HDC, I can't explain the difference. But to drill down a bit on EMC
and NTAP I gathered the following numbers:
Their price charts track one another and have for a while.
techstocks.com.
EMC is promising a NAS solution, but many believe that promise is a
year from fulfillment, making it appear as FUD. NTAP's storage
capacity is expanding rapidly as they implement sophisticated, high
availability clustered configurations over fibre channel. Thus NTAP's
capacity is intersecting with EMC. My industry contacts say that
NTAP's price/GB is substantially lower than EMC, though this is
certainly not the only competitive metric.
EMC's new software initiatives for storage management are very
forward thinking and fit the SAN model well. What is interesting,
and NTAP plays this card, is that NTAP filers can attach to the back
end of SAN networks to serve as storage "devices" in a SAN network.
My money is in NTAP right now and not EMC. I pulled out of EMC when
the DGN purchase was made. (I put the money in the COMM-IC basket
of PMCS, JDSU, CNXT.) If I had more cash, I would probably take a
position in EMC "at the market".
Here are some financials that I just gleaned from numerous sources
for a comparison.
EMC NTAP
Rev last year($MM) $ 3,974 $ 289
Market Cap ($MM) $ 72,689 $ 4,989
Price/Sales 18.3x 17.2x
Profit Margin 20.0% 12.3%
Return on Equity 27.5% 12.8%
Sales/Employee $409.66 $438.51
Debt to Equity 0.1% 0.0%
Return on Assets 17.4% 10.3%
Gross Margin 55.8% 59%
Revenue Growth rate 36% 80% |
