I agree with Chuck to some extent. Cisco's announcement wasn't big on new technology news, but it was bold in assuming they could pull off something of this scope.  Most companies risk blowing their credibility by discussing what some would view as science fiction.  Only time will tell if Cisco can do this, but I suspect they don't fully understand what's in front of them.  The incumbent server manufacturers (such as HP) have the advantage of experience.  One thing this helps all other server manufacturers with is legitimizing blade servers for a broader market.  My guess is that all blade products will see an uplift now as a result.

Thanks for your comment Marc.  I agree on the effect on Blade acceptance and also that Cisco is recognising that customers are looking for more infrastructure convergence as we move to a virtual world and trying to make a move to protect their core business.  I think it highlights that to be relevant in the future you need to be a systems vendor.  From their support of Cisco it seems EMC is choosing not to be and trying to protect storage as an island.

Lee

I think relevancy depends on having products and services that customers depend heavily on, whether they are servers, storage, network equipment, system software, application software you name it.

Very true, and continued relevancy is based on how you treat your customers when they do depend on you

Hey Lee,

I thought for thinking to be brave and new it had to be, well, brave (different) and new (unique).  HP has had the HP BladeSystem for over two years, integrating storage, servers and networking.  That was brave and new.  And obviously there's more to come.