RE: Fiber Alliance...
Would appreciate any comment you might want to make on how you think Brocade getting strongarmed by EMC to join the Fibre Alliance in order to be included in their OEM changes the FC game if any. It seems to me that agreeing to be part of the alliance with an open standard rather than to achieve the proprietary defacto standard they were striving for shifts them away from possible gorilla to possible king.
Hi, Nick. Why pick on me?
We haven't seen you around for a few months. I respect the knowledge and study of the fiber channel switch industry through the eyes of adamant Ancor investors such as yourself. Yet, does the value chain that Brocade has established as well as any 'strong armed force to join an alliance', which you suggest, result in the definitive switch of a gorilla game to a royalty game? It's worth discussing. Obviously, none of the other players want a gorilla to emerge at any costs.
Sorry about the recent Ancor share price, but congratulations on the quarter nevertheless. Gadzoox and Ancor both had 'record' quarters - who hasn't these days in the fiber channel space? The revenue picture remains the same in the game with Brocade as the leader, Gadzoox remains 2nd, Ancor remains third and Vixel continues in last. The bottom three's revenues combined is still less than half of Brocade's revenues. Therefore, being that the criteria for a King is 2x the market share of the nearest competitor, there is no need to debate Brocade's qualifications for that status if the game has turned into one of royalty or not. I have been careful not to rush to call anything this early in the game yet, outside of Brocade leading the smaller switch market. I remember we discussed last year the possibility of a two tier game with the large and small switch market possibly being two separate games.
I guess I must have missed the announcement that EMC announced they had 'strong armed' Brocade into joining anything. EMC and IBM are well known for playing the Nokia game. What were Technocrat's words, "EMC had Reyes on his knees" or something to that tone? Hmmmmm.......perhaps you could elaborate on that for us in terms of the interpretation being a 'strong arm' event and put it into the context of the end of a gorilla game. Here are a couple of links.
brocade.com
brocade.com
==============
BROCADE is committed to maintaining open, standards-based solutions. Leading systems, applications and storage vendors have selected BROCADE as their Fibre Channel connectivity standard, including Amdahl, CNT, Compaq Computer, Data General, Dell Computer, Fujitsu Siemens Computers, Groupe Bull, HP, IBM, NEC, Network Appliance, SGI, and StorageTek. In addition, BROCADE counts industry leaders Computer Associates, Emulex, Hitachi Data Systems Inc., Legato, LSI Logic, ONI Systems, QLogic, StorageNetworks, Tivoli Systems and VERITAS among its strategic partners.
Analysts reckon we are at the start of a 10-year spending cycle for fibre channel and SAN. This is good news for Brocade, since its SilkWorm family of fibre-channel switches is used in about 80% of the fibre-switch market. Brocade has an advantage over potential competitors because it has locked up close relationships with SAN component makers like Dell Computer (DELL, news, msgs), IBM (IBM, news, msgs) and Compaq Computer (CPQ, news, msgs). This gives Brocade an advance look at their design needs -- and a chance to propose solutions before potential competitors even know what the problems are.
=============
I need more information before I jump to any conclusions, but would appreciate your comments on the matter.
BB
P.S. By the way, CE Unterberg initiates coverage with a buy on Ancor, Brocade, Gadzoox and Network Appliance this morning:
biz.yahoo.com |
