In a rollercoaster week for the storage industry, Broadcom have made an unsolicited offer to acquire Emulex at $9.25 a share. Read the press release here. Now this, the VMware announcement, Cisco’s UCS and EMC’s new V-Max array got me thinking. Is there any future for independent HBA vendors?
It goes like this; fibre channel is allegedly on the way out. The future is iSCSI, NAS and FCoE, all using IP/Ethernet. Hardware is getting more and more integrated into server chasses. In addition, Gigabit Ethernet is already cheap as chips and 10 Gig Ethernet is getting cheaper by the day.
If all that is true then $1200 HBA or CNA cards are a thing of the past as server vendors will simply integrate the technology directly into the hardware. Perhaps the only future business model is for HBA vendors of today is to licence their ASIC technology for embedded devices and maybe that’s where Broadcom see their opportunity.
I wonder if Qlogic are being stalked. Thoughts anybody?
3 Responses to Enterprise Computing: Is It The End for Independent HBA Vendors?
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ESP (Embedded Storage Products) business unit of Emulex was the growth engine of the company…I’m sure that plays a large part in the opportunity Broadcom sees there.
I was surprised to see the link you posted.
After going thru the Emulex’s website, i got this link. Please go thru it
http://cmw3wbp1.emulex.com/blog/?m=200904
Chris
Yes, and now Emulex have kicked back the Broadcom offer. I wonder if anyone else will step in?
Chris