Unisys takes on 4Front in storage market foray

Former PC and server manufacturer Unisys is entering the open storage market, signing up 4Front Group as its first UK distributor, and launching its PrimeStor network attached storage (NAS) server.

This move follows the vendor's high-profile exit from the PC manufacturing business, deciding instead to continue with design while contracting production to suppliers. Unisys declined to disclose its manufacturing partners.

Ian Andrew, Northern European marketing manager for Unisys storage systems - Computer Systems Group - said Unisys will appoint a further distributor in the UK and will have a pan-European one in place by March.

'There are about nine or 10 value-added distributors in storage and we recognise that expertise resides at the distributor, not the Var level,' Andrews said.

Responding to Unisys' seemingly late entry into the network access storage, Andrew said the firm had been in the storage business for a long time, adding that it operated mostly as an OEM supplier to Sun Microsystems as well as selling into the film industry. 'Besides, open storage is a major growth market. IDC predicts it to be worth $24 billion by 2000,' he said.

Paul Leonard, sales manager at 4Front Networks, said the distributor needed products like Unisys' to increase revenue to the year 2000.

He added: 'We tended to focus only on a couple of lines - Sun, SGI, HP. We will be recruiting more resellers to cater for the new products. As far as coming late to market is concerned, there are no established vendors, as yet.'