Roger,
<<did you ask to see what is looked like with the cover off?>>
Yes, I actually saw a MKII with the cover off. In fact, I saw their older generation switches with the covers off as well. And yes, there are actually parts inside there. <g>
I share your frustration with Ancor. Their lack of success, even with the MKII is baffling. I'm sure that there are actually MKII's in customer hands, but obviously there aren't enough of them being sold yet to keep Ancor afloat. I think it is safe to say that Ancor had, and probably continues to have problems in the sales area. However, if the OEM loss rumors are true, I am now forced to consider the real possibility that there is something wrong with the MKII. Whether that is a technical glitch, or the lack of some feature set, I just don't know. I think the feature set possibility is more likely, since a number of OEMs, including Sun, performed extensive testing. If they had found something major, I would think they would have bailed out much sooner.
One thing that I have noticed over the last year or so is that Ancor is ALWAYS in catch up mode. To my knowledge, they have NEVER been first out of the gate with ANYTHING. In a highly competitive market, which Fibre Channel is, that is a recipe for disaster. (Witness Brocade's 8-port switch introduction for recent proof of this.) Ancor has not shown the ability to anticipate where the market is headed, and have a product that addresses customer needs. Brocade and the other players have done a MUCH better job in this area.
I have a hunch that the reason we haven't seen more press is that there simply isn't much to tell. I don't mean to sound so negative, but there is a growing body of evidence that suggests that continues to have the same sorts of problems that have plagued them over the years. I have certainly disagreed with the methods employed by the nay-sayers here on SI, but despite that, their conclusions may turn out to be accurate. (They certainly have been right so far, and they deserve credit for that.) In the past, I thought they were indicting the company with very little factual evidence. If we see OEM losses over the next several weeks, they will have the evidence they lacked in the past.
On another note, my broker mentioned something yesterday that was supposedly said during the annual meeting. It was something about the MKII not being optimized for STORAGE applications, but that it would be by years end. Did he get his wires crossed, and really mean LAN applications? Was anybody at the annual meeting that could clear this up? In either case, what sort of optimization were they talking about? I thought the MKII was optimized for ALL applications! I feel like I missed an entire discussion here, but I've been out of the office a LOT lately.
Craig |
