IBM unveils new arms in EMC war

NEW YORK -- Stung by its loss of market share to Hopkinton's EMC Corp., IBM Corp. fought back yesterday with a pair of major new data storage offerings, including one that occupies less than one-twentieth as much space as EMC's rival Clariion storage system.

Dan Colby, general manager of IBM's storage systems group, stood next to a refrigerator-sized EMC Clariion CX700 as he unveiled IBM's TotalStorage DS6000, a unit a little larger than a home VCR.

"It is half again as fast as the top of the Clariion line that is out there," Colby said, "and it takes up about 4 percent of the space."

Also on display was the new TotalStorage DS8000, a larger data storage system designed to compete directly against EMC's flagship Symmetrix DMX product line.

IBM has found itself the loser in a three-way battle for domination of the storage market for large corporations and government agencies. According to data from the investment firm AG Edwards and Sons Inc., IBM held about 17 percent of the market in the second quarter of 2004, versus 29 percent for Hitachi Data Systems and 55 percent for EMC. During the same period a year earlier, IBM's market share was 19 percent to Hitachi's 30 percent and EMC's 51 percent.

IBM officials said the new products could enable their company to double their current share of the market over the next four to five years.

If so, much of that extra business would have to come out of EMC's hide. But spokesman Greg Eden appeared unconcerned.

"You can't dismiss anything that IBM does," he said. "They're a very formidable competitor. But they do have a credibility gap with customers."

Eden cited a number of cases in which IBM promised major new storage products, but delivered them years behind schedule. For instance, the StorageTank technology for managing storage devices from many different companies was promised for 2001, but a full-fledged version became available only this year.

Besides, said Eden, IBM is focused mainly on selling storage products to "captive" customers who also use IBM's computer systems. "Outside their base they've never been successful in marketing their storage offerings," he said.

IBM's larger system, the DS8000, also boasts new processors that will let the user run a single system as if it were two separate units.

For example, a customer could use half the system to handle storage for an IBM mainframe computer, while the other half provides storage for a network of servers running Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system.

In addition, the two products use almost identical software, so that customers can use them interchangeably.

"Actually, we're giving birth to twins today," said Charles Lickel, IBM's vice president of systems software and storage development. "Not identical twins . . . but twins from the same gene pool."

IBM will begin selling the two new storage devices next month, with full-scale availability in the first quarter of 2005.

Clay Ryder, vice president of the Sageza Group, a research firm in Union City, Calif., said the DS6000 gave IBM a tool it could use to win more storage business from smaller companies. But it would also appeal to large firms that want to add storage in data centers where space is at a premium.

"EMC of course is the leader in enterprise accounts," Ryder said. "Now they're going to have to compete with a more aggressive, better positioned IBM."

Hiawatha Bray can be reached at bray@globe.com.