Storage Digest: NAS Market Competes on Low Price

Here are a variety of storage-related stories from around the Web. The subjects include storage hardware and software, as well as financial news and industry trends related to the storage market.

Hardware

Apple Moves to Support DVD+RW Format

After years of backing only one format in the recordable DVD format war, Apple Computer Inc. is adding limited support of a rival format into its operating system. Apple, a longtime supporter of the DVD-R format, confirmed last week that it is adding support for DVD+R and DVD+RW into the Macintosh operating system with Panther, the new version of Mac OS X that ships late next week. Apple is only adding support for backing up data and has not yet added support for the format into its media applications. Apple did not say whether it would add DVD+R support into future versions of its iApps, such as iDVD.

Read the full story on: CNET News.com

Software

Veritas Supports Utility Computing Via SQL Server

Veritas Software Corp. continued its utility computing push last week, extending capabilities from its acquisition of Precise Software Solutions to Microsofts SQL Server environments. Veritas i3 for SQL Server allows an application manager to monitor a transaction in real-time from the end-user through the storage array so they may detect, diagnose and correct application performance problems on the fly. Application performance, which some analysts think may bloom to a $5 billion market by 2006, is an important characteristic of utility computing because applications are managed to predetermined levels of availability and performance.

Read the full story on:InternetNews.com

Storage Business

NAS Market Competes on Low Price

Dells NAS systems have contributed healthy revenues to the companys external storage business. The company has posted the fastest year-to-year revenue growth among disk storage vendors and ranks No. 1 in sales of NAS boxes in the $5,000 to $15,000 price range. Dells third-quarter unit sales of NAS boxes was up 43 percent from the prior quarter, according to Brad Nisbet, senior research analyst with IDC. "Dells business model throughout the company is to be very aggressive with pricing, and NAS is no exception," Nisbet said. Although Dell has said it will remain in the NAS business, other companies have dropped out, including IBM, Maxtor Corp., and Gateway Inc. The competitors that remain, including Hewlett-Packard Co. and Iomega Corp., as well as Snap Appliance Inc. and Network Appliance Inc., all struggle with making money on NAS, said Nisbet. "Theres not a lot of profit built into the NAS device."

Read the full story on: CRM

SanDisk Vows to Appeal Patent Decision

SanDisk Corp. last week said it will appeal a U.S. District Court decision holding that Ritek Corp. did not infringe on SanDisk patents. The suit was over Riteks flash memory cards. "SanDisk believes that the court incorrectly interpreted the claims of the patent and that the company has a strong basis for appeal," Charles Van Orden, SanDisk vice president and general counsel, said in a written statement.

Read the full story on:Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal