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Technology Stocks : MTIC - Is this the next EMC? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nick who wrote (3335)	4/26/1999 4:54:00 PM
From: David A. Lethe	Respond to of 3748

>Who's controller is being used in the polaris product you sell, is it your own or from someone else? What other vendors are shipping FC-FC RAID subsystems based on an FC-FC RAID controller? We use the Mylex DAC960FF FC-FC RAID controller. You can read more than you will ever want to know about it and its' features on either the mylex, mylex.com, or our site. Since Mylex manufactures more RAID controllers than anybody on the planet, we felt it was much more economical and provided faster time-to-market then creating our own. Also, most important, it has the features, stability, and performance we needed. >From a packaging standpoint big deal, several players have had FC drives for sometime(BXH, DGN(and all of its resellers), ECCS, etc.). What Im interested in is not the packaging but rather the value add and that would be the controller combined with the packaging, service, support, etc. After all, nobody cares about or gives a hoot about who supplies EMC with their packaging, its what EMC builds or has built for them to put into those cabinets that are made up in New England. Well, first lets be specific and say that BXH, DGN and the others don't have FC drives... They have FC subsystems. SEA today is the only vendor with FC drives in GA (general availability).. IBM is really close, and we have certified their drives. I do know that DGN does OEM Mylex controllers. I suspect boxhill does as well. If you are really interested in that then I am sure that boxhill and the others would be glad to answer your question. >From an investment standpoint (vendor bashing and competition is best left to the general chat groups and bbs) however general info on what is good or not good about a specific vendor can be useful particular if you are long as I am and it indicates a positive trend or objective. >Im looking for value and value add like to research those firms I invest along with their industries. You as a participant in the storage sector your insight as to what is happening is interesting and at times informative. Im currious as to your last paragraph as it eludes that you are moving away from working with MTIC. Is there any particular reason we as investors should be aware of a shortcoming? Again, who are your suppliers so they to can be researched as possible investments and for analysis. If you want to research products, then of course that is easy to do by searching the support databases and product information found on vendor's websites. That way you can bypass a lot of marketing fluff and get down to specifics. At one time our firm was a lot closer to MTIC then it is now. Reasons are best left confidential. We are now competitors. I also want to add no sour grapes involved. >If MTIC and DGN are the only actual manufacturers of FC-FC RAID arrays (and specificly the controllers) then as Jim points out, there is value and something of news or potential here as they also appear to be the only vendors provuding a total turnkey FC-FC solution that is theirs. Jim is incorrect. MTIC & DGN are NOT the only manufacturers of FC-FC RAID arrays. Furthermore, as I stated perhaps a few months ago, MTIC doesn't make their disk subsystems. MTIC does have their own RAID controller in the 6700, but that is where it ends. There are about a dozen others out there that I know of in the FC-FC RAID business, and a web search can certainly come up with most of them. David