One source who did not want to be named said, There were lay-offs across the board in storage, but some areas like disk product development were spared, so there’s a suspicion that these bits are going to be sold off. While Sun confirmed the overall layoffs, which were made late last month, it would not say where it had made the cuts.
One product that Sun is very likely to want to sell is its 6920 virtualization system. Originally developed by start-up Pirus Networks Inc, the 6920 overlaps with the mid-range and diskless versions of the TagmaStore virtualization system that Sun OEMs from Hitachi Ltd.
Sun might also be considering the sale of the ATA-powered Flexline arrays, which were originally developed by StorageTek, and might overlap with the Thumper ATA arrays that Sun launched this summer. Another disk product that is certainly surplus is the IntelliStore CAS device developed by StorageTek, which has been eclipsed by Sun’s HoneyCombe CAS box.
Sun bought Pirus in 2002, and could face a hard time getting a good price for the 6920, which comprises router front-ending conventional disk arrays. So far, smart switch-based storage virtualization has not seen massive market take-up. Very recently, the former Pirus CEO Rich Napolitano finally left Sun, to join EMC Corp.
Last week, rumors circulated widely that Sun is attempting to negotiate the sale of some part of its storage business to Hitachi Ltd, and will be making an announcement to this effect at its Forum conference for StorageTek employees. One possibility is that Hitachi is interested in the Flexline arrays or the IntelliStore, both of which are types of product not currently sold by Hitachi.
The merger with StorageTek has yet to deliver the benefits that Sun previously forecast. But a sale of the complete StorageTek business to Hitachi is extremely unlikely, given that Sun made the acquisition only last year. One possibility is that Sun wants to sell off the tape part of StorageTek, and keep the most valuable part of its acquisition, which was StorageTek’s sales and services organization.
Earlier this year, Sun announced that it would cull around 5,000 workers from its payroll of 37,500 workers. Since May, it has laid off 464 workers from its Broomfield, Colorado and Louisville, Colorado. Louisville was the site of the former StorageTek offices.
