Engenio's Sun Rises

Engenio Information Technologies Inc., clinging to the hope of going public before long, today picked up another OEM customer when it sealed a deal with Sun Microsystems Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW).

Sun has agreed to resell an Engenio system as the StorEdge 6130 midrange SAN system. Jim Comstock, Suns senior director of storage strategy, calls the 6130 the “baby brother” to the StoreEdge 6920 that began shipping last month as part of Sun's effort to beef up its disappointing midrange SAN line (see Sun Storage Slumps).

The new Sun system is based on the same Engenio 2882 controller that IBM Corp. (NYSE: IBM) sells as the DS4300, and Storage Technology Corp. (StorageTek) (NYSE: STK) and Silicon Graphics Inc. (SGI) (NYSE: SGI) also sell. But Sun will uses its own Enterprise Storage Manager (ESM) software instead of Engenio’s SANtricity software, which IBM sells with its product. ESM will provide capabilities such as snapshot and volume copy on the system, Sun says, which supports Fibre Channel and SATA drives.

“This extends our data services reach into the lower end of the midrange,” Comstock says.

Sun resells Hitachi Data Systems (HDS)

high-end SAN systems and low-end systems from Dot Hill Systems Corp. (Nasdaq: HILL), but it has struggled while manufacturing its own midrange storage (see Sun Expands Storage, Hitachi Struts Mr. Universal, Sun Dogs Dot Hill, and Sun Shines on Dot Hill). The new StorEdge 6920 is built on technology Sun acquired from Pirus in 2002, and the new 6130 system can run behind the 6920 to provide SATA (see Sun Sings New Storage Song). The 6130 will replace the StorEdge 6120.Engenio, formerly LSI Logic Storage, had an OEM relationship with Sun from 1997 to 2000, but that relationship cooled after Sun bought Maxstrat in 1999 and developed its own T3 midrange systems.

“The past few years, we have not been engaged with Sun,” Engenio senior director of corporate marketing Mitch Seigle says.

Engenio has been engaged with plans to go public the past year as an attempt to spin off from its parent, LSI Logic Corp. (NYSE: LSI). (See LSI Logic Spins Off Storage Systems and LSI Spells Engenio.) It postponed an IPO scheduled for July 29 because preliminary bids were well below its target range (see Engenio Gets Cold Feet). So any new business is significant for Engenio.

“It’s been an interesting year with Wall Street,” Seigle says. “Market conditions have been challenging, to say the least. But I think we have a good model, and we’ve created a good identity for ourselves.”

Industry people have wondered about Engenio’s future since IBM launched its own midrange SAN, the DS6000, earlier this month (see IBM's New Shark Tale). Although IBM executives say they’re happy with sales of Engenio systems and plan to refresh the line next year, there has been a lot of speculation the DS6000 would cut into sales of the Engenio systems that IBM sells (see IBM Still Loves Engenio).IBM and Engenio say the systems have different customer bases: Engenio’s systems begin at under $10,000 and are aimed at the low end of the midrange, while the DS6000 starts at $97,000 and plays at the top of the midrange.

“It’s too early to say the potential effect on our business,” Seigle says. “The market will decide.”

— Dave Raffo, Senior Editor, Byte and Switch