In a note to investors, Goldman Sachs & Co. analyst Laura Conigliaro says the EMC/Microsoft partnership is "tailor-made for Dell distribution."
"We view EMC's deal with Microsoft as another opportunity for EMC to access untapped demand," Conigliaro writes.
Previously, EMC's lowest-end offering in the NAS space was the Celerra NS600, which starts at $167,000 for a 1-TByte system with built-in high-availability features (see EMC Darts Into Midtier NA$).
Why didn't EMC try to bring the Celerra operating system downmarket? Because, Hollis explains, customers weren't interested in such an offering: "Once we went down below [the $135,000 price point] it was clear what customers wanted -- they didn't want 'Microsoft compatibility,' they wanted Microsoft, the real thing... So rather than spend our efforts bringing Celerra downmarket, we're spending our time taking Windows NAS upmarket."
By using Microsoft's operating system for its midtier NAS systems, EMC will again need to maintain two parallel NAS lines. EMC will keep its higher-end Celerra product family, which are NAS gateways that sit in front of its Symmetrix and Clariion storage arrays. Microsoft and EMC did announce, however, that they will work together to ensure "compatibility" between Windows and the Celerra NAS family.
By combining resources and expertise, the AI-Enabled ICT Workforce Consortium will offer a blueprint for how industries can adapt to an AI-dominated future.
IT leaders should heed the guidance of cybersecurity insurance providers who think businesses should prioritize security education, incident preparedness, regular internal audits, and ongoing vulnerability scanning and patching.
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