Dear Tony and all: Lifted this post off of the CPQ Thread, yet another comment about the CPQ/IBM alliance. What bothers me is the paragraph toward the end relating to SOFTWARE which state IBM is far ahead of EMC. Comments anyone? JDN
7/07/00 - Hopkinton, Mass.-Based Data Storage Giant Faces Challenge
from Alliance
Jul. 7 (The Boston Globe/KRTBN)--In a new challenge to Hopkinton-based
data storage titan EMC Corp., IBM Corp., and Compaq Computer Corp. are
teaming up to win a bigger share of EMC's core market.
IBM and Compaq yesterday announced a strategic agreement to sell each
other's storage hardware and software products, and to make them
interoperable. That would mean that a corporate user of heavy-duty IBM
hard drives would be able to add Compaq drives to his system by simply
plugging them in. Much of the interoperability testing will be carried out at
Compaq's plant in Shrewsbury.
"Both sets of products from both companies [will have] the ability to
interoperate, and this is a tremendous, tremendous advantage to our
customers," said Compaq chief executive Michael Capellas.
As part of the deal, Compaq will begin selling IBM's high-end Shark storage
products and Tivoli system management software. For its part, IBM will sell
Compaq's StorageWorks storage systems and make use of Compaq's
VersaStor system, which helps computers in large corporate networks
access data stored in a central storage system.
IBM and Compaq say they'll spend $1 billion between them to make their
products compatible. The two companies also committed themselves to
work with storage industry groups to establish global standards for
compatibility between all brands of high-end storage devices.
"Clearly what we are all about is to help drive the industrywide set of open
standards," said Linda Sanford, IBM's general manager of storage products.
"We want to accelerate the efforts that are already going on in various
industry standards groups around the world."
The IBM-Compaq initiative will also put the two companies in a better
position to compete with EMC, currently the world's dominant producer of
high-end data storage products. EMC held 27 percent of the market for such
products last year, according to International Data Corp.; IBM and Compaq
together held less than 25 percent.
Sanford said EMC's current line of storage products is incompatible with
storage equipment from other manufacturers. But once IBM and Compaq
have completed their compatibility program, "you can feel safe as a
customer going with each or any of our products," Sanford said. This could
make IBM and Compaq products more attractive to companies that prefer
to buy computer hardware from more than one vendor.
But EMC spokesman Mark Fredrickson was less than impressed.
"These two struggling server vendors announced no new functions,
features, or capabilities today that a customer couldn't buy last week," he
said.
Fredrickson said EMC is actively involved in the leading industry groups
working on open storage standards. He said EMC products are already
interoperable with storage systems from Hewlett-Packard Co., and added
that his company would gladly work with IBM and Compaq as well, but that
EMC wasn't asked.
Still, Fredrickson said EMC welcomed open standards, saying that EMC's
storage hardware is so superior that it would still dominate even in a market
with full compatibility with rival products.
"Anything that makes it easier for the customer to choose products on merit
... then the better technology wins," he said.
John McArthur, vice president of storage research at International Data
Corp., agreed that EMC is already quite active in seeking to create
industrywide storage standards.
But he said the company lags far behind IBM in the design of software that
can be used to manage data storage networks running many different
brands of storage devices.
"IBM in particular ... has a lot of experience in doing data management in
heterogeneous environments," said McArthur, and Compaq will now have
access to IBM know-how and products.
"I think it helps both of them a little bit," said McArthur. But he said the
success of the alliance ultimately depends on how well it is implemented. "We
started with the big group hug, and now they've got to execute."
By Hiawatha Bray
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