Comparison of McDATA and Brocade patent position:
Patents Patent applications
Ancor 1 3
Brocade 2 8
McDATA 16 20
Notes:
Ancor - as of 3/30/2000. Ancor now part of Q-Logic.
Ancor patent expires early 2007.
Brocade - As of 1/31/2000. 2 design patents, 5
pending utility patent applications, 3 pending
provisional patents
McDATA - As of 6/30/2000. Cross-licensing
agreement with EMC and IBM, independently
(ESCON/FICON) and as part of EMC. Factoid:
One of the inventors of McDATA Patent No.
5,748,612 is Kumar Malavalli, one of the
co-founders of Brocade. Here's a chronology
of Brocade and McDATA business relationship:
Message 14195312
Comparison of McDATA and Brocade new product cycles:
McDATA Brocade
Q32000 9-port switch* None
Q42000 16/32-port switch None
Q12000 64-port director 3rd Generation**
*The 9-port ES-1000 is due to ship this quarter.
It is fabric-ready and is using McDATA’s new ASICs.
It will be McDATA’s first direct competitor to
Brocade’s and Ancor’s main line products.
[Source: ML report]
2.0.6 BETA PHASE
The Beta Phase starts upon delivery by McDATA
of the Beta version of McDATA's Product and ends
with the final acceptance of McDATA's Product by
EMC. The Beta Phase will be performed under
responsibility of EMC. EMC will provide
technical support for EMC software and hardware.
McDATA will provide technical support for Product.
Message 14336148
**1st half of 2001, BRCD third-generation product
line will come out (w/in 6-8 months). These will
be major hardware innovations, with 2-gig switches,
higher port counts and *increased switch
intelligence*. This will help provide continued
high growth into latter part of next year.
Message 14322705
More excerpts from ML report:
Although still in its early stages of development,
the SAN market is expected to grow rapidly.
According to Gartner Group, more than 70% of
shared storage in network environments should
be reorganized into SANs by the year 2002. IDC
has estimated that worldwide SAN storage systems
revenues will grow from less than $3.8 billion
in 1999 to over $11.5 billion in 2002,
representing annual growth of 45%.
Table 4. Worldwide Fibre Channel Hub and Switch Factory Revenue
1997 1998 1999
REV SHARE REV SHARE REV SHARE
1 Brocade $11.5 43.5% $25.7 35.7% $91.8 38.8%
2 McDATA - - 5.4 7.5 52.2 22.1
3 Gadzoox 5.8 21.9 21.3 29.5 40.0 16.9
4 Vixel 3.3 12.4 13.3 18.4 23.0 9.8
5 ANCOR 4.0 15.0 3.0 4.2 12.8 5.4
6 STK - - 2.2 3.0 12.8 5.4
7 Emulex 1.9 7.2 1.2 1.6 3.8 1.6
Total $26.5 100% $72.1 100% $236.4 100%
Source: IDC
Fibre Channel Switch Market Forecast
IDC made projections in April as shown in Table 5.
We believe these projections are low. With the
amount of SAN storage that EMC, IBM, Compaq, and
Sun are shipping today, all projections
surrounding storage have proven too conservative
for the past year.
Table 5. Worldwide Fibre Channel Switch Revenue Forecast 5-year
1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 CAGR
Switches(loop) $ 14.1 67.1 108.2 148.4 180.1 89.0%
Switches(fabric) 100.7 186.8 387.0 693.3 1020.7 78.4%
Switches(director) 52.4 197.2 441.6 867.9 1429 128.5%
Total $ 167.2 451.1 936.8 1710 2630 99.1%
Growth 366% 170% 108% 82% 54%
From my old notes:
1999 External Disk Storage Market
Market Share Revenues
EMC 22.7% $ 4.042B
Compaq 14.3% 2.549B
IBM 10.5% 1.878B
Sun 8.2% 1.457B
HWP 6.6% 1.178B
Others 37.7% 6.708B
Total 100.0% $ 17.812B
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