Onetime rivals EMC and Hewlett-Packard
will share
certain application programming interfaces
“Along with our companies’ combined efforts to further development of open industry standards — such as CIM and Bluefin — technology exchanges such as this
enable our mutual customers to realize the benefits of that interoperability much sooner,” said Don Swatik, an EMC vice president.
Under the pact, EMC will license APIs of its Symmetrix and Clariion systems while HP will license APIs for StorageWorks Virtual Array systems and StorageWorks XP systems.
In addition, the companies will outline service levels so customers will be assured that each vendor will provide support its configurations.
“This agreement. . . will deliver on customer demand for solutions that work together and can be managed centrally,” said Mark Sorenson, an HP vice president.
The deal expands a previous agreement between Hopkinton, Mass.-based EMC and Compaq, which merged with Palo Alto, Calif.-based HP earlier this
year.
It comes at a time when storage companies are pairing off to cut costs and boost sales in a tepid market. Politics may make stange bedfellows, but apparently so does an economic slump.
For example, Hitachi and IBM recently merged hard disk drive operations and agreed to jointly develop networks, systems and
software.
EMC’s push for open standards and interoperability recognizes that buyers are scrutinizing costs and complexity when buying storage gear.
In other EMC news, the company this morning announced breakeven financial numbers for the second quarter, while noting that customers continue to delay large IT projects.
A bright spot however, was software sales, which increased 14 percent over the previous quarter. The company is putting more stock in its software, which it hopes will account for 30 percent of its business by the end of 2004.
