InMage Hauls Back Pillar Announcement

InMage pulled its approval of an announcement about a reseller agreement with Pillar -- after the news had gone out. Then, in an odd reversal, the release finally went out anyway, apparently about a longstanding reseller arrangement that has been common knowledge anyway.

InMage representatives sent a statement about a reseller arrangement between the two suppliers to journalists Friday night, saying that it would be officially distributed Feb. 25. But over the weekend, InMage CEO John Ferraro and CTO Rajeev Atluri apparently had second thoughts.

"We still plan to announce a partnership. But, not all aspects of the partnership have been worked out and they felt more comfortable delaying the announcement for now," stated InMage director of marketing Tom Urban, in an email to Byte and Switch.

At least two sources say it's common knowledge that Pillar already has a relationship with InMage -- making this announcement confusing.

"Pillar has had to rely on external replication," said StorageIO analyst Greg Schulz. "They've had a relationship with InMage for a long time."InMage's ability to support both CDP and replication has helped its position in the market to date, and it looks as if Pillar was prescient in adding InMage to its partnership list, given the growing importance of this feature mix to customers. On the other hand, today's announcement of RecoverPoint enhancements from EMC highlights Pillar's lack of its own solution.

"They are one of the last of the storage vendors to not have built-in, controller-based replication, particularly in the mid-market where they position themselves," says Schulz.

For its part, InMage stated during its funding round in July 2007 that Pillar is one of several "strategic partners," which also include HP, IBM, Quantum, RedHat, Sungard, Symantec, VMware, and Xiotech, as well as integrators iStreet Solutions and Solidcore. That list got extra scrutiny when InMage was funded, since one of the lead investors was an unidentified strategic corporate partner.

Neither InMage nor Pillar seems able or willing to clarify the exact nature of the companies' relationship. A Pillar spokesman said Pillar resells the InMage DR-Scout product but does not OEM it. InMage spokespeople did not respond to the OEM question at press time. Have a comment on this story? Please click "Discuss" below. If you'd like to contact Byte and Switch's editors directly, send us a message.