By William Fellows
Hitachi Data Systems Ltd says that by next quarter Hewlett- Packard Co will be selling 300% more of the XP256 arrays which are based upon HDS’ 7700E Freedom storage subsystems than it had originally planned to be doing by that time. HP junked its reseller relationship with EMC in favor of an OEM deal with HDS that sees the XP256 go out with the HP label on it.
HDS, which can also resell the XP256 with its software enhancements, expects that the volume of systems sold by HP will easily exceed the number of 7700Es and XP256s it sells itself. Whether the same enhanced XP256 can be made available to third parties isn’t clear. Meantime, it slams rival EMC’s Symmetrix storage as being old and proprietary technology. It says that EMC systems pose single point of failure risks because they do not have the 7700E’s duplexed or mirrored cache. It also says that EMC’s recent move to a C++ microcode base means that its software is inherently unreliable as it takes months if not years to iron out typically buggy C++ programs, work it has long since done with 7700E. HDS believes the future of storage will be characterized by multiple copies of data residing on a network
HDS says HP’s main reason for abandoning EMC was not that it wanted an own-brand device, it was because HP thought EMC’s storage solutions proprietary. EMC was surely having a bad hair day when it ranted about HP’s Pearl Harbor attack on its business last week.
