Exclusive: Intel to Enter Consumer, SMB Storage Market

We all know how hot the data storage business is, and how many companies want “in” on the brisk sales action. But who’da thunk this: Intel — surprise, surprise — will soon be coming out next month with its first storage product offering for the consumer and small business market.

Okay, so Intel does makes servers, but they are hardly its expertise and/or anywhere near its first line of business. The Santa Clara, Calif.-based chipmaker has been much more successful at just that: developing and manufacturing world-class microprocessors that power these servers — as well as just about every other IT instrument on the planet.

Anyway, Intel will be announcing that it is branching out and jumping into the storage-war trenches to fight against EMC, NetApp, HP, IBM, Sun, Quantum, Data Domain — all the usual storage suspects, plus all those startups that wannabe big players. (I feel The Station getting a little crowded here; somebody open a window.)

No other details are available at this time; there’s mystery about. Naturally, The Station will be the place to be when the news happens, so stay tuned.

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Random Items: Eastwick Communications’ Halloween party at the Triton Museum in Santa Clara was quite a bit of fun last night, with former television reporter-turned-super-PR person Becky Quinlan doing video interviews with folks, a fortune-teller opening people’s eyes at another table, and a bluesy band covering Brian Setzer songs in the entrance lobby. In one room, a portrait artist was doing his thing, and in another, featured museum artist Bob Nugent was signing copies of his book and giving them away as gifts. Lots of black and orange everywhere — but I didn’t see even one San Francisco Giant. The Giants and the Baltimore Orioles are the only MLB teams that use that color combination.

Eastwick is a PR and media relations agency that represents some noteworthy IT companies, such as Fujitsu Computer Systems, Seagate Technology, Wyse Technology, OSISoft and several others.

It was good to see folks like Mike Hall of Seagate and Karen Richardson of Fujitsu outside of regular business hours. Other media types included Harry McCracken of PC World, Robert (“Don’t call me Bob!”) Mullins of Network World, Don Clark of the Wall Street Journal, and a couple of other folks The Station sees around town at press conferences but hasn’t been introduced to yet.

Thank you, Kimberly Stoddard, Rebecca Mettler and Marissa Root for the invite and the hospitality! I had the distinct feeling that lots of good networking was going on there. Great food and desserts, too!

Speaking of great food, here’s a random suggestion: Check out this apple fritter recipe and let me know what you think of them. (Yes, I know this is not health food.)

At The Station, we’re storage news and a lot more. Have a great weekend, all …