The first thing that came to my mind when I heard the news about Brocade purchasing McData is an old Storage Insider article.
Before I go further, here is the press release
The article I remembered was co-authored with my good pal Dan Neel and titled :"A tale of two vendors".
The way things were in that now remote March 2002, nobody would have predicted today's news. Obviously the two companies have changed.
That Brocade cooperation with Cisco mentioned in the article soon was to become sour. With that behind them, Brocade and McData moved on to pursue their own acquisitions, remaining however surprisingly similar in their intent to expand beyond the switch straight-jacket each one of them was wearing.
In fact, even today that analogy with the identically shaped North-going Zax and South-going Zax is still appropriate. (Nice going, Dan).
The difference is that today instead of a stand-still that similarity of body and mind between the two vendors becomes a reason to join forces.
Is this the happy ending of that tale? Perhaps, will see. Ask me again four years from now.
Posted by Mario Apicella on August 8, 2006 09:28 AM
