isham research
Is IBM out of the System/390 DASD market?
StorageTek's preparations to re-enter the mainframe storage market on its own behalf were first noticed at the end of last year. IBM has relatively openly discussed plans for "Shark" - a version of the VSS for System/390 attachment planned for 3Q1999 - but hasn't discussed future versions of the RVA (or "Iceberg").
A number of questions arise. Would a channel-attached VSS be competitive? EMC is gold-plating its Rolls-Royces, Hitachi Data Systems is doing very nicely thank you with its 7700, and Amdahl is rumoured to have installed its 1000th [web item deleted] Spectris. All three have established performance credentials, and [web item deleted] StorageTek is potentially coming up on the outside with Snapshot functionality. At present, IBM is discussing only 'physical' snapshot support in Shark by 3Q1999 - a 'virtual' implementation is seen as some way off.
IBM's 24 March 1999 press release is fascinating: That's right - the above is from an IBM press release - a quote from Jim Vanderslice - an IBM Senior VP! I wonder how many IBM salespeople fighting EMC bids will have to grind their teeth as the EMC sales force lays this ringing endorsement in front of their customer. Otherwise expressed as - "We can't hack integrating this stuff, guys. Go to our competitors." Is this truly IBM policy - or the words of a technology salesman who's out of control? Are a company's "leadership technologies" not its crown jewels?
Remember - it's an IBM press release, not an EMC one. You could be forgiven for thinking it otherwise, since all of the financial information and the disclaimers are EMC's. How did this get past review in IBM?
It all begs a massive question - if IBM can produce such technologies, why can't it package them into products and sell them to customers? You'd think he'd have done something about it by now. He's had six years. Copyright © isham research 2006
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"... EMC, one of the most sophisticated users of advanced disk drive technology."
"IBM has identified services, software and the sale of its leadership technologies as key growth areas ..."
(Unattributed.)"EMC Corporation, a Fortune 500 company based in Hopkinton. MA, is the world's technology and market leader in the rapidly growing market for intelligent enterprise storage systems, software and services."
"We have been way too slow getting new things to the market. We had all this great technology coming out of our labs, but time and again someone else beat us to the marketplace."
Louis V. Gerstner, commenting in the 1993 Annual Report, cited by Computergram on 16 March 1994.