EMC Corp.s latest system, the Clariion CX200, will be equipped and priced as the storage companys most entry-level product yet.
For about $30,000, customers will get 2.2 terabytes of capacity made up of 30 Fibre Channel drives, a 1GB cache, Windows and Linux support, 15 hosts, and limited EMC software options.
Most of the CX200 systems, which were announced last week, will be manufactured by partner Dell Computer Corp. and sold by Dell and other EMC partners beginning early next year. EMC, of Hopkinton, Mass., will make and sell some CX200 systems directly, for specific customers, beginning later this year, officials said.
“Weve worked with Dell to kind of pool our supply chains. Weve trained over 2,000 Dell service and sales reps,” EMC President and CEO Joe Tucci said. Dell, of Round Rock, Texas, will build the systems in the United States, Ireland and Malaysia, President and Chief Operating Officer Kevin Rollins said.
Parts of the CX200s future are unclear. “Its possible that Serial ATA drives will be used in that product in the future, and Im still trying to figure out whether EMCs going to be emphasizing the manufacturer,” said analyst Shebly Seyrafi, of A.G. Edwards & Sons Inc., in St. Louis.
Its also unclear how the EMC-Dell relationship itself will evolve. EMC is “not closing any doors” to expanding Dells manufacturing rights into other EMC products, Tucci said. But Rollins, responding to ongoing merger rumors, said that Dell was “not interested in buying EMC, and I dont think EMCs interested in being sold.”
Dells experience with Intel Corp.s IA-64 chips, eight-way processor systems and modular blade computers are examples of Dell successfully learning to manufacture products that are more complicated than its traditional desktop computers, Russ Holt, vice president and general manager of Dells Enterprise Systems Group, told eWeek.