Storage vendors rewrite the rules of the game | InfoWorld | Column | 2006-05-11 | By Mario Apicella:

It seems inevitable, like death and taxes. Every year, storage vendors renew their portfolios, delivering significant changes if not complete redesigns of critical product lines. This week almost simultaneous major announcements from EMC-Dell, LSI Logic-IBM, and NetApp follow similar chest-thumping from Hitachi Data Systems, Hewlett-Packard, and Sun.

Why did I pair up EMC and Dell, and LSI Logic and IBM? Because each name on the right side of the dash sign is a major OEM of the one on the left, so although the name may be different the pair is essentially announcing the same new product. And IBM will probably resell NetApp's new products, too. Confused yet?

Ha! Mario thinks he's confused he should try being me!

OK, actually, he's not confused, and he goes to some length explaining so that we don't have to be either. Personally, I deal with a fairly small amount of storage kit - mostly a couple of mid-range HP SANs, a few NAS devices (HP, Netapp, and a couple of in-house built, linux-based ones), with a little bit of EMC Centerra thrown in (just for fun), but if you're (un?) fortunate enough to work at the higher end of the field, there looks to be a good range of product to pick from in the current ranges...