Space cadet,
The
new issue is intel. They just released a press release saying they are moving into
the networking/internet environment bigtime. Of course, that means storage as
well. How big an issue is this for emc. Will intel now be a direct competitor?
I own Intel and EMC stock, so I think I can be objective here. Let me say what I think about your concern. I don't think Intel is any threat whatsoever to EMC in this venture they've just announced. To borrow some words to use as background that I wrote on the Intel thread (don't pay too much attention to the "disclaimer" in the first sentence):
My impression, which may be, no probably
is, wrong, is that Intel would provide turnkey systems for these
internet farms. So, the servers are only a part of the overall system.
Besides, we have switches, routers, hubs, ethernet or whatever
backbones, fiber/copper cable infrastructures, Sys Admins...So,
it's a big system integration job and then ongoing requirements to
manage upgrades in hardware, software, network stuff, etc., 24X7
equipment maintenance and repair.
What I forget to add as part of the turnkey system is storage (dummy!), although the servers can have up into hundreds of gigabytes themselves. The bigger "internet farm" that a Yahoo or Lycos might need, though, most likely would also need high reliability RAID storage external to the servers. In that case, Intel would undoubtedly turn to and buy or lease from Network Appliances, or EMC, or both. What Intel is planning on doing here is to act as a system integrator. No way are they going to try to reinvent the wheel, in this case, the wheel being the high reliability storage, or a router, switch or hub. They will look around and buy/lease and integrate the best and most cost effective box that's already available. In the case of storage, it's EMC.
Tony |
