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Technology Stocks : The New QLogic (ANCR) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: srvhap who wrote (18543)	10/13/1998 1:28:00 AM
From: Kerry Lee	Respond to of 29386

Ancor has no plans to abandon UNIX vendors..MKII is still offered in 16 ports..Today's MKII-8 announcement which highlights the "NT" space, 8 port switch and price of fabrics vs hubs is an interesting response to the previous words of wisdom from Roy Sardina of Transoft..sort of like real life imitating Silicon Investor. I don't think Ancor wrote their press release/product plan to address Roy Sardina, but I find it coincidental in light of Roy's posts below. To reiterate my previous post today, I am guesstimating that the OEM's will probably be paying in the $500-625/port range for the new Ancor 8 port switch, depending upon volumes. The $1250 per port price quoted in today's press release is the highest price that an end user would be paying for 1 single unit: To: Herb Herman (14465 ) From: Roy Sardina Thursday, Feb 19 1998 9:28AM ET Reply # of 18543 Don't get your hopes up. I've heard IBM is looking at a new 8 port Brocade Switch to OEM at less than $1000 per port (that's a new low water mark.) So... while they may be endusers of ANCR, their OEM deal may goto Brocade. Roy To: Tom Duxbury (14489 ) From: Roy Sardina Thursday, Feb 19 1998 10:45AM ET Reply # of 18543 The problem that most of the FC Switch vendors have is that they build high port count switches (>8 port). While this has been ok for the present OEMS (DEC, SQNT, etc.) the high volume prospects (DELL, CPQ, etc.) all want lower port count, and much lower port prices. To lower the price of their large switches is difficult, first there is the fact that they are built like tanks (read highcost VERY reliable components), and they have features that only LARGE enterprise systems vendors need (or are willing ot pay for) So, if you want high volume and higher revenuwe you have to make a low cost switch, and that means lower port counts and fewer features. You do all this and hope you don't canabalize your high end business. My guess is that a 8 port switch won't hurt the 12-16 port business they are in. As to a comment that someone made regarding SQNT being interested in high port count switches. It makes sense if you look at the SQNT product offering this is an expandable machine that could have many more than 16 total connections (cpu's + disk) so a >16 port switch seems very complementary to the business. McData (www.mcdata.com) already offers a 32 port switch. It's also interesting to note that the IBM deal was for ANCR 1/4 speed switches. ALot of people have written that segment off, but it appears ot solve the needs of many customers. SUNW sold thousands of 1/4 speed FC RAID systems. Roy Sardina To: Craig Stevenson (14502 ) From: Roy Sardina Thursday, Feb 19 1998 2:01PM ET Reply # of 18543 Craig The sub $1000 price is the OEM price, no idea what the "street" price will be. This is really about offering a low price point for the NT space. The Hub guys OEM at sub $500 per port. Figure a 40% discount from List. There are no 1/4 speed full speed products (router, bridges or otherwise) available today. I remember HP talking about building a switch that did both, but then again they stopped building switches. The McData switch is a hybrid of the Brocade product, and is used for high availability. Your comment about fabrics is interesting in that many users believe that they need "fast" interconnect and that 1G/b won't do it. They are wrong, the saturation levels are very low, because they rarely have data moving over all the ports and if properly configured trafffic between switches is minimal. Roy Sardina To: KJ. Moy (15659 ) From: Roy Sardina Thursday, Apr 9 1998 4:47PM ET Reply # of 18543 KJ $500 per port is where the major NT players are believed to be interested in FC Fabrics. They represent the high volume potential in the switch business. The sweet spot turns out ot be 8-12 ports at $500 which gives you a $4K to $6K pricepoint. that's where optical hubs are right now which is why there is volume there. Roy

To: srvhap who wrote (18543)	10/13/1998 1:49:00 AM
From: Kerry Lee	Respond to of 29386

This old press release from Gadzoox might add some context/competitive landscape to the discussion of NT, switches versus managed hubs, pricing, etc..: Gadzoox™ Networks Announces Six-Port Gibraltar™ GL Fibre Channel Hub That Delivers Enterprise Reliability and Functionality to the Growing Mid-range Server Market Company Targets New Hub to Growing Demand from Mid-Range Windows NT and UNIX Server Customers for SAN (Storage Area Network) Solutions San Jose, California - June 15, 1998 -- Gadzoox Networks, Inc., the industry leader in Gigabit-speed Fibre Channel SAN products, today announced the Gibraltar GL, a modular Fibre Channel hub offering six Gigabit-speed, fully managed ports. The Gibraltar GL hub is the ideal solution for the mid-range server customer whose applications require the same reliability, availability and performance as the high end enterprise customer, but whose system needs are typically for lower storage capacity with fewer ports at a lower entry price. The Gibraltar GL hub is available now and is priced starting at $3,995, unpopulated. Ports may be populated with any mix of copper and optical Gigabit Interface Converters (GBIC). Copper GBIC's are available at $60 per port and short-wave optical at $250 per port. The Gibraltar GL hub features PerfectPort™, a capability unique to the Gadzoox Networks Gibraltar family. PerfectPort assures the industry's highest levels of data reliability and integrity through the use of a per-port retiming circuitry embedded in the Gadzoox-developed ASIC design. The Gibraltar GL is managed by Ventana™, the industry's first SAN management application. The Ventana management architecture spans Gadzoox' full line of managed Fibre Channel hubs and switches. It provides unsurpassed visibility into the SAN, significantly increasing network reliability. The Gibraltar GL hub also provides flexibility as a customer's SAN configuration grows by enabling hubs to be cascaded with additional Gibraltar GL six-port hubs or with 12-port Gibraltar GS hubs. All Gibraltar hubs comply with industry standards so they can be cascaded with other vendors' Fibre Channel products. "The initial SAN market has been driven by large, enterprise customers buying primarily from high-end UNIX and Windows NT server vendors," said David Tang, Vice President of Marketing at Gadzoox Networks. "Over the past two years, Gadzoox has developed strong relationships with the majority of these vendors and has shipped them the industry's greatest number of managed hub ports. From this strong base of product acceptance, Gadzoox is introducing the Gibraltar GL, designed specifically for the more price sensitive mid-range UNIX and NT server user. These customers demand the same functionality as the high-end users and they are poised for dramatic growth. They are also more likely to buy through traditional distribution channels. The Gibraltar GL is positioned with the pricing and configuration options that give our channel partners the optimal solution for selling into this exploding market." "Dataquest believes that the majority of Microsoft Windows NT-based server sites will only require a six port hub solution. Smaller configuration hubs will allow many users to buy only what they need and eliminate the cost associated with components that will never be used," said Thomas Lahive, Senior Analyst of GartnerGroup's Dataquest. "Gadzoox has done an outstanding job of developing products like the Gibraltar GS 12-port managed hub and the Denali™ Fibre Channel Switch that allow high-end customers to implement the foundation for growing their SAN infrastructure," said Brad Morris, DOD Account Manager for Technautics, a Virginia-based systems integrator that develops advanced technology solutions for federal government customers. "We have found that many of our customers are migrating to NT and the Gibraltar GL hub opens up this market segment for us. We now have a compelling solution for our mid-range customers to implement a Fibre Channel SAN and enjoy faster, more reliable and more easily scaled networking for their data-intensive applications." Gadzoox Networks, Inc. is the industry leader in Gigabit-speed Fibre Channel SAN products. The company brings innovative networking solutions to storage by delivering a highly scalable, managed server-storage infrastructure that fully supports the SAN architecture. Gadzoox' product strategy fully supports the SAN architecture with modular, scalable products. Headquartered in San Jose, Calif., Gadzoox is privately held. For more information, visit the company's web site at www.gadzoox.com or call 888.423.3222. Editor's Note: Analyst and customer references and color product slides are available upon request. For Further Information Contact: Colleen Annen Doolin Communications, Inc. for Gadzoox Networks, Inc. 408.252.1081 e-mail: colleena@earthlink.net