Cisco, meanwhile, insists that its OSM relationships are not your typical OEM deal. "Other people in this particular business sell on an OEM basis and are much more passive in their relationship to the end user," says Edison Peres, VP of advanced technologies at Cisco. "Were going to be very active."
Competitors, predictably, say Cisco is laying it on thick. "We do exactly the same thing," says Dave Stevens, director of business development and strategic alliances for Brocade Communications Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: BRCD). "The only difference is that we never take the deal direct. Cisco has a long history of doing that."
Unlike most SAN switch vendors that push their products through channels, Cisco has an army of salespeople on the street to make sure the deals get done. Cisco says it is also in the process of creating a specialty sales force just for the storage side of its business. The company says it has already hired hundreds of qualified people, mainly from the storage industry.
Cisco's going to need those extra warm bodies, industry observers note, given that its pricing isn't exactly competitive (see Cisco Gets Set).
While Peres acknowledges that some of Cisco's switches carry a 25 percent to 30 percent premium over those of competitors such as Brocade and McData Corp. (Nasdaq: MCDTA), he contends that the Cisco brand and next-generation features make the higher prices justifiable. Besides which, they're going through the "OSM Active" channel, and that's bound to add another couple of bucks to the price.
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