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IBM Turns a New NAS Leaf - Again

Posted by byteandswitch.com on August 24, 2004

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IBM Corp. (NYSE: IBM) has revamped its NAS gateway strategy yet again, looking to court small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs).

When Big Blue first announced its NAS 500 Gateway in January, the idea was to compete with enterprise systems from EMC Corp. (NYSE: EMC) and Network Appliance Inc. (Nasdaq: NTAP). (See IBM Swings New NAS Gateway.) Today, though, it introduced a new option for the system: a single-processor, entry-level NAS gateway for SMBs.

The new NAS 500 Gateway is set for general availability Friday, with pricing starting at $30,000 -- compared to $50,000 for two-processor configurations.

The announcement comes as EMC is expected to launch its own NAS gateway next week.

Back in January, when IBM first announced the Gateway 500, it aimed the product at the upper end of the enterprise NAS roster. The move came seven months after the company killed off its low-end Windows-based NAS system (see IBM Kills Runts of NAS Litter).