IBM to pack more storage options
By Reuters
February 2, 2000 8:27 AM PT
URL:
zdnet.com
NEW YORK -- IBM Corp. said on Wednesday it will offer new disk storage systems to other computer
makers to use in their products.
"This is the first time IBM has sold complete disk storage systems, not just components, through the
OEM (original equipment manufacturers) channel in a significant way," said Greg Enriquez, vice
president, IBM OEM Storage Systems.
The new products are the first use of technology from data storage technology developer Mylex Corp.,
which IBM acquired in September.
The new line of Windows NT and UNIX storage server systems and network attached storage are
part of an effort to compete in the fast-growing market of providing disk storage systems to computer
makers.
That market, boosted by explosive growth of computer networks and the Internet, is currently valued at
$1.2 billion, according to International Data Corp. The total storage market under all operating
systems is seen as growing to $47 billion by 2003.
"The storage market continues to grow, and many of the vendors cannot make the same investments
into research and development that IBM can," said Janet Waxman of IDC. "And IBM also OEMs
these products to themselves."
The first product is the IBM ProFibre Storage Array, a high performance storage system that attaches
to a server running the Windows NT or UNIX operating systems. It is designed to handle
storage-intensive tasks such as electronic commerce, video editing and data warehousing.
The system, which is made up of IBM hard disk drives, Mylex redundant arrays of independent disks
(RAID) controllers, and an IBM enclosure is scalable from 9 gigabytes to 2.8 terabytes, or enough to
store the contents of a large library.
IBM said it will be offering network attached storage later in the first half of this year.
Current leaders in the market to provide disk data storage systems to computer makers include EMC
Corp.'s Data General/Clarion, Storage Technology Corp. and LSI Logic Corp.
"As Clarion exits and moves away from the OEM business, a lot of it is going to LSI Logic and IBM
wants to capture that business," said John MacArthur, storage analyst at International Data Corp. |
