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

To: w2j2 who wrote (18658)	10/16/1998 10:02:00 PM
From: Ken Richard	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29386

Any thoughts from anyone as to why Brocade and McData are not listed as exhibitors at Interop .... ? interop.com

To: w2j2 who wrote (18658)	10/17/1998 2:11:00 PM
From: Technocrat	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29386

> ...the future of data storage is the SAN in a fabric (like a > spider web). FC switches will be the important equipment, and > the server will be bypassed. Is this right? Correct. At least, that is my opinion :-) Let me provide a few analogies. I am not trying to be pratronizing. This is the way my mind works. Take the case when telephones were first introduced into high society of New York City. They were essentially intercoms. The Vanderbilts could ring up the Astors. OK, fine. The invention did not become revolutionary until telephone switches were invented. Then anybody could call anybody within the confines of the switch domain. The telephone set was merely an appliance. The crux of the industry was the switching infrastructure. Let me bring up a computing analogy. In 1968-9 a few far-sighted people came up with the idea of networking as a cost saving measure. The telephone companies were big on the idea of analog, dedicated lines (back to intercoms). Some bright people inside DARPA rejected that approach and went with digital packet switching. It is still alive and well today as in TCP/IP. > If so, why isn't everybody trying to make FC switches? I think Roy gave a good answer to that one a few months back. ASIC designers experienced with this FC technology do not grow on trees. Based on some vague comments by Cal Nelson at one of the conference calls, it is possible Ancor has been cagey about intellectual property rights as well. I sure hope so. Why is mighty Intel scrambling with negotiations with tiny S3 trying to resolve a CPU patent infringement? Because S3 bought a pile of patents on CPU design from Exponential. It's a small world in high technology. You always must be looking over your shoulder for the three smart engineers working out of a garage. Or was that Minnesota... :-) So, going back to my FC/telephone analogy, we are at the intercom stage of fibre channel. We have proof of principle. Scalability requires switches of some kind. I do not see any way around this.