wmaster, others,
Anybody able to answer some questions on CPCI HBAs? What market is this for? Legacy stuff or next gen? How large is the potential market?
Regarding 32 port switch. Will this be considered a director type product, edge switch or something in between?
Could SUNW use a 32 porter?
Don't know how many lightning 9900s will get sold in the channel, but who wouldn't like to try?....Good time for QLGC to make a push into the channel? ALso this piece makes it sound as though HDS supplies the service & engineers for much of this so perhaps it means EMLX HBAs? Or since SUNW sells the servers and the HBAs go in the servers will most of them be QLGCs?
If any of you talk to QLGC please ask their opinion on this for us. Thanks in advance..
Sun To Channel: Hitachi Storage Deal Good For You, Bad For Competition
By Joseph F. Kovar, CRN
Sun Microsystems' reseller arrangement with Hitachi and Hitachi Data Systems should result in more business for the channel, say Sun officials and solution providers.
Under the arrangement unveiled earlier this week, Sun will resell Hitachi's Lightning 9900 family of arrays as the StorEdge 9900 arrays with an aim towards dislodging EMC from the Sun server-attached storage space and IBM from the data center space.
Sun and Hitachi will also cross-license and distribute each others' storage software, collaborate on storage software development, and expand integration capabilities.
The StorEdge 9900 series arrays are positioned at the high-end and data center markets, specifically for use with Sun's E10000 servers, says Bill Cook, vice president of Sun's Global Network Storage Sales. As such, they complement Sun's current T3 arrays, which he says have done well in the low- to mid-range and enterprise market spaces.
"For Hitachi, we bring the coverage, from a sales organization perspective, to the worldwide market," Cook says. "There's a lot of synergy there in how we go to market. One of our design objectives, and I think theirs' as well, is to make sure this was complimentary to both sides."
Over the next few weeks, Sun will roll out its new arrays to its channel partners, says Cook.
While the Sun 9900 hardware is the same as the Hitachi 9900, except for the color of the case and the two logos on front, the software stack that Sun includes is richer than what Hitachi offers as part of an integrated server/storage solution, says Cook. "It's a whole lot easier for a partner to deal with one vendor than two or more, if you are talking about adding additional software elements to it," he says.
Hitachi's sales organization is going to be incented to work with Sun's sales organization and partners, Cook says. "I think our partners value their access to the Sun sales force at the engagement level, and they're not going to get that if they choose to deal directly with Hitachi as opposed to buying the Sun-labeled version of the product," he says.
Sun will make its 9900 arrays available to its iForce community with a very aggressive pricing program, says Gary Grimes, Sun's vice president of Partner Management and Sales Operations for the US.
"We think it's a super offering, both for the current inventory of Hitachi partners as well as the traditional Sun-authorized partners of today, who are going to have access to a real high-end storage solution that will allow them to offer a best-of-breed integrated solution that nobody else can offer," says Grimes.
Sun's channel partners selling the 9900 family will not be eligible for SunFund dollars, the 10 percent reseller development funds that the vendor currently offers for its storage products, says Grimes. Instead, that bonus incremental RDF is already included in the partners' margins. "The business proposition is now an aggressive business proposition, and it just wasn't [that way] under the old pricing strategies with our older storage products," he says.
Sun's partners can look forward to 15-percent to 20-percent margins on the new products, says Grimes. For example, across a well-configured storage subsystem that might total about $750,000, partners can be looking for a gross profit of about $150,000.
On the service side, Sun and Hitachi plan to have co-located service personnel, says Cook. Sun is relying on Hitachi's support and engineering and expertise. When service is required, it will be escalated to the co-location center and Hitachi personnel, he says.
The new products should alleviate any concerns about whether Sun is serious about storage or not, says Cook. "I think some of the 'disappointment' from some of our partners was from the angle of not having end-to-end storage solution offerings to meet all of their customer requirements," he says. "We've made some great progress over the last year with our partners and where the T3 fit, and telling them that storage is an important piece of our integrated offerings."
Hank Johnson, vice president of the Enterprise Partner Services group of Stonebridge Technologies, a Dallas-based Sun and Hitachi Data Systems partner, calls the agreement a "win-win-win" deal. Sun gets a solid solution to go head-to-head with EMC, Hitachi gets a world-class partner, and Stonebridge gets a robust, integrated Sun solution, Johnson says.
Another key feature of the agreement is that the product will not be over-distributed, says Johnson. "Our understanding is that it will only be offered to qualified partners," he says. "Sun did a good job on comping at the rep level and the distribution level. And it's not available to the whole channel." |
