History (1997): Bull Founds Storage Business Unit Storeway

Most computer manufacturers, including Compaq, IBM, Unisys and Digital Equipment, have tried to take advantage of their know-how in storage subsystems developed for their proprietary environments in order to found separate divisions whose sole task is to sell solutions on rival platforms or open systems. EMC’s success is certainly due to this strategy.

The most recent enterprise to venture in this direction is Bull, with sales for its own machines at nearly $250 million in 1997.

The French company has now decided to start a peripheral and storage systems (PSS) business unit that will employ roughly 50 people, under the direction of Eric Selosse, VP.

To get there, Bull signed partnership agreements with EMC, Data General (Clariion), StorageTek, Overland Data, Exabyte, Veritas and Legato Systems (IBM may soon be added to the list).

“StoreWay will also rely on 2AI, its wholly-owned subsidiary specialized in storage,” affirmed Jean-Claude Maury, PSS marketing director.

Bull has also recently announced a new product line under the StoreWay name, which comprises a variety of so1ution sets. Among them, the DAS3500, a storage susbsystem with FC-AL interface, and a maximum of 274GB on Windows NT and AIX, with Sun Solaris and Hewlett-Packard coming soon. Connections are possible with 8mm and DLT drives and automatic libraries. OpenSave is a backup server for proprietary and open systems that are connectable through a network or through a SCSI interface.

This article is an abstract of news published on issue 118 on November 1997 from the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter.

Note: Storeway continues to exist with an updated storage portfolio, but being a small entity in the storage industry.Many many years ago, Bull was a storage manufacturer In 1970, magnetic tape business (PENA30) of CII was implemented by Bull in Belfort, East of France, followed by CII MD100/200 HDD en 1980 and also D500 and Cynthia disks. The plant was more recently acquired by now defunct Gigastorage

Assembly of removable cartridge disks Cynthia in Belfort