EMC accuses Sun of failing customers

But is it just a bear with a sore head?

EMC has launched a bitter tirade against Sun's latest storage announcement by claiming the company is failing its customers by trying to re-hash old technology. Last night Sun unveiled new models for its flagship T3 arrays called StorEdge 3900 and 6900 aimed at the midrange Unix market. But Sun's arch rival and self-proclaimed storage king EMC was quick to accuse Sun of re-branding old technology and believes the company is in danger of failing its customers. EMC said: "Sun is trying to re-market the new T3 arrays as Storage Bricks, but the only thing the company is doing is essentially a re-branding of the same old devices, with functionality that lags behind the industry standard. "Sun has stated in the past that some of these products had 'issues documented with high availability' and could create 'catastrophic data loss' in some cases. Now Sun is marketing this product to their customers as a solution for their most critical data." EMC advised Sun to rationalise its storage strategy. "They should try to deliver industry-standard functionality to its T3 product, including switched fabric support and availability features and give more than lip service to variants of Unix other than Solaris, along with a commitment to support Windows-based storage environments." But Chris Atkins, storage marketing manager for UK at Sun, said EMC is only bitter because it is losing the storage battle. Atkins said: "EMC is hurting big time and their reputation is in tatters. The company is rapidly being overtaken in both software and hardware base by various competitors. "EMC doesn't understand our products and the multiple platform technologies we can offer. They are being left behind in all areas. Compared to Clarion [EMC's flagship product] for instance our new products are four times faster."