EMC slaps down Pure Storage and its 'ridiculous' claims
Storage giant defends its push on all-flash product XtremIO
EMC has hit back at Pure Storage after it made a series of "ridiculous" claims about the storage giant and its flash market push.
Earlier this month, Pure Storage claimed EMC is so threatened by its presence in the flash market that EMC is targeting its own legacy customers with its all-flash offering XtremIO product to stop Pure getting there first.
EMC launched XtremIO in autumn 2013 and has since been involved in a number of flash-fuelled spats with Pure, including a long-running US legal case.
EMC today insisted its rival's recent claims were nonsense.
"I think it is ridiculous," said Josh Goldstein, XtremIO's head of product management.
"When EMC has got an amazing new technology, why wouldn't we be out in front of our customers telling them about it? We have a portfolio that we offer so they are going to hear about everything we have in the portfolio, then we work with the customers so they can make the right decision – sometimes it is XtremIO and sometimes it is another EMC product.
"I don't know what Pure expects: that we are going to put it in our back pockets and not talk about it?"
Pure Storage claims to fire up its channel partners by encouraging them to eat into EMC's market share and insists it is more channel friendly than its rival. But Goldstein said it can offer resellers the whole package.
"The great thing also is we are not a point product," he said. "We've got customers who have purchased XtremIO and are using it with VIPR [for example, or] putting in in a Vblock. There are lots of choices and tools that we have to offer that you're not going to get from a start-up selling you an all-flash array because that is all they have."
He added that channel partners can cash in on bigger deals with a giant brand such as EMC behind it and said "a lot" of the biggest XtremIO deals have been channel led.
IDC research released earlier this month claimed that the flash storage market is no longer being led purely by innovative start-ups after storage giants such as EMC got in on the action.
Goldstein said having big-brand backing on an innovative technology is an unusual – but successful – combination.
"Our partners can move forward with confidence because they have got the best product on the market," he said. "It's not just they've got the best technology, but it is coming from a top vendor as well and that is something you rarely see.
"A lot of times start-ups do have the best technology and the incumbents are on their heels a little bit. EMC has done something pretty incredible here in that we are the number-one vendor in the space and we have the best technology and the number-one product in the emerging sector.
"That is a huge benefit for the channel because they can go in there with none of the typical technology risk. A lot of times the channel likes to adopt something from a new vendor because they are getting a technology advantage and something they cannot get from their other lines, but with EMC it is the best of both worlds."