EMC Makes Good on DMX-3

While wrapping up 2005 financial results today, EMC CEO Joe Tucci previewed his companys first major product rollout of this year: new DMX-3 Symmetrix systems, cheaper Fibre Channel, and Rainfinity file virtualization. (See EMC Reports Earnings .)

While EMC's official product launch is scheduled for Thursday, Tucci gave enough clues today to confirm what industry insiders have been speculating. EMC will make available larger capacity versions of its enterprise DMX-3 systems and low-cost Fibre Channel drives that it promised when the DMX-3 was launched last July. (See EMC Swells Its High End.) Back then, EMC claimed it would have a system early this year with 1,920 disk drives -- twice as many as it supported upon launch.

Last July, EMC also said the DMX-3 would eventually support Fibre Channel drives from Seagate that cost similar to SATA with performance somewhere between SATA and Fibre Channel. These are similar to the drives that Hewlett-Packard calls Fibre Attached Technology Adapted (FATA). (See Mixed Drives in the Mix and HP Ships Fatter FATA Drives.)

On today’s call, Tucci explained that Thursday’s introduction would include “new lower-end members of the DMX family as well as higher-end extensions” and “high-capacity, low-cost Fibre Channel drives.”

According to Tucci, the DMX-3 was a big seller last quarter. It accounted for one-third of Symmetrix sales and helped Symmetrix revenue jump 19 percent over the previous quarter.