Hi David,
Thanks so much for your Storage World report. I have a couple of questions.
1. "they [Brocade] are supposed to ship their first batch of Silkworm 12000s this week for evaluation." Does "evaluation" mean for beta testing or for sale? Did you get a sense if people were skeptical of its readiness, or did they expect it to be a big and successful product? Or perhaps they were just waiting for it like any other product, without the strong opinions that are often expressed on this board?
2. Did you get see/get a sense of how low cost NAS appliances were doing (e.g., Snap, MaxAttach)? Have they been entirely commodified at this point? NTAP just announced a low cost product that is focused on backing up, Nearstore (see siliconinvestor.com; did you happen to hear about? Will it and other low end appliances eat away at the tape library market, leaving it in tatters with crumbs? The stocks of ADIC and OVRL have come back in price somewhat, as has DSS/Quantum, though not nearly as much as the stocks in Douglass's SAN portfolio.
3. "Buried in there [Bush's economic plan] is a provision to allow 3-year accelerated depreciation for computer hardware." I think this is behind some, perhaps a lot, of the buying in the SAN stocks. It will be very, very good for them. I also think, FWIW, that this provision will pass, as even Tom Daschele has endorsed it. At least if Congress gets anything at all done on a stimulus plan, the Republicans are in a snit because the Dems won't agree to reducing tax rates.
Thanks again for your report, David, always much appreciated.
Sam |
