Emulex: We are winning the battle against our rivals

Vendor offers trio of incentives to customers in hope of cementing its market position

Storage vendor Emulex has issued a war cry to its rivals, claiming its new channel incentives will help to further cement its dominant position in the market.

Speaking at the Powering the Cloud conference in Frankfurt, the vendor's vice president for international operations Adam Winkelmann said the firm is "winning more battles than competitors are".

A trio of channel offers is being rolled out across EMEA and the US, designed to encourage customers to buy products which are optimised for a more virtualised environment.

Emulex's Leapover8 offer sees the firm offer 16GB fibre channel host adaptors for the price of 8GB, while its Better Together incentive offers the same discount across its EMC VFcache solution. The final deal, Best of Speed, offers Emulex's 16GB adaptor alongside Brocade's 16GB switch for the same price as its 8GB offering.

Despite Emulex and Brocade working together, Winkelmann added that they still lock horns in the adaptor space.

"Our view – and Brocade's might be different – is that at some point, it [Brocade] will not focus on adaptors and will go back to switches again," he said.

"Although we have always had a partnership with Brocade, it was slightly compromised with them having their own adaptors, but we see that they are struggling to build a real share [in that market] other than in one or two very small pockets.

"We see the bigger picture, which is that we have 16GB adaptors and they do 16GB switches, so that is why we work together."

Emulex has a 75 per cent revenue share in the 16GB fibre channel market, according to Dell'Oro Group's Q2 2012 Network Controller and Adapter Report.

Winkelmann added that he foresees that Emulex's growing market presence and new offers will attract more OEMs, which he claims will lure in more channel partners.