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Technology Stocks : Son of SAN - Storage Networking Technologies -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Crystal ball who wrote (2860)	3/6/2001 9:58:11 PM
From: J Fieb	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4808

Microsoft Hones Its NAS Message (03/06/01, 1:01 p.m. ET) By Kim Renay Anderson, TechWeb News Microsoft Corp. is continuing its storage push by adding new OEM customers to develop network-attached storage software for its Windows 2000 Server Appliance Kit 1.0. One of the latest to join a roster that already includes Compaq (stock: CPQ), Dell (stock: DELL), and IBM (stock: IBM) is Maxtor Corp. (stock: MXTR), whose new MaxAttach NAS 4100 file server is based on Windows 2000 and incorporates the server appliance kit. The 1.75-inch rack-mountable device boasts up to 320 Gbytes of capacity and is geared to small and medium-sized businesses. "OEMs are telling us that storage is exploding, and Microsoft is taking it seriously and responding to it," said Kelly Meagher, product manager for embedded and appliance platforms group at Microsoft, Redmond, Wash. Dataquest projects a NAS market of $7.3 billion by 2004. Microsoft (stock: MSFT) is also making sure the appliance kit can run across multiple networking operating systems or even a mixed environment, Meagher said. "OEM customers such as Dell, Compaq, and IBM have asked us for a product that they can integrate into their storage products," said Meagher. "We're responsive to OEM feedback, and if they sense demand in a particular area, we work with them to fill that demand." Server Appliance Kit 1.0 can function as a dedicated file and print server and includes such features as Web-based management and automatic mirroring. It is used in a number of NAS appliances, including Compaq's Taskmart N2400, Dell's PowerVault 735N, and IBM's eServer xSeries 150. As for the MaxAttach 4100, Maxtor, Milpitas, Calif., has a reason for aiming it at smaller companies: More than 80 percent of them will be moving to Windows 2000 in the next 18 months, according to Steve Wilkins, director of marketing. And priced at about $3,300 to $5,000 (depending on capacity), it's meant to compete directly with the 4100 NAS product from Snap Appliances, San Jose, Calif. Pushan Rinnen, an analyst at Gartner/Dataquest, San Jose, said the MaxAttach 4100 is also the first entry-point NAS product that has features for enterprise management, such as Active Directory Service (ADS) and Novell Directory Service (NDS). But Chad Robinson, analyst at the Robert Francis Group, Newton, Mass., wondered whether ADS and NDS can even run side by side. "Microsoft is saying the server appliance kit is interoperable with every platform out there, but that is not necessarily true," Robinson said. He's not aware of any situation “where NDS and ADS are running together in the same environment,” but “that's what will happen if you have an entire Novell network and you add a MaxAttach.” Related Stories: