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Technology Stocks : EMC How high can it go? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JDN who wrote (3295)	12/2/1998 5:27:00 PM
From: Beltropolis Boy	Respond to of 17183

>Dell in Storage--that's a JOKE! well, i won't debate you here, particularly for storage area networks. and with EMC's impending arsenal (read: volume logix, universal data tone, and enterprise storage networks), dell's indeed a light year behind. but, as the saying goes, give them storage and they will use it. and michael's obviously eyeing all that connectivity to the NT server market. perhaps greg papadopoulos (sun's CTO) said it best, "in three to five years we will start seeing servers as peripherals to storage systems." i think the most interesting portion of that release was the last paragraph: "Dell plans to announce additional partnerships with unspecified suppliers in the emerging areas of storage area networks." it wasn't too long ago, april i believe, when EMC 'partnered' with dell to test windows NT for oracle's parallel server database.

To: JDN who wrote (3295)	12/2/1998 11:01:00 PM
From: Jet.Screamer	Respond to of 17183

I could not agree more. What is even more interesting to me is that from what I understand Dell is reselling Clarion products-so much for be direct.

To: JDN who wrote (3295)	12/3/1998 10:26:00 AM
From: Beltropolis Boy	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 17183

boston herald gets a "sneak peak" [sic] at the franklin facility. ----- An EMC plant grows in Franklin By Todd Wallack/Boston Herald November 3, 1998 An EMC Corp. executive tugs a yellow cord at the firm's new Franklin plant and two white doors slide open - unleashing a gust of warm air and revealing another room ahead. Inside, dozens of data storage systems sit in sweltering heat (104 degrees) to make sure they won't fail. Nozzles hang near some of the machines to blow jets of cool air on workers. Across the hall, other workers don heavy jackets as they step into an identical white room where the thermostat is kept at a chilly 42 degrees. After six days in the hot room, the storage systems are wheeled in the cold room for another three days of testing. The regimen is typical for EMC, which plans to showcase its new Franklin plant for reporters today. But last week, EMC agreed to give the Herald a sneak peak at the plant, which has enough floor space to hold seven average-size Kmart stores and is one of the largest factories built in the Bay State in years. By the end of this month, it will employ 1,500 workers, and the number could grow to 2,500 eventually. EMC says workers only spend a day assembling systems (from parts bought elsewhere) made in the plant, but spend weeks on testing. The effort appears to pay. "I've heard stories about data centers where the floors have collapsed, and the storage system keeps working," said Tom Lahive, storage analyst for Dataquest in Westboro. "Wall Street hates it because their inventory turnover is bad. But when you buy a box, it works." Dave Vellante, a storage analyst for International Data Corp. in Framingham, said the new facility should help EMC refine its process even further. "It will give them some headroom," Vellante said. "They can worry less about their growth and really focus on quality." But rival International Business Machines Corp. claims its quality is even better. The computer giant even points out that EMC uses IBM disk-drives (along with those made by Seagate) in its systems. "We do the most stringent testing of any systems (maker) in the marketplace," said Mike Harrison, an IBM marketing director. While IBM claims a British researcher gave it the top-quality rank, users put EMC at the top of the pack, U.S. researchers at Soundview Financial Group found. Lahive said the differences might be hard to measure. High-end storage systems, ranging up to $4.7 million each, are known for reliability. The systems, about the size of a large refrigerator, can hold up to 6 terabytes of data -- or as much information as 3 million standard diskettes or 120,000 four-drawer filing cabinets. "The only reason these products fail is if they unplug both power cords by mistake, and even then they have backups," he said. EMC discards disk drives for the tiniest flaws. And instead of storing unsold machines, it keeps them running on a computer network to help spot problems. Even before the machine is put together, EMC subjects its circuit boards to one of 60 blue "shake and bake" machines. The $250,000 testing systems use liquid nitrogen to cool the boards to -31 degrees before quickly raising the temparture [sic] to 122 degrees to "shock" the electronics. A vibrating platform shakes the chips inside as well. "EMC's manufacturing facility is years beyond" the disk drive factories used by IBM and other makers of high-end data storage systems, Lahive said.