3 way battle royal for the data center

I was reading the news yesterday about IBM oem’ing Foundry/Brocade switches. Watching the machinations of companies vying for dominance in this space is like watching continental drift over geologic time periods. It seems the same old masses are in constant motion - combining, breaking up and recombining in infinite configurations. Cisco dominated the data center network infrastructure. HP had servers and storage. IBM competed with HP but dominated in services.  HP buys EDS competes with IBM in services. Cisco makes blade servers, competes with HP. HP heavily promotes its ProCurve line to compete with Cisco.  IBM oem’s Foundry/Brocade, competes with HP and Cisco.  Round and round she goes, where it stops nobody knows. Hey what is Microsoft going to do? As much as it goes around, it seems at the end of the day it is the same old big giants that dominate and are constantly trying to steal each others cheese.

I do know that there are billions of dollars at stake.  With stakes that high, it will be a fight to the finish.  However, sooner or later equilibrium will set in. Every side will find its niche. I don’t think any of these guys are going out of business or anything. In the meantime it could create opportunity too for smaller vendors to run between the legs of these giants and deliver solutions that customers need.  By the same token I am sure that this new jostling will lead to a new round of acquisitions as well.  Same old same old in the tech business!  The faces change, but the names stay the same!