Loss of Innocence.HAL Hal: see Halle, Belgium. hal In Sufism, a state of mind reached from time to time by mystics during their journey toward God. The ahwal (plural of hal) are God-given graces that appear when a soul is purified of its attachments to the material world. : They've got some nerve! MARK: Whoa, Hal! Don't get upset. HAL: You'll be upset, too, when you hear what-- MARK: No names, please! HAL: Okay. I'll just give you a few hints. There's a company--a powerhouse A fourth-generation language from Cognos that was introduced in the late 1970s for midrange computers. It supports both character-oriented, terminal-based applications as well as Windows clients. Applications developed under PowerHouse can be imported into Cognos' Axiant client/server environment. in the storage industry--that just announced a new product line to replace an already successful product that it's been OEMing and branding for years. MARK: Hmmm. No news there. HAL: Wait a second. They phoned me to tell me they were making a "significant storage announcement," even though they admitted that the product wouldn't ship for months. MARK: No news there, either. But I think I know whom you're talking about, now. Is this the same company that scheduled this "earthshaking earth·shak·ing adj. Of great consequence or importance. earth  shak " announcement for the trade press on a Monday morning, at 7:30 a.m.--West Coast time? Is this the same company that gave the whole story to the business press the Friday before--so the news was already in the New York New York, state, United StatesNew York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of Times and The Wall Street Journal that Monday morning--before their "press conference" even started? Is that the company you're talking about? HAL: You've got it. We can complain off-line about their attitude toward journalists like us, who write for their customers instead of just their stockholders. But that's another story. MARK: It makes me wonder if they're worried about us on the West Coast--that we know too much. Maybe they figured that if they kept us troublemakers out of the loop, we wouldn't ask any really probing questions. HAL: Let's drop the guesswork: the company was IBM (International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY, www.ibm.com) The world's largest computer company. IBM's product lines include the S/390 mainframes (zSeries), AS/400 midrange business systems (iSeries), RS/6000 workstations and servers (pSeries), Intel-based servers (xSeries) . MARK: And the product was their Enterprise Storage Server, code named Shark. HAL: "Shark." Yes. They got that right. Of course, they're careful to say "ESS (1) (Electronic Switching System) A large-scale computer from Lucent used to route telephone calls in a telephone company office. The 5ESS is a Class 5 central office switch, and the 4ESS is a Class 4 tandem office switch. " now. MARK: They designed it to replace the RAMAC (Random Access Method of Accounting and Control) The first hard disk computer, introduced by IBM in 1956. All 50 of its 24" platters held a total of five million characters! RAMAC was half computer, half tabulator. Virtual Array. HAL: Right. IBM has been selling the RAMAC since 1994 and has been purchasing it on an OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) The rebranding of equipment and selling it. The term initially referred to the company that made the products (the "original" manufacturer), but eventually became widely used to refer to the organization that buys the products and basis from StorageTek. IBM reportedly has 6,000 customers using RAMACs, about one-fourth of the total market so far, for high-capacity RAID subsystems. But it seems that the market is so attractive that IBM doesn't want to share it any more, especially with an OEM supplier. So they developed their own version. MARK: Hmmmm. There are equally plausible explanations. IBM acknowledged that their OEM contract with StorageTek expires at the end of 2001. So maybe they simply couldn't reach an agreement to extend it. Maybe they can't license the RAMAC's "virtual" storage technology, or some other vital component--and if they have to re-invent that function in house, that's going to take time. So maybe the ESS they announced in August is just a placeholder place·hold·er n. 1. One who holds an office or place, especially: a. One who acts as a deputy or proxy. b. One who holds an appointed office in a government. 2. , until they can come up with something better down the road. HAL: It's possible. MARK: But then again, maybe it's all about money, after all. StorageTek itself has been branding and selling the RAMAC all along. Do you think StorageTek will lose a lot of sales, once IBM stops buying it and starts making the ESS in competition? HAL: I don't think it'll be too hard on StorageTek. They have a healthy installed base of their own and a good sales force. Add the 6,000 IBM RAMAC customers to their own and StorageTek could boost its support and upgrade business too. MARK: If I had a RAMAC and I were happy with it, then when it came time to add another array I'd probably just stay with the RAMAC hardware, rather than switch to ESS. Why would I move to a brand new box that nobody has any experience with? HAL: I'd do the same. StorageTek's going to take advantage of that, I'm sure. On the same Monday that IBM pulled a--sorry. On the same Monday that IBM made its announcement, StorageTek announced an extended warranty The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view of the subject. Please [ improve this article] or discuss the issue on the talk page. and support program for RAMAC, and a commitment to maintain and upgrade the hardware themselves. I wish a lot more vendors had that kind of putting-the-customer-first attitude. MARK: Not like . . . well, you know. It sounds like StorageTek has a pretty sound strategy. HAL: StorageTek might actually become more competitive as a result, providing even better support and maybe even better value too. MARK: The game certainly changes when, suddenly, you're competing with IBM, instead of selling to them. HAL: IBM's description of the ESS didn't make it sound like an especially strong competitor--at least, not initially. The ESS will be less flexible and harder to upgrade than the StorageTek version. It'll have storage capacities and response times similar to what the RAMAC has now. But the first units won't have that "virtual" storage capability that the "RAMAC Virtual Array" is famous for. MARK: I'm sure IBM will eventually offer that. HAL: Ummmm ... eventually. MARK: IBM did say it'd be very aggressive in its financing strategies. They may make it easier for some companies to buy an ESS than to buy StorageTek's system. IBM has also promised that ESS would support systems running NT, or Unix, which the present RAMAC doesn't support. Those are not trivial TRIVIAL. Of small importance. It is a rule in equity that a demurrer will lie to a bill on the ground of the triviality of the matter in dispute, as being below the dignity of the court. 4 Bouv. Inst. n. 4237. See Hopk. R. 112; 4 John. Ch. 183; 4 Paige, 364. factors when you're building a market. HAL: True. Making ESS compatible not only with S/390 mainframes, but also with AS/400 and RS/6000 and other client/server platforms will be key selling points selling point n. An aspect of a product or service that is stressed in advertising or marketing. Noun 1. selling point - a characteristic of something that is up for sale that makes it attractive to potential customers for IBM. They announced support for Fibre Channel, ESCON (Enterprise Systems CONnection) An IBM S/390 fiber-optic channel that transfers 17 Mbytes/sec over distances up to 60 km depending on connection type. ESCON allows peripheral devices to be located across large campuses and metropolitan areas. , and Ultra SCSI The designation for various high-speed SCSI interfaces. The original specification was Ultra SCSI, followed by Ultra2, Ultra3, etc. For details, see SCSI. too. As difficult as IBM can be sometimes, you have to give them credit for knowing how to sell iron. But StorageTek is no slouch slouch v. slouched, slouch·ing, slouch·es v.intr. 1. To sit, stand, or walk with an awkward, drooping, excessively relaxed posture. 2. To droop or hang carelessly, as a hat. v. . They'll undoubtedly provide similar functionality, to remain competitive. MARK: So, Hal, explain to me why this whole episode got you so angry. HAL: I just don't think they played fair. I don't know Don't know (DK, DKed) "Don't know the trade." A Street expression used whenever one party lacks knowledge of a trade or receives conflicting instructions from the other party. what they told StorageTek, or when they told them, but they certainly didn't tell their latest customers--the ones who acquired RAMAC over the past few months or so. Of course, the ESS will be considerably less desirable without the RAMAC's virtual storage function. Who knows when IBM will be able to match that? Go with ESS and you'll be in deep water, swimming with the Shark. MARK: Hold on, Hal. I think our distaste for IBM's press-relations gaffe may have made us knock IBM--the storage company--a bit harder than it deserves in this case. I'm sure that ESS will meet the needs of many customers, right out of the box. If you agree, drop me a note at mark_brownstein@wwpi.com. HAL: I agree that, despite what IBM did, its customers will be okay. It certainly shouldn't have to worry about--or be responsible for--what happens to StorageTek after the OEM contract runs out. But I do think that IBM is firing a warning-shot across StorageTek's bow with ESS and that it could have found a way to build on their shared technology, instead of undercutting its former ally. Let me know if you agree with me. I'm at halglatzer@sprintmail.com. |
|
||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion