According to the New York Times, Sun is getting ready to unleash new Storage products into the Enterprise space. Although NetApp does not think they will be any threat, I have spoken with many customers who are thrilled with the price point and performance of their SUN Thumpers.
According to the Article.
With these difficult lessons behind it, Sun thinks it now has a chance to disrupt a different part of the hardware sector and make life tough on rivals. In November, Sun plans to release new storage hardware and software that takes aim at a part of the storage market dominated by NetApp and EMC. Playing off the same trends that shook its server business — less expensive hardware and software — Sun is looking to undercut the competition and sink their margins.
But NetApp does not see the new products as any problem.
As for NetApp, the main target for Sun, the company sees customers continuing to pay a premium for software that delivers more sophisticated functions than what Sun is discussing. “The larger companies out there will not go with the Sun type of solution,” said Patrick Rogers, a vice president at NetApp.
One of the commenters on the article has this to say....
We moved entirely away from NetApp product, and are running large storage farms on Sun’s Thumper products. We are seeing dramatic performance increases, and significant price reduction.
I am curious why NetApp doesn’t see this as a threat, it surely looks to be exactly that.— Banking Customer
Zerowait has seen our business grow over the last few years because NetApp customers are tired of the high prices for support and maintenance of their equipment. I would think that customers that are used to Sun in their server farms would be willing to take a chance on these new products, especially is they are less expensive than NetApp. Competition works and customers will benefit by lower prices.
With low prices as bait, Sun may have a great fishing trip.
In November, Sun is set to show off new storage gear that has been part of a project code-named FISHworks (FISH stands for Fully Integrated Software and Hardware).
I’ll be watching, to see what they catch.
