Here’s a thought: What if IBM made a bold move and decided to drop all storage OEM products and take a market position centered on XIV?
After shockers in 2001 when IBM ditched the disk manufacturing business, sold the kit and kaboodle to HDS, IBM ventured into a variety of OEM relationships with LSI, NetApp, and HDS (disk) to recompile the mid-range, NAS, and tier-1 storage line-up respectively. Things like SVC (San Volume Controller) are still in the mix and strategic, but only with the acquisition of XIV did IBM really change-up the game and their market position.
Here’s why IBM should consider an XIV centric strategy:
- There is a massive industry shift to reduce tier 1 storage dependency
- Commodity storage is the center of the market, and tier 2 storage is dominating the landscape (block, file, backup targets, etc.)
- Leverage NTAP gateways and deduplication feature-set for file data
- Position as a T1 alternative and T2 mainstay, versus being all things to all consumers
I have to agree with a lot of Moshe’s statements, that the storage industry hasn’t exactly cracked the code of commodity storage in the last 10 years.
