Oh yes, Greg really really wanted McData. It would have given them instant 95% or so of the combined switch and director markets. EMC and BRCD were going around about the switch interoperability thing. Remember EMC then had Ancor reverse engineer the FSPF algorithm, forcing Brocade to generously "contribute" it to the standards body? There is still some bad blood between BRCD and EMC and I don't think EMC would be sympathetic to a BRCD buy-out. Besides, the cultural differences, I have been told, are almost too vast to overcome. A hostile is therefore out of the question, BRCD can't risk talent walking out the door.
It is no coincidence that both MCDT and BRCD have experienced 1-Gig backwards compatibility issues, since they shared common building blocks with their 1-Gig ASICs. In fact, if Brocade's 2-Gig rollout continues to be pushed out, the market cannot wait for more than 6 months for the "carrier class" multi-protocol box. Inrange and TrueSan both are making solid inroads to the data center and carrier edge and core markets. If Brocade misses deadlines, I suspect Greg Reyes is out the door. Their BoD are slavedrivers.
Have you heard anything on McData's 2-Gig? Hey, that could be a catalyst for a squeeze. And when is HP announcing that MCDT OEM, or did I miss it? I know MCDT filed the 8-k, but nothing has come from HWP so far?
Douglas |
