The biggest guns in storage software have teamed up to launch a pre-emptive attack against the IBM Corp-led Aperi open source consortium.

A grouping of Hewlett-Packard CO, EMC Corp, Hitachi Ltd, Symantec Corp, and Sun Microsystems Inc issued a joint promise to develop public shared code for storage applications that would rival the code that Aperi has promised to develop, and is also to be based on the SMI-S standard.

While this new grouping considerably outguns Aperi in terms of market influence, unlike Aperi it has not guaranteed that its code will be open source.

The move has come in advance of what sources have said will be a major announcement from Aperi next week. It has also coincided with an admission from the Storage Networking Industry Association that it is preparing to embrace some form of common code development.

The group-of-five described Aperi as a proprietary effort comprising only IBM’s OEM suppliers and partners. Other than IBM, the only Aperi member that is a major storage supplier is Network Appliance Inc. Sun was previously an Aperi member, but announced its defection only two days ago.

Although Aperi has consistently insisted that any Aperi code will be based on the emerging SMI-S standard, the consortium was created outside of SNIA, which created the SMI-S specification.

From a PR perspective, this is Aperi’s biggest weakness, even though Aperi yesterday earned the endorsement of SNIA.

Aperi is made up of SNIA members. We’ve been having discussions with them for several months. They’re committed to SMI-S, and we’re committed to helping them, said SNIA chair Wayne Adams.

Yesterday’s group-of-five announcement included a commitment to work within SNIA, and said the group will work together to ensure that the Storage Networking Industry Association’s SMI-S specification becomes a common widely used industry standard.

But the group has not yet formed any new working groups or initiatives with SNIA. Adams admitted that it is not clear what new activity the group plans, beyond it pledge to seek to give storage suppliers and customers a common standards-built pluggable platform for storage management applications, the first installment of which will be delivered before year-end.

The SNIA chair asked: You’re already members, you’re already paying your dues, and you’re already contributing to the SMI-S specification. What are you telling SNIA?

Adams did however stress that the members of the group-of-five have all already made significant contributions to the SMI-S program. And when they’ve made commitments in the past, they’ve delivered on them, he said. The group briefed SNIA on its planned announcement only this week, Adams said.

The group’s announcement also referred to an intention to enhance SMI-S with web technologies. But on this and other aspects, SMI-S was already heading this way, a SNIA spokesman said.

When asked if the coming platform code will be open source, a spokesperson for HP said: That is an option, and it will depend on what the market constituents — end user customers, ISVs, IHVs – want.

SNIA has been working on modifications to its articles of incorporation that will change this situation. We have to look at collaborative styles of development, Adams said. This is something we were hoping to disclose at the end of the summer.

Today we do software typically in a gated community style – you need to be a member to contribute to the code, or consume it, said Adams.