September 1, 2009 – There’s a rumor swirling at this week’s VMworld show regarding the imminent announcement of a deep, formal partnership between VMware, Cisco and EMC (aka VCE).
The troika already has a loose relationship, but scuttlebutt suggests a much more formidable triumvirate. The announcement might come at VMworld this week, although next week may be more likely.
Paul Mansky, a principal in equity research, data center infrastructure, at CANACCORD Adams, issued a note this week that hints at what the three-way relationship might entail.
Citing industry sources, Mansky says the deal will revolve around Cisco’s Unified Computing System (UCS) platform and, of course, EMC storage systems (with an emphasis on Atmos?) and VMware in bundled configurations that address cloud computing (internal or external) environments. The venture is also expected to include joint testing and marketing, as well as a road show in September or October.
Interestingly, sources also say that EMC plans to compensate both EMC and Cisco field reps for 100% of the value of the combined solution sale.
If anybody doubted whether Cisco’s UCS would gain traction, this deal would put those notions to rest.
Showing posts with label Cisco. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cisco. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Monday, April 20, 2009
Q1 the worst ever for VARs
April 20, 2009 – The channel bid adieu to the first quarter of this year with a collective “good riddance.” That’s one takeaway from a recent survey of 51 IT resellers conducted by Robert W. Baird & Co.
How bad was it? In terms of expected revenues vs. actual revenues, 60% of the VARs were below plan, 26% were on plan, and only 14% were above plan. That’s the worst quarter since RW Baird began its quarterly server/storage VAR surveys in Q3 2004. In fact, it was almost twice as bad as the previous worst quarters (Q2 2006 and Q1 2008, when about 32% of the resellers were below plan).
Once again, storage was cited as the strongest IT sector by resellers, with virtualization and data de-duplication cited as the hottest technologies.
It’s tough to predict how VARs will fare in the second quarter. About 43% of the survey respondents expect the market to remain about the same, while 30% are more negative and 16% are more positive (and 11% say it’s too early to tell). On the positive side, many VARs said that, although many purchases were delayed from Q1 to Q2, relatively few purchases were cancelled.
When asked which vendors’ products they expect to sell more of in the next 12 months, VARs cited VMware, NetApp, Data Domain and Cisco as the top four performers, with CommVault and LeftHand rounding out the top six.
When asked about specific vendors in the short term (“How do you perceive the following storage vendors in the next 3 to 6 months?”), Data Domain, NetApp and EMC topped the list, with LeftHand moving into the fourth position from seventh in the previous quarter. (LeftHand was also ranked the most channel friendly vendor, slightly above NetApp.)
Sun ranked consistently low in the survey, and it will be interesting to see how the channel reacts to the Oracle-Sun announcement. I”ll blog about that news as soon as I get done scratching my head.
How bad was it? In terms of expected revenues vs. actual revenues, 60% of the VARs were below plan, 26% were on plan, and only 14% were above plan. That’s the worst quarter since RW Baird began its quarterly server/storage VAR surveys in Q3 2004. In fact, it was almost twice as bad as the previous worst quarters (Q2 2006 and Q1 2008, when about 32% of the resellers were below plan).
Once again, storage was cited as the strongest IT sector by resellers, with virtualization and data de-duplication cited as the hottest technologies.
It’s tough to predict how VARs will fare in the second quarter. About 43% of the survey respondents expect the market to remain about the same, while 30% are more negative and 16% are more positive (and 11% say it’s too early to tell). On the positive side, many VARs said that, although many purchases were delayed from Q1 to Q2, relatively few purchases were cancelled.
When asked which vendors’ products they expect to sell more of in the next 12 months, VARs cited VMware, NetApp, Data Domain and Cisco as the top four performers, with CommVault and LeftHand rounding out the top six.
When asked about specific vendors in the short term (“How do you perceive the following storage vendors in the next 3 to 6 months?”), Data Domain, NetApp and EMC topped the list, with LeftHand moving into the fourth position from seventh in the previous quarter. (LeftHand was also ranked the most channel friendly vendor, slightly above NetApp.)
Sun ranked consistently low in the survey, and it will be interesting to see how the channel reacts to the Oracle-Sun announcement. I”ll blog about that news as soon as I get done scratching my head.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
FCoE FUD
April 8, 2009 – At the only press conference at this week’s Storage Networking World confab, Brocade tossed its hat into the FCoE ring with the announcement of a switch and converged network adapters (CNAs). See “Brocade launches FCoE switch, adapters.”
That announcement seemingly officially kicked off the FCoE battles between Cisco and Brocade on the switch front, and Emulex, QLogic and Brocade on the CNA front. (As storage bigots, we’re ignoring the traditional NIC and switch vendors which may, or may not, eventually be contenders in the FCoE ring.)
Brocade’s CNA announcement came on the heels of similar announcements from Emulex and QLogic:
“QLogic delivers single-chip CNAs”
“Emulex CNAs support 10GbE, iSCSI, FCoE”
Upon each announcement, competitors offered their services in bad-mouthing their rivals. Since most of the claims and counterclaims are at this point are impossible to verify, we chose a Joe Friday approach to reporting the announcements – “Just the facts, ma’am.”
The FCoE battles may have begun in the OEM qualification arena (raising the question of how many CNAs or switches the big server/storage vendors will qualify/resell), but the real battles won’t begin until end-user adoption of FCoE begins. At yesterday’s press conference, Brocade CTO Dave Stevens predicted that we won’t see end-user adoption of FCoE in any volume until late 2010 (about the same time that 16Gbps Fibre Channel products are supposed to appear). And that might be optimistic.
That announcement seemingly officially kicked off the FCoE battles between Cisco and Brocade on the switch front, and Emulex, QLogic and Brocade on the CNA front. (As storage bigots, we’re ignoring the traditional NIC and switch vendors which may, or may not, eventually be contenders in the FCoE ring.)
Brocade’s CNA announcement came on the heels of similar announcements from Emulex and QLogic:
“QLogic delivers single-chip CNAs”
“Emulex CNAs support 10GbE, iSCSI, FCoE”
Upon each announcement, competitors offered their services in bad-mouthing their rivals. Since most of the claims and counterclaims are at this point are impossible to verify, we chose a Joe Friday approach to reporting the announcements – “Just the facts, ma’am.”
The FCoE battles may have begun in the OEM qualification arena (raising the question of how many CNAs or switches the big server/storage vendors will qualify/resell), but the real battles won’t begin until end-user adoption of FCoE begins. At yesterday’s press conference, Brocade CTO Dave Stevens predicted that we won’t see end-user adoption of FCoE in any volume until late 2010 (about the same time that 16Gbps Fibre Channel products are supposed to appear). And that might be optimistic.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Cisco's UCS: Winners and losers
March 24, 2009 – Cisco’s recent announcement of its Unified Computing System (UCS) blade server promises to upset the apple cart in the server market, with a number of potential winners and losers. For InfoStor senior editor Kevin Komiega’s coverage of the announcement, click here
Assuming that Cisco is successful with the UCS (and eventually it will be, although it will probably take a long time), the potential losers are the existing server giants, such as HP and Dell (both of which derive about 10% of their overall revenues from the enterprise server market), IBM and Sun. (I won’t get into the IBM-Sun controversy because I have nothing to add to the rumors.)
The biggest winner in this announcement is VMware, but there could also be some winners on the storage side – most notably Cisco partners EMC and NetApp, but vendors such as Emulex and QLogic also signed on as UCS supporters and could get a nice coattails ride if Cisco succeeds (based largely on their dominant HBA market shares but also because of their expertise in virtual server environments).
Cisco (wisely) decided not to tackle storage on its own, but as the networking giant continues to extend well beyond its traditional roots it seems like it’s only a matter of time before the company jumps squarely into the storage fray – either on its own or via a game-changing acquisition.
Assuming that Cisco is successful with the UCS (and eventually it will be, although it will probably take a long time), the potential losers are the existing server giants, such as HP and Dell (both of which derive about 10% of their overall revenues from the enterprise server market), IBM and Sun. (I won’t get into the IBM-Sun controversy because I have nothing to add to the rumors.)
The biggest winner in this announcement is VMware, but there could also be some winners on the storage side – most notably Cisco partners EMC and NetApp, but vendors such as Emulex and QLogic also signed on as UCS supporters and could get a nice coattails ride if Cisco succeeds (based largely on their dominant HBA market shares but also because of their expertise in virtual server environments).
Cisco (wisely) decided not to tackle storage on its own, but as the networking giant continues to extend well beyond its traditional roots it seems like it’s only a matter of time before the company jumps squarely into the storage fray – either on its own or via a game-changing acquisition.
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