Bridgeworks aims to cross over to SMEs
Vendor claims low-cost SAN solution will meet huge demand
Storage vendor Bridgeworks has developed a product which it claimed will smash the price barrier for iSCSI SAN products and create a flood of demand in the SME sector.
Last week it announced the appointment of Hampshire-based distributor Acal Storage Networking for the product.
Bridgeworks said there is massive demand among SMEs for SAN solutions but that prices of Fibre Channel connections have so far been beyond their budgets.
Bridgeworks's Potomac iSCSI bridges, with a list price of just under £1,000, will persuade SMEs that SAN solutions are affordable, claimed David Trossell, chief executive of Bridgeworks.
"A company with a 10-slot tape autoloader, for example, couldn't justify the expense of using more than one connection to the backup device. If the connectivity technology is cheap enough, that tape loader could be used as a central backup device for the entire company," he said.
"According to [analyst firm] IDC, there are 18 million SMEs out there, and we need only sell to half a per cent of those to reach our sales target."
Stuart Bridger, chief technical officer for Acal's storage network division, said Acal's research backed this argument.
"We canvassed a number of resellers for their opinion on the iSCSI market, and the consensus was that they have been waiting for ages for iSCSI to reach this price point," he said.
"This is a solution that will have broad appeal across all verticals. It's going to create sales opportunities wherever there are storage systems that aren't being fully utilised."
Acal will have a limited number of free demo units for its resellers to use, for which Bridger predicted there may be intense competition.
However, he denied that because the product is easy to sell and install, it will be a low-margin commodity sale. "Yes, it's plug and play, but the margins come from wrapping services around the product sale," he said.