Obi-Wan II
Cowbacca here.
Great post. In fact, exceptional post...you seem to have covered most of the bases, including what was new to me about the SCSI part of the Adapter problem with Sequent...
Steve mentioned, if my memory serves me correctly, that the HP problem really could have been corrected by using one of Vitesse's serdes chips instead...the main problem was the Emulex Adapter that was supposed to support SCSI at Class 1. It didn't. ANCR, unfortuntely didn't even have SCSI on their own adapters. They will now, i believe.
I asked at the Q&A about why ANCR is even bothering with a SCSI partner (not just adapters), if they are into FC...he said that SCSI needs to run over FC because its all over the place and then I soon realized (it took me about 4 seconds) that I asked a pretty stupid question...
Steve did admit that ANCR could also be much better at supporting Class 2 and 3 (even in the SQNT deal) and that they have been working very hard on this (ie. the new switch planned)...and they were pretty much done, but had to test rigorously...
On other news, I asked about ANCR's new planned switch and about who will have something comparable? Steve said that he believed that Brocade, MacData (sp?), NEC, and HP all will have Class 2 and 3 FC switches available soon (now?)as far as he knows. He also stated that as far as he knows, none of them will be Class 1 TOO...that is probably the reason he stated that their new generation switch that supports Class 1, 2, and 3 will be superior to anything on the market and at a competitive price (to what, I do not know :-))...if it's true that ANCR will have a Class 1,2,and 3 switch is quite impressive bc as Craig and others have talked about...the people liking just Class 2,3 right now like SQNT may only like it temporarily...they have got to move to something better to scale...scaling is everything in server clustering and storage in the future...time will show us right, IMHO.
Steve mentioned that he hoped ANCR would be profitable in Q3 or Q4 calender. He hopes for Q3, obviously.
It was my first meeting with Steve today and he seemed very much a straight-forward, nice, and honest fellow...I had some fears, but I was pleasantly surprised...there were not a lot of people for the presentation, as Pat (to KL) and Alan pointed out, and the questions people were asking at that and the Q&A afterwards really showed an ignorance of where and what FC is for (ie. a few questions about combating ATM in the WAN>) and to me it showed a little bit that FC is still in its infancy publicity/analyst wise (ie. small crowd and lack of a lot of good questions)...and well, in my opinion, is a good thing (ie. as an investor). :-)
Steve was also very candid about how too many people think one technology is going to take over others and that its naive, essentially, and that FC isn't really in direct competition to GE bc
No.1 FC is primarily storage, data backup, and server clustering for the future and
No.2 GE doesn't really exist yet really
...he kept saying that FC is for storage (ie. he thinks Ethernet and ATM and IP switching are going to do it big time for LAN/WAN among other things)...but he pointed out that some of his recent customers (maybe Lockheed, ???) are asking about why aren't they using FC thru the whole of some of their network (ie.people are still experimenting to find out more on FC)...so, the backbone and other places are still up for grabs with many, IMHO...
Steve also talked about how they were in the Phase 2 of their prototype Armed Forces test bed (as we all know) and that it was specifically for the Mobile Field unit with the Marines...he said that the Army and Air Force might have funds available later this year to have test beds (a big possibility, IMHO).
I believe Intel and MSFT are going to/or have joined the FCA.
I also asked about AT&T and Steve said they were still working with them, I believe...but that was it. I get the feeling that things aren't as strong there, but I may be wrong.
Things are constantly changing in this world of FC, a technology that has no doubt come from nowhere to somewhere in the past year...I asked Steve too after the last Q&A about GE and got the impression they are not that interested...I wasn't there when Steve talked to Alan about GE, but I believe Alan is right on when he says that they might not even be thinking about it anymore...seems to be in sharp contrast to what ZERO was saying here...ZERO???
Well, I am still very bullish on ANCR...FC is coming together a little slower than I originally thought...but its something that I am actually excited about (and I am not excited about much)...
It's obvious that another large contract sends ANCR to double digits in my opinion. I hope this happens soon. :-)
It was a pleasure meeting Pat finally!!! She's even nicer in person than online. A great lady...It was a treat to watch her talk the xDSL talk, too. =/:-)
And great to meet you too Alan! We should look into turning the entire RS conference into a rave next year. We'll, you can do the visuals. :)
What a day...tired now...
Can't wait to find out more from the FC world...me thinks that 'big growth' might be the best way to describe the next couple years...and boy, Asia seems like a great place to be. 8-)
ALL IMHO,
Pigbacca
P.S.
Scott,
You were talking about Routers...Steve O'Hara mentioned that ANCR was asked about an FC interface on a router by a large Networking company, but they soon found out that the router couldn't handle the FC speed...so it was a no go. :/
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