Measured response to the following "rambling":
<<Have they announced formal plans to roll out some system that comes
"standard" with an FC switching fabric or AL? Are we assuming this means
that they will be choosing a vendor to supply those switches in a formal
OEM agreement? If so, have they announced this system or are we relying
on "sources" which suggest that Sun is evaluating each vendor's
offerings with the intention of choosing one to integrate into this
system? I mean is it really a given that there exists a "Sun OEM"
contract to be won in the sense that we've been talking about it?
Everyone keeps breathlessly awaiting for the "announcement" like it's
just a matter of when.>>
There IS an actual OEM contract to be won by either Brocade OR Ancor as Sun put it out to bid via a formal RFQ/RFP in the Spring. I have outside sources who have spoken directly to SUN personnel who told them that the account was up for grabs but would not elaborate/speculate on who would win. My info further suggests that Ancor has made TREMENDOUS strides in the past 6 months to the point where they have a legitimate shot at winning the OEM business based on the progress they have made in delivering Class 2/3 optimization and arbitrated loop functionality. Does this mean they have won the account? To the best of my knowledge, no winner has been named ( yet ) and both Brocade and Ancor are still in the game. Ancor has to overcome issues of geography and relationships that Brocade personnel have with Sun people. However, I'm also hearing that when it comes to relationships in the storage industry, Ancor's new VP Marketing Carla Kennedy is not exactly chopped liver <g>. Regarding timetables, applications/FC architecture, this is a closely guarded secret amongst Sun personnel and their potential vendors who are under strict NDA's.
<<I suppose Sequent handed out an "OEM", but that was for server
clustering. Maybe Sun will just suggest a menu of different
interoperable add-ons that customers can hook-up to the their storage
system. Or are we expecting to eventually see Ancor or Brocade switches
"built-in" to a Sun product? If so, does anybody know if this product
has been announced, and when they plan to ship it?>>
People should not read too much into the Sun website. There are 2 separate divisions, Networking and Storage which potentially involve Ancor. The website referral to Ancor products is for networking applications where Ancor products are recommended to connect Sun workstations together. I think the OEM opportunity has more to do with connecting Sun's FC servers to disk storage arrays, but I could be wrong. There were articles that talked about a 3rd quarter roll-out but that is probably the initial phase whcih might be point-to-point or arbitrated loop versions before switched options become available later ( probably late Q4 or early Q1 1998?? )
<<Also, people seem bothered by the lack of numbers in announced "OEMs"
like Bull (although I'm not certain if that's technically an OEM...is
it?). Doesn't it make sense that putting hard numbers in an OEM contract
would be impossible? How could they realistically know how much product
will be sold? IMHO the lack of dollar figures is a non-issue. OEM's
aren't end-user contracts. OEM's are just really nice channel partners.
When Dell OEMs modems from 3Com, they don't promise to sell x million
dollars worth...they just promise to sell as many as people want to
buy...
sorry about the rambling...it's kinda late>>
The Sequent announcement was unique in that apparently Sequent wanted to announce the size of the contract and in fact Ancor had cut the number back to "up to $30 million" in the original press release.When Ancor held its Q1 1996 conference call last May, in response to questioning from analysts, Steve O Hara stated that the actual contract called for a minimum $6 million commitment in Year 1 and that for the press release, they took Sequent's numbers and significantly scaled them back to reach the "up to $30 million number over 2 years".
I think whether an OEM announcement does or does not quantify the dollar value of the contract depends on each customer. For example, Vixel stated in their press release that the Compaq OEM deal for FC hubs was worth up to $50 million. To each his own. |
