On Thursday, Dell announced software enhancements for its Compellent and PowerVault storage portfolios as well as new backup appliances at the Dell Storage Forum in Paris.

Storage has become an important cornerstone of the company’s effort to transition from a PC maker associated with yesteryear’s “Dude, you’re getting a Dell” commercials to a diversified service provider that can compete with the likes of Cisco, HP and IBM. This focus has contributed to Dell’s status as one of the few bright spots in the depressed server field, as well as to its market-leading position in the iSCSI SAN market.

Even so, the company continues to face stiff competition, not only from EMC, which dominates the storage market overall and is Dell’s nearest competitor within iSCSI, but also from competitors such as NetApp, which has not only partnered with Cisco to improve its data center positioning, but also introduced mid-tier server arrays that compete directly with the products Dell announced Thursday.
Network Computing