No wonder Brocade Communications Corp wouldn’t sell its soul to Sun Microsystems Inc. It has picked up IBM Corp which will OEM Brocade’s SilkWorm Fibre Channel for use in its storage area network strategy. Sun apparently found Ancor Communications more malleable. Meta Group observes that it’s a critical piece of technology for IBM as it is standardizing on a single switch across all of its server/storage lines by the middle of next year. With Compaq, Dell, Sequent and StorageTek already on board, Brocade is clearly in the Fibre switch driving seat and the IBM deal will put more pressure on other vendors to secure customers. Meta observes that technically, while some differences among Fibre Channel switches exist, actual purchasing criteria have less to do with the switch technology and more to do with certified system configurations.
