EMC stung by 'desperate' slur from rival

Bitching in the marketplace continues to hot up...

EMC has come under fire from competitors who have labelled the company 'desperate' for its latest move in the storage sector. EMC's arch-rival Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) said the company could no longer keep on charging astronomical fees for proprietary systems and as such was forced to move into making technology for other vendors in order to keep afloat. EMC claimed at the launch that its Symmetrix product can hold nearly 70 terabytes of data - twice the amount of any of its competitors' products. HDS was quick to dismiss these claims and said they have not seen a huge demand from customers for such large capabilities. Bob Plumridge, director of product management at HDS, said: "Our main customers, such as banks and building societies, have not signalled the need for a larger storage capacity." HDS said it wanted to see some proof of EMC's claims of interoperability and openness. Plumridge told silicon.com: "I would not agree that EMC is going to be fully open with all the vendors, they are only talking now because of the downturn in the market. Three years ago EMC was the undisputed leader in storage but they have sadly fallen behind the times today. I think their customers have forced EMC to think about its strategies." EMC was unavailable for a comment.