EMC taps Dell SMB knowledge with entry level SAN

By Stuart Finlayson in Singapore

Enterprise storage vendor EMC has utilised the market penetration of its partner Dell in the SMB space with the introduction of a SAN specifically targeted at small organisations and workgroups.

Announcing the introduction of the Dell/EMC AX 100, Tony Leung managing director, marketing, EMC Asia-Pacific/Japan said Dell's understanding of the requirements of the SMB market was a key factor in the introduction of the new system.

"We are very strong in the enterprise space, but in order to grow at the rate we are aiming for, we really need to have a much stronger presence in the commercial and small business sectors, and those are areas where Dell comes into its own.

"This product is attractive to the SMB market as it meets the budget needs of even the most cost-conscious customers, manages complexity through its ease of installation and maintenance, which is essential for smaller companies who may not have a dedicated IT manager on site at all times. It certainly present attractive new networked storage options for customers."

Bruce Kornfeld, director of worldwide marketing for Dell's enterprise product group, said the arrival of the AX100 was the culmination of an extensive consultation process with the intended market.

"We found from our SMB customers that if we were to take cost out of the equation and reduce complexity, they would gladly implement SAN's.

"With the low-cost SAN market (sub $50k) expected to comprise $4bn of an $11bn (all figures US dollars) networked storage market by 2006, it is incredibly important that we have a product that is easy to install, run and maintain, and is highly scalable."

Leung added that while Dell has a number of partnerships with leading hardware and software vendors, EMC is the only vendor that co-brands storage products with Dell.

"This helps both companies enormously in terms of credibility and compatibility and really rounds out our offerings."

Roger Cox, research vice president at analyst group Gartner, agrees that a substantial opportunity exists for both vendors in this space.

"The small medium enterprise market and distributed elements of large enterprises represent a very large untapped opportunity for the deployment of low-cost and easy to install SAN-based disk storage infrastructures. Vendors that focus development efforts on reducing acquisition cost and developing simple to use management software tools for their SAN-based disk storage solutions will find a highly receptive user community."

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