Dell acquires 3PAR
Dell is still hungry and on an acquisition trail. Fresh from its acquisition of data optimization leader, Ocarina Networks, it has went on earlier this week to acquire 3PAR.
Earlier this year, Dell also acquired Exanet. With that of EqualLogic in 2008, Dell is slowly becoming a formidable player in the storage arena. Of course, the writing's on the wall for the successful partnership of Dell and EMC. It won't be long that both companies have to say bye-bye to each other.
But let's look at Dell at this moment. iSCSI space is covered by EqualLogic and the mid-range Fibre Channel and iSCSI with the current EMC/Dell partnership. It has the NAS space at the entry level with the Windows Storage Server and coming up will be the Exanet piece. It is likely that the Exanet will become a NAS gateway to the EqualLogic and probably the 3PAR products as well. Ocarina Network's technology, the ECOsystem, will likely to find its way into Dell's both SAN and NAS product while continue to serve OEM partners like Isilon and BlueArc.
The whole storage arsenal that Dell has acquired looks formidable indeed. But the real test is how well all these technologies gel in the coming 1-2 years. It is not easy because as we have seen in the past, technology acquisition rarely work well. Sometimes, it's the clash of cultures. Sometimes, getting them to develop as one piece is technically challenging. Most of the time, it boils down to how well the whole thing is executed.
I have seen two sides of the coin. One classic example was NetApp ONTAP GX, which presumably the best of both ONTAP and SpinOS (from its acquisition of Spinnaker in 2003). It has taken almost 8 years to converge into something promising and the final piece is ONTAP 8.1. That is slated to be due in Q2 of 2011. In the years between, NetApp lost the window of opportunity to clustered NAS systems like Isilon and BlueArc.
On the other hand, I was pleasantly surprised how seamless and easy Data Domain's integration well within EMC. I would have thought that with the straight-laced culture of EMC would stifle the integration work with Data Domain. But apparently it didn't and in fact, Data Domain thrived. It continues to deliver value and brings great returns to EMC.
Dell has a challenge in its hands. Every one of the 4 technologies I mentioned - EqualLogic, 3PAR, Ocarina Networks and Exanet - are so different, at least from the outside. I certainly would like to see a stronger Dell emerging from this evolution but I am skeptical. Let's visit this again in 6 months time.
Till then, Dell is jumping into the storage arena with its guns blazing. Good Luck!
