News

posted on 15 February 2008 06:13

NetApp is re-organising its StoreVault SME and channel-only products by absorbing them into its mainstream product line.

This is reported by Byte & Switch. It's not because the effort has been unsuccessful; in the most recent earnings call, President and COO Tom Georgens said: "Lower end systems accounted for almost half of our units shipped." The reason seems to be that NetApp needs lower-priced entry systems for its mid-range and enterprise accounts.

The possibility is that enterprises were buying StoreVault products because of their lower prices than existing mainstream NetApp entry-level systems.

NetApp's chief marketing officer, Kay Kidd, is quoted as saying that there is a ROBO (remote office; branch office) opportunity for the StoreVault products. It seems likely that that StoreVault products may be rebranded as part of NetApp's FAS product line. The current low-end FAS product is the FAS 200.

NetApp describes it thus: "FAS200 series systems are economical, enterprise-class storage solutions. ... This series is ideally suited for large, distributed enterprises with remote office and branch office storage requirements. The FAS250 provides an affordable, entry-level solution for small and medium-size businesses requiring NAS, IP SAN (iSCSI), or unified storage networks. The FAS270 is a midrange system that offers an entry-level Fibre Channel SAN solution while providing strong price/performance for NAS and iSCSI infrastructures."

The StoreVault S300 and S500 are SATA-based  4 and 6TB systems respectively with prices starting around $3,000 and $6,000 respectively.

It looks as if the FAS200s could get smaller siblings or, perhaps, get replaced.