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To: Uncle Frank who wrote (50007)	1/23/2002 3:18:44 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Respond to of 54805

re: the disruptive nature of nas to san I'm still agnostic on that question. I've studied the sector long enough (1 1/2 years) to be willing to make a bet on storage, but I don't think I'm smart enough to pick the winning technology (or, just as importantly, the winning management). Yes, I'm very impressed by how NTAP has maintained their gross margins, especially compared to EMC. But, I think the safest thing is simply to let the market tell me who the winner is, and the game isn't over yet. It's in, maybe, round 2 or 3, of a 10-round fight. To a great extent, EMC and NTAP still have different customer bases. That's one reason why NTAP went from 152 to 6, while EMC showed relative strength, "only" going from 105 to 10: while EMC's customers were cutting IT spending, NTAP's customers were going bankrupt. NTAP seems to be doing a good job of finding firmer ground to stand on (= a customer base of solvent enterprises). But it's a process that has just begun, it will be years before the two companies are truly direct competitors, selling to the same customer set. In any case, for the next year or two, the stocks will move based on macro and sector conditions, and not so much company-specific events. If: (1)corporate IT spending comes back, and (2)it flows preferentially into storage, then both EMC and NTAP will do nicely. I'm betting both 1 and 2 happen in 2002. So I might be able to answer your question next year, or the year after, but I feel no urgency to answer it now.

To: Uncle Frank who wrote (50007)	1/24/2002 11:11:00 AM
From: mmbw	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 54805

Frank- another question, this time concerning NTAP. I read the following on the ntap thread and I apologize if it is already posted here. Procom NAS To Get Microsoft Nod Microsoft pulled support for all NAS devices last spring because it couldn't guarantee the integrity of information that came through its own common Internet file-system protocol, which all NAS devices support. By Martin J. Garvey, InformationWeek Jan 22, 2002 (12:00 AM) URL: informationweek.com Procom Technology Inc. this week will get approval for its new NetForce 3000 storage to join Microsoft's Hardware Compatibility List. Making the list will be a boon to businesses that run Microsoft Exchange on network-attached storage devices. Microsoft pulled support for all NAS devices last spring because it couldn't guarantee the integrity of information that came through its own common Internet file system protocol, which all NAS devices support. At the time, Microsoft said it would only guarantee information integrity when the information is run through networked storage that processes blocks of data instead of files of information--a decision that has left users in a bind. "If customers run Exchange on storage not certified by Microsoft, that's going to lead to a lot of finger-pointing among vendors," International Data Corp. analyst John McArthur says. Procom delivers its NetForce 3000 NAS devices with its Duet storage area network controller attached. Duet can interface with SANs and run Exchange information through as blocks of data. Parsa Rohani, Procom's VP of marketing, admits that Procom didn't create Duet on its own. Procom came up with the idea after Microsoft's decision and added Duet through a deal with IBM's Mylex storage controller division. For National City Mortgage, the Miamisburg, Ohio, business unit of National City Corp., the Microsoft support is good news. Last year, it bought two Procom NetForce devices for $300,000, cutting its storage costs in half, instead of buying high-end Network Appliance Inc. devices. Each Procom device supports more than 2 terabytes of data and acts as a business-continuity system. "Without Duet, we would have built more disk [space] around our Exchange servers," says Kevin Marvin, IS chief architect at National City Mortgage. "The coolest thing about Duet is that I can also install larger Unix systems running Oracle this summer." He hopes to expand the lower-cost Procom disk space instead of buying more expensive disk space from one of the Unix players. Had ntap been doing a lot of business with softy? If so some are of the opinion that this could hurt ntap's business. Any thoughts on this? Martha@Idoownsomentap.com