Cisco and EMC won't confirm it of course, but there are numerous rumors and reports thatthe two are about to launch a jointly-funded joint ventureunder the code-name "Alpine." The joint venture issaid to be a separate companychartered to integrate, sell and install new data center compute, networking, storage and virtualization products to enterprises and service providers.
The name of the company is still unknown but Cisco and EMC are actively recruiting sales personnel for it, sources say.
Speculation is that the joint venture company will aggressively market Cisco's Unified Computing System with EMC storage arrays, and even develop a new product integrating the two. UCS provides storage access but currently lacks a storage array, analysts note.
It would also be the first time either company has engaged in the funding and formation of a separate joint venture company with another major vendor, says Yankee Group's Zeus Kerravala. Kerravala finds it possible that Cisco ultimately acquires the entire joint venture to gain storage expertise that it lacks.
这将拯救公司buying the much more expensive EMC outright, or EMC competitor NetApp.
The joint venture will aslo continue to raise the stakes in the hotly competitive data center market which has seen major vendors such as IBM, HP, Cisco and Dell line up strategic partners to address next generation data center requirements.
This latest is Dell, which this week agreed to OEM Brocade's newest storage and Ethernet/IP switchesin an effort to build out its data center portfolio beyond servers.
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