How long would it take a team of 5 smart engineers to do the work that has been done thus far for FC-SANs?
Better start cross-pollinating.......
Acquisition may signal SAN trend
By Sonia R. Lelii, eWEEK
May 22, 2000 12:00 AM ET
Qlogic Corp.'s $1.7 billion acquisition of Ancor Communications Inc. this month was the first of its kind, but it may not be the last.
The marriage between a host bus adapter company and a switch company was made for one simple reason: The market for host bus adapters in the SAN (storage area network) component business is expected to grow more slowly than the rest of the market in the next few years.
The SAN component market is expected to increase from last year's $500 million to $4.5 billion in 2003. But host bus adapters will shrink from 49 percent of that market last year to 38 percent in 2003, according to International Data Corp., of Framingham, Mass.
Infiniband looms
One reason for that decline is Infiniband, the switched-fabric initiative led by Intel Corp. and major systems makers IBM, Compaq Computer Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co. When Infiniband products hit the market next year, they will decrease the need for host bus adapters, which convert signals from the PCI bus to Fibre Channel or SCSI protocols.
Analysts and competitors questioned QLogic's choice to move from a smooth relationship with the five major switch manufacturers into one in which four of them become competitors.
"I'm not quite sure I understand the logic behind what they are doing," said John Webster, an analyst with Illuminata Inc., of Nashua, N.H.
But according to QLogic officials, this is just a sign of the young host bus adapter and switch business growing up.
"When you mature, you start cross-pollinating," said Skip Jones, director of planning and technology at QLogic, of Aliso Viejo, Calif. "This is a new kind of merger, so it is going to cause a knee-jerk reaction."
E2020-You sounded downright enthused after the SSB storage conference? What's your take on recent events?
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