Network Computing is part of the Informa Tech Division of Informa PLC

This site is operated by a business or businesses owned by Informa PLC and all copyright resides with them. Informa PLC's registered office is 5 Howick Place, London SW1P 1WG. Registered in England and Wales. Number 8860726.

Ken Koch, President and CEO, Inrange: Page 5 of 11

    • Byte and Switch: With the entry of Cisco Systems Inc. [Nasdaq: CSCO] into the Fibre Channel market, Inrange is facing three strong competitors in Brocade, Cisco, and McData Corp. [Nasdaq: MCDTA]. Isn't Inrange in danger of dropping off a prospective customer's short list?

      Koch: Well, the entrance of Cisco into the marketplace – I'm sure you've heard the spiel – their platform roadmap is what we've already delivered with our FC/9000 director. Their entrance into the market does a couple of things: It validates Fibre Channel and validates that there's a need to be able to support multiple protocols, which plays to our strength, unlike Brocade, which has been Fibre Channel from the beginning. I haven't seen the Cisco box. But today, we're one of only two companies that make a director. Brocade has yet to deliver a director to the market. The SilkWorm 12000 isn't hot-swappable; it has a single point of failure – it's not a director.

      Clearly we have achieved a significant footprint in the director space and in the Ficon [an IBM mainframe protocol for sending data over Fibre Channel] space, where we're one of only two vendors [along with McData]. Will Cisco execute? Time will tell. We've been delivering what enterprises need for the last 30 years. Customers like the fact that our FC/9000 is 256 ports and it's scaleable, and they like the TCO [total cost of ownership] benefits we provide them. I don't think those attributes are going to go away.

      Byte and Switch: You're saying McData is your closest competitor today. How do you beat them?

      Koch: The strategy to beat them is to build on our diverse base. At the end of the day, we own accounts and they don't – they've always been an OEM model. We also have a differentiated product portfolio. There are all these problems associated with networking SANs. We have the ability to differentiate ourselves with things like DWDM and channel extensions to address those specific customer requirements. In that respect, we're a lot closer to the market than McData. People say, "Your problem is you're technologically ahead but you're a best-kept secret. You need to market."