Gus could outdo me by far on your questions, but he seems to be busy or something, not responding. I'll try:
McData makes fibre channel fabric switches, up to and including large, Director class boxes for Enterprise SANs, i.e., products for connecting storage boxes to multiple servers in SANs. They also have routers and other interconnect products on their website, but I think their main thrust is in the fibre channel, fabric products. They got their start in the mainframe heyday, on ESCON Directors, I believe. They are the "king" of the high end in the fiber connectivity products, being the leader in 32 and 64 port switch devices. Looks like they're also moving down to the 16 port area.
Brocade is their biggest competitor. Brocade got going, grew very fast on 8 port and 16 port fibre channel fabric switches, and they're moving up to the 32s and 64s. One expanding their product line by moving down (McData), the other by moving up.
As far as why they were spun off from EMC...was it to be more able to sell more effectively to EMC's competitors, who might have shunned them because they didn't want to help EMC? Just a speculation on this.
Gus, feel free to add/subtract/correct this post.
Tony |
