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EMC, Compaq Swap APIs: Page 2 of 4

“We are not giving up all our APIs,” said Don Swatik, VP of alliances at EMC. “Compaq will not be able to control our Time Finder or SRDF [Symmetrix Remote Data Facility] remote mirroring capabilities."

“That’s hardly a surprise,” according to Harsh Kumar, analyst at Morgan Keegan & Company Inc.. “SRDF is the lifeline of the Symmetrix -- they are never going to give it up."

EMC’s SRDF software enables users to mirror data from one Symmetrix storage array to another in a remote location. It can only be purchased with a Symmetrix array, which costs anywhere from $100,000 to millions of dollars. SRDF costs from $60,000 to $150,000. EMC claims to have shipped more than 2,000 SRDF licenses and as many as 50,000 Symmetrix units.

”Doing remote mirroring in a heterogeneous environment is very tough,” said Swatik. He did not say when or if EMC will ever provide this functionality, or if it would be open to third parties via APIs.

The agreement with Compaq applies only to the Symmetrix line of EMC products for now, but officials say the APIs for EMC’s Clariion line are also likely to be opened up in the future -- although Swatik gives no roadmap. It's also likely that Compaq will eventually open up its VersaStor storage appliance, which the company's been talking about for two years but has yet to ship.