Herb,
I'm reading between the lines here, but I THINK that the original Bull contract was for the older generation product, and that their application required MicroChannel bus adapter cards. There were VERY FEW companies that made MicroChannel FC cards at the time, so Ancor got the business. Now, Bull (along with practically everybody else) has transitioned (or will transition) to the PCI bus. The competition in the Fibre Channel PCI adapter area is intense, leading Ancor to believe that they would be better off concentrating on switches, and leaving adapter development to QLogic, Emulex, HP, etc.
We have to remember that during Steve O'Hara's tenure, the focus was on LAN applications, not storage. With SANs starting to take off, storage becomes the key. The adapter companies are improving performance and cutting costs. Ancor can leverage this activity by providing switches that have a complete feature set and a lower price. The MKII-8 is perfect for this application. The new focus on the NT market is an excellent sign, since this is where I see the growth coming from. (And I'm a Novell man. <g>)
I've said it before, but I'll say it again. Don't get worked up over someone signing an adapter deal. In fact, the more of them that get signed, the better. No matter who gets the deal. We need a ton of adapters to get sold, because those adapters need to hook to SOMETHING. Initially, that something will be a Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop, then to a hub, and finally to a switch. That's when things get interesting.
Craig |
