Dell-Symantec: No Big Deal

5:15 PM -- At first blush, Dells disclosure today that it will OEM Symantec’s Backup Exec 10d Continuous Protection Serve Suite probably raised some eyebrows. (See Dell Offers Symantec's CDP.)

Symantec is the storage software archrival of Dell’s close storage partner EMC, which also recently jumped into continuous data protection (CDP). (See EMC Pulls Forward With Backup.) And Dell’s server partner, Microsoft, is in a blood feud with Symantec with its Data Protection Manager, a similar product to Continuous Protection Server. (See Microsoft and Symantec Cut SMB Tape.)

But there’s less to this story than it appears. Rather than siding with Symantec against EMC or Microsoft, Dell is going out of its way not to side with anybody when it comes to back up products for Windows.

Dell already sells Data Protection Manager and EMC’s Legato RepliStor that competes with Backup Exec. (See EMC Tiptoes Toward CDP.) And its Symantec relationships isn’t new; Dell sold previous versions of Backup Exec before Symantec upgraded it in September.

By the way, Dell also sells competitive software from CommVault and Yosemite. (See CommVault Locks In Dell and Yosemite Does Disk). Just for backup.— Dave Raffo, Senior Editor, Byte and Switch