Dell Computer Corp intimated its next market focus would be storage and good to its word it has signed to build products based upon Data General Corp’s Fibre Channel RAID subsystems (CI No 3,355). It’s good news for DG, as sales to its largest OEM Hewlett-Packard Co have declined and Silicon Graphics Inc has taken its business to DG rival EMC Corp. However there’s unlikely to be much to show on DG’s bottom line as a result of the deal until its 1999 financial year as Dell says it will start shipping disk subsystems in the fourth quarter of 1998, with volume shipments beginning in 1999. Dell’s expected to sell DG- manufactured Clariion FC5000 subsystems and later customize DG’s controller and microcode for its own purposes. Observers say Dell could easily become one of DG’s largest Clariion OEMs. Andy Barraclough, Dell’s server product management for its Preferred Accounts Division said the first new fibre channel product based on the technology is expected in the summer. Dell is already active in the server space and launched three servers last year (CI No 3,313); the PowerEdge 2200, an entry level workgroup server, the PowerEdge 4200, a departmental offering and a high end enterprise server, the PowerEdge 4200. He said the Clariion agreement forms part of a wider and as yet undisclosed storage strategy at Dell. The company will unveil other products in the coming weeks. It looks likely that the first of these offerings will be a workgroup offering of some kind. According to Barraclough, Dell is putting a great deal of effort into ensuring its server and storage interests prove a success. He said: We want the market to realize we are absolutely serious about this. I think some people think we make PCs during the week and servers at the weekend. That is not true. Dell will sell the new products via its direct sales model. The company is not giving any details on its ambitions for the storage business, and said figures will be incorporated into its overall business. Financial and contractual terms of the agreement have not been disclosed. Meantime DG’s storage future is said to include the notion of Storage Area Networks and shared Unix and NT data stores. DG’s Navisphere software, which is due to ship with the FC5000, is aid to enable a workstation user to manage subsystems located anywhere in the world, logically organize and monitor them and notify administrators.
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