EMC to Resell Decru, NeoScale

EMC Corp. (NYSE: EMC) has added Fibre Channel and NAS storage encryption gear from Decru Inc. and NeoScale Systems Inc. to its premiere EMC Select partner list.

Big deal? You bet. Membership in EMC Select is practically a guarantee of bigger sales for any vendor. It means EMC will actively peddle specific wares to its own customers to flesh out implementations, and support those products as "solution completers."

"EMC Select is definitely not just another reseller program. It is a big deal to the vendors who get chosen," says one industry analyst, who asked not to be named.

To ride EMC's coattails to big enterprise accounts, a vendor needs to fill a gap in EMC's product line, test positive for interoperability with EMC wares, and not present any business problems for EMC. "It's a convenient way for us to acquire products," says Sean Kinney, general manager of the program.

But hang on: Decru is now owned by Network Appliance Inc. (Nasdaq: NTAP), whose rivalry with EMC is on public display (see NetApp Quibbles With IDC). Does that present a business problem for either company?"Not really," Kinney says. "If our customers want this kind of solution, why shouldn't we provide a convenient way for them to get it?"

Why indeed? There's nothing exclusive about EMC Select. And NetApp has adopted a "hands off" policy on Decru's products and customer base.

For NeoScale, being picked for the program could help even the score a bit, after NetApp's CEO Dan Warmenhoven effectively trashed Decru's competition in his remarks on buying Decru (see NetApp Buys Decru).

The market for storage security appliances is a tiny one, with just a handful of key players. Besides Decru and NeoScale, there's also Kasten Chase Applied Research Ltd. and Vormetric Inc.

EMC will resell Decru's FC-series and E-series encryption appliances, which work with Fibre Channel and NAS equipment, respectively. EMC will start making the gear available in August. For NeoScale, EMC is immediately reselling the vendor's CryptoStor FC appliances, which work with Fibre Channel disk arrays.One thing: EMC has cherry-picked only FC and NAS encryptors. Though Decru has iSCSI encryptors, EMC isn't using them. "We want to test everything out," says Kinney. "This is what our customers are asking for now. We are open to things in the future."

Mary Jander, Site Editor, Byte and Switch