IBM DS5000 Storage: It Gets Even Weirder

Much was made recently about IBM's "stealth" announcement of their XIV array, with most of the announcement duties falling to EMC's own Storage Anarchist, in what has to be the ultimate scoop in the storage blogosphere.

Just now, someone sent me a public link to an IBM Europe website announcing what seems to be an entirely new storage array for IBM: the DS5000.

Which brings up some interesting questions.

What's Not Surprising

OK, it looks like the usual OEM-style array we've seen from IBM in this category before: modular design, 4Gb FC, intermix FC and SATA drives, a bit of onboard software -- nothing too controversial here.

Compared with modern competition in this category (e.g. the recent CX4), it doesn't look like there's much to crow about.  Looks a bit pale in comparison, I'd offer.

But still ...

What's Surprising

This now makes two "new platform" storage announcements from IBM where they simply post a web page regarding a completely new storage product on their European site, and call it a day.

No press release.  No briefings.  No t-shirts, mugs or baseball caps.  Not even a nifty powerpoint deck that we've seen.

In that regard, it leaves many of us scratching our heads a bit, wondering what they might be thinking?  I mean, given the natural tendency of many storage vendors to flog most anything, it makes us wonder if they've discovered a new way of launching products -- leave it to your competitors!

Is it simply a case of the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing?  Very large corporations such as IBM can fall prey to this challenge more easily than smaller ones.

Has IBM decided to focus its marketing efforts elsewhere, and decided not to bring much attention to their (admittedly struggling) storage business?

Even our favorite IBM storage blogger, TonyP, is uncharacteristically quiet about all of this ...

Anyway you look at it, it's decidedly unusual ...