) significant OEM to Vixel or Gadzoox. The only one they have lost at all is Sequent to Brocade (and really, that's not the whole story), who while presently significant, will in the long run be a minor player. Again, you are asserting a market reality that simply does not exist.
"well you might have a whole lot more if you hadn't decided to NOT invest in Brocade just after it's IPO"
Will give you a half-point on this. I wish I had the cash at the time Brocade IPO'd to invest a lot more than I did, but I didn't. Fact is this here SAN market is going to be a whopper, and many of the companies we are bickering about are going to do very well. There probably won't be an 800-lb gorilla in this market, as much as we'd all like to find one. There is too many players and politics involved between the big boys doing the distributing.
Look, just get this through your head. Ancor has never, ever, not once, assumed or stated a MARKET dominance of the fibre channel SAN market. Technologically, however, is another story. Time will tell who will last as the market develops, but the Reliability Lab at Sun (that's Sun Microsystems, the projected leader in SAN solutions for the coming years) where you supposedly worked has picked Ancor switches as Best-of-Show. Where do you want to put your money? |
