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

To: Douglas Nordgren who wrote (538)	4/28/1998 10:56:00 PM
From: Douglas Nordgren	Respond to of 4808

More on STK/CPQ Deal - 600 lb. Gorillas Coming to the Party Computerworld 4/27 StorageTek, Compaq to partner on NT products - Compaq users to get high-end storage options By Nancy Dillon When Storage Technology Corp. announced its first Windows NT storage products in March 1997, analysts called the technology solid but the sales forecast dismal. StorageTek had no tie to an NT server base and no direct sales focused on NT. What StorageTek needed was a partner -- preferably a partner with sizable server market share and a mature Windows NT distribution channel. And that's what it now has. Last week, Louisville, Colo.-based StorageTek and Houston-based Compaq Computer Corp. announced a deal in which Compaq will partially fund StorageTek research in exchange for the rights to jointly sell resulting NT-centric products. The first two products expected from the collaboration are a Fibre Channel switch due late this year and software called Virtual Storage Manager for NT due next year. GOOD IDEA Analysts said the deal makes sense for Compaq because the top-selling PC server vendor wants to move up the NT stream, and StorageTek is known for understanding enterprise customer needs. Compaq does stand to gain Digital Equipment Corp.'s StorageWorks division if its pending merger with Digital is approved. But Compaq officials said the StorageTek products they eventually choose to sell will most likely complement, rather than replace, Digital's offerings. Users said they see significant benefits resulting from the collaboration. David Nuechterlein, a technical support consultant at Nissan North America, Inc. in Englewood, Colo., has 10 Windows NT servers from Compaq in his data center and will acquire 20 more later this year. "The partnership sounds good because when we buy storage for our new servers, we'll be interested in both the best technology and in leveraging our existing vendor relationships," Nuechterlein said. He said StorageTek understands high availability. "It was a hassle getting servers from Compaq with no internal hard drives," said Tony Holland, data processing manager at Long Motor Corp. in Lenexa, Kan. "We didn't get a sense that Compaq was pro-external storage." As NT scales up, he said, Compaq will have to better understand the "external paradigm." RISING STAR? The partnership should place StorageTek as a key player in open systems down the line, said Robert Gray, an analyst at International Data Corp. in Framingham, Mass. "Just look at what happened the last time StorageTek coupled its technology with someone else's marketing and distribution," he said, referring to the company's 1996 Iceberg mainframe array deal with IBM. The partnership with IBM brought to StorageTek almost $300 million in revenue last year and vaulted the company to the position of No. 2 OEM disk system supplier. NOTE: STK has an agreement with BXH for FC RAID. www2.computerworld.com