NEC Claims Midmarket Is Overpaying For Storage By $3 Billion

As the vendor enhances the NEC D-Series Storage Attached Networking line with iSCSI and thin provisioning, it charges brand-name competitors with overcharging -- sort of.The idea, according to Josh Eddy, NEC product marketing manager _____ is that midmarket companies could have saved billions by buying NEC storage instead of brand name companies like IBM, HP, HDS, and EMC.

A bit self-serving? Sure.

But the storage market is going through some big changes, and smaller companies may in fact be able to meet their storage needs without paying full enterprise-level prices. The key, Eddy said, is to make sure that you still get the features your company needs -- he named dependability (few failures and the ability to survive them when they do happen), scalability (without having to trash existing hardware), and efficiency (initial pricing, tiered storage).

Midmarket customers don't want to pay a premium for brand names, Eddy said, but can't get buy with low-end features. Of course, Eddy explained that's what NEC offers. "We are the Hyundai of the storage industry," offering high quality at a good price, but "still suffering from that brand name problem."

So, what's NEC's equivalent to the new Genesis? Not all that much, actually.

The company has added iSCSI options to its existing Fibre Channel lineup to let SMBs leverage their existing Ethernet infrastructure. And it has implemented thin provisioning to better utilize available storage space. Oh, and it has extended its 30-day money back guarantee, but Eddy acknowledged that no customer has yet taken them up on the offer. Pricing on the NEC D3i series starts at $6,406, the company said.