Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Disk Drive Sector Discussion Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sam who wrote (8638)	8/31/2000 10:34:05 AM
From: Yogi - Paul	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9256

Sam, <<Dell won't--I'm guessing again--make its own software for that, they will just bundle what others have made, and do what they do best--sell, sell, sell. >> <<But I am guessing that there will be a huge multi-billion market for the smaller, more targetted kind of storage that Dell and DSS are trying to sell...>> Understand, I agree with you completely but, from an investment viewpoint in drive stocks, does this not eliminate the prospect of entrance in higher margin markets for MXTR, WDC. Dell and CPQ/IBM lumbering in means lower margins. Is it not that simple? To me, continued achievement in density and hyper competition in network appliances means continued long term under performance for the group... absent consolidation. Just continuing seasonal short term plays. In other words-- pull a "Stitch"... jump in, take a profit, and get the F out. Just can't see a long term story developing, Paul

To: Sam who wrote (8638)	8/31/2000 2:47:30 PM
From: Gus	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9256

EMC's approach seems to me not unlike IBM's approach to mainframes back in the early 80s--proprietary, highly centralized, unwilling to allow open standards in storage systems. I'm sure Gus will correct me if that is an incorrect perception. Yes Sam, that is incorrect. Unfortunately, open and proprietary are loaded words regularly used cavalierly by competing interests (typically with inferior or unproven technology) to gain an advantage. EMC's RAID levels (including its proprietary RAID S) are certified by RAB (RAID Advisory Board) just like everybody else. EMC's FibreAlliance pushed through a MIB (Management Information Base) proposal before the standards committee that will probably be merged with the CIM (Common Information Model) being pushed by the SNIA (Storage Networking Industry Association). EMC's McDATA, in conjunction with Vixel, Gadzoox, Q-Logic/Ancor, forced Brocade to agree to physical layer compatibility that is now before the standards committee. Like everybody else in the business, EMC has proprietary intellectual property in the differentiation layers -- cache, microcode, intelligent controller, diagnostics, fault-tolerant system design, mapping techniques, software, service, etc. Unlike everybody else, EMC sells storage systems the way it should be sold - like a trust organization organized to perform smooth migrations of data from one generation of technology to the next. If you employ vested interest analysis, much of the double-talk and resistance to open storage standards come from the server vendors who naturally want to protect the natural lock-in between their servers and their RAID products. EMC supports over 36 computing platforms over proprietary and open networks. IBM and Compaq probably come in next with tepid support for 8-10 computing platforms over proprietary and open networks. This is the killer trend that is producing all that rhetoric: IT budget Server Storage 1996 - 75% 25% 1999 - 50% 50% 2003 - 25% 75% (IDC) 2004 - 20% 80% (Forrester, Dataquest) The double- and triple-digit growth in the newest parts of EMC business suggest strongly that customers DO want to recentralize and gain more control over their data. That doesn't mean of course that there is no demand for localized storage . But as has been proven time and time again, a one-dimensional network-attached storage only approach ONLY adds to the manageability and complexity problems that are now forcing companies to consolidate the early Wintel machines (direct-attached storage) -- that proliferated in the enterprise during the last 4 years -- with more powerful Unix, NT, and mainframes in the back-end and more inexpensive NT and Linux rack-mount and desktop servers in the front-end. It is not a trivial matter to inventory and maintain sophisticated machines over a congestible network, particularly for large organizations. The popularity of clustered rack-mount servers will only accelerate the move to consolidate and network storage resources along the lines of intelligent storage nodes conceived by EMC's ESN, which will continue to support DAS (direct attached storage), SAN (storage area network) and NAS (network attached storage) at different price-performance levels. The expectation is that the most price-sensitive parts of the storage business will also be the most likely to use outsourcing storage services to complement their own 'core' storage systems (direct-attached, network-attached, SAN). We'll see how it all plays out.