Brocade Consolidates McData Acquisition
Brocade Consolidates McData Acquisition
February 2, 2007: In a busy week for Brocade, the storage networking giant finalised its acquisition of McData, announced a new product roadmap and slashed a workforce.
It’s a done deal. This week Brocade officially acquired its rival, fellow storage networking provider McData. But now that the almost US$1 billion exchange is completed, it’s the strategy going forward that customers really want to hear about.
The aim of the new product roadmap appears to be heavily centred around interoperability. Speaking via a conference call, Deb Dutta managing director for brocade Asia Pacific and Japan, says Brocade will aim to ensure seamless interoperability between their now merged products and seek to where possible, minimise customer disruption.
It’s a promise of interoperability that Brocade aims to achieve by offering not only the basic connectivity, but non-disruptive upgrades and interoperability enhancements as well as support for all features of the solution base. The converged platform that will incorporate SAN platforms, management software, switches as well as extension and routing products. Brocade will offer support to both lines of products with the future ambition of ultimately combining the best aspects of the merger into integrated products by 2008.
According to Dutta, the finalised acquisition marks an ‘exciting’ time. “We’ve completed the acquisition, launched a whole new branding which presents the company in a new light,” he says.
Dutta admits to an element of customer concern as to what the product portfolio will look like, but says the forward mantra is ultimately about ‘one team, one mission.’
The acquisition and product roadmap looks set to bring along a number of job cuts as resources are consolidated. While Dutta admits there is ‘a lot of talent in both companies,’ the McData workforce has already been extensively cut in the United States with future redundancies expected.
Brocade says their corporate goals have not changed, but rather their new portfolio and plan is better positioned to deliver on their vision. In delivering their new roadmap, Brocade says they consulted with customers and partners to understand their requirements. “While we were waiting for government clearance (of the acquisition) there was a lot of backend work going on,” says Dutta.
To consolidate its makeover on the marketing side, Brocade has announced new brandings through a new company logo and website. It’s a move that has the vendor seeking acknowledgement for it’s data services rather then its SAN abilities. “The company is about data,” he says. “Our primary goal is to be the provider of technologies that enable organisations to connect that data.”
More information is expected to be released over the next 30 days. Brocade has promised a ‘communications blitz’ as well as a 12 city Brocade conference series across the Asia Pacific.