Don't Get Your Hopes Up

The week started with a bang, as Brocade followed a spate of 4-Gbit/s unveilings by sealing the purchase of file virtualization vendor NuView; EMC nailed down the purchase of security software maker Authentica; and backup player Atempo made its OEM deal with CDP startup Storactive a permanent arrangement.

Did we mention that EMC also released a new NAS management package based on the 2004 acquisition of Smarts technology? (See Brocade Acquires NuView, Atempo Swallows Storactive, EMC Acquires Authentica, and Brocade Bulks Up 4-Gig Gear.)

Great news, on the face of it. When a big, important storage vendor buys a hot startup, it encourages visions of new products with all sorts of fun combinations that make the lives of storage networkers everywhere easier.

In truth, mergers may have more to do with the hard realities of the balance sheet than with ambitions to simplify customers' lives. Simply put, startups in key areas can add new channels of revenue, ones that feed a core services market without demanding more investment in commodity hardware.

Case in point: EMC took more than a year to issue its first product from the December 2004 purchase of Systems Management Arts Inc. (Smarts). While the result EMC's new IP Availability Manager for NAS – is intriguing, it falls far short of the grand management scheme EMC has touted. It isn't even integrated with EMC's own SAN management package. That's supposed to happen "later this year."And really, why should EMC bother? As long as there's money coming in from a source other than hardware, integration can take place in long, drawn-out "solutions" offerings, with plenty of hands-on service.

Meanwhile, vendors like EMC can pass themselves off as much more than commodity storage players. They are purveyors of data management, maybe, or bringers of overarching access. The bigger the vendor, the grander its self-proclaimed mission.

In reality, users are left with the same product selection from fewer suppliers.

Which brings us to another, possibly more heartening side, of the story. As big vendors buy, smaller ones follow suit. And when firms like Atempo go shopping, it's often with real integration in mind – for better or worse.

If backup player Atempo can act fast enough to shoulder aside its own rivals, it has a chance to create something really threatening to big vendors with its acquisition of CDP player Storactive: namely, products that offer more functionality and aren't tied to a specific platform.If Atempo can't get its act together quickly enough, well, then, it's added a bit of seasoning to itself that could make it more appetizing in the storage food chain.

Let's hope customers don't go hungry.

— Mary Jander, Site Editor, Byte and Switch

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