Executive Summary (This is a document excerpt)

This month, Brocade Communications Systems announced its plan to acquire storage networking rival McDATA in a deal valued at $713 million. The acquisition is not surprising given how competitive this market became when Cisco Systems moved into the space several years ago. The increased competition between Brocade, Cisco, and McDATA has driven down the price per port for Fibre Channel networking components dramatically and the rise of IP-based storage is challenging the dominance of Fibre Channel technology in storage networking. With its deep pockets and IP networking expertise, these forces clearly favor Cisco. Brocade still has more work to do to compete with Cisco as a pervasive data center networking vendor, but the acquisition will definitely help maintain its leadership in the existing Fibre Channel market. The acquisition gives Brocade a boost in key areas but enterprises should consider likely product discontinuations due to overlap as they evaluate purchases from either Brocade or McDATA.

Buy Risk-Free

Download and print PDF immediately. Price: US $199

Our Money-Back Guarantee: If you are not completely satisfied, return it for a full refund within three weeks of your online purchase.

Already a Forrester Client?
Log in to read this document.