EMC Expected To Partner With CA On Storage
By Steven Burke, CRN
Orlando, Fla.
1:10 PM EST Mon., July 09, 2001
EMC CEO Joseph Tucci is expected to announce tomorrow tight EMC integration and support of Computer Associates International's long awaited BrightStor enterprise backup product.
Tucci is slated to make the announcement at CA World here in support of BrightStor which will compete against products from Veritas and Legato, sources say.
Sources said CA is also attempting to hammer out a co-marketing and reselling agreement with EMC that is not yet ready to be announced. That deal could put CA's BrightStor into the preferred enterprise product category for EMC's sales force, displacing Veritas, sources said.
CA has promised that BrightStor will be priced 15 percent lower than the Veritas offering and provide a more than 30 percent throughput improvement in enterprise backup. CA has signed 65 storage integrators, 40 in North America, that received training here this week on the product.
Kevin Barker, CTO of CCCF, a Los Angeles-based EMC and CA partner that is taking on the BrightStor product line, says BrightStor's integration with the EMC product line is a big "value-add" for CCCF's storage business. "On paper, it looks good," he says. "We've got to get under the covers and see how it works from a technical perspective."
Barker says he is not concerned about channel conflict if EMC's direct-sales force resells BrightStor. "EMC has really figured out how to partner with the channel," he says.
The EMC program includes a system that allows solution providers to register new customers, putting the onus on EMC's direct-sales force to work with the EMC partner in that account, says Barker.
Barker, who would like to see CA adopt such a program, says CA has made big strides in improving how its direct-sales force works with partners. "I have been a CA business partner for five years, and it looks like they have finally gotten it right," he says.
The CA-EMC alliance comes after EMC Monday revealed a partnership with integrator Avanade on a service offering to consolidate and update Windows network servers. Avanade and EMC said they will participate in joint professional services engagements and development activities for Windows 2000, SQL Server and Exchange customers.
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