The deal concerns CNT’s technically strong Ultranet Multiservice Director, which analysts says trumps rival products because of its potential size, integration of wide-area SAN gateways or channel extenders, hardware-based zoning, and smart-switching architecture.
But IBM said that regardless of those virtues, the change from a reselling arrangement to an OEM arrangement for the box is part of a broader switch to OEM’ing rather than reselling. The company has already made the same move for McData Corp’s SAN gear.
Reselling rather than OEM’ing involves complex service and support arrangements that have been limiting IBM’s SAN sales in Europe where CNT via its acquisition of Inrange Technologies Corp has a strong presence, and where many countries are ramping up storage technology spending, IBM said.
