HP has begun reselling Cisco's storage switches - for 30 per cent less than charged by IBM.

HP is to flog Cisco's MDS 9509 director and MDS 9216 fabric switch at roughly the same price it quotes for
competing switches from MacData and Brocade, reports Byte and Switch. HP has certified the Cisco switches for Windows, HP-UX, and Linux operating system environments and is pitching them for customers with mixed protocol storage environments. That means users with both iSCSI and Fibre Channel-based storage area networks, since you ask.

Well a 16-port Cisco MDS 9216 would have a list price of $52,263 from IBM but just $38,800 from HP (a useful factoid to have in hand come negotiating time, perhaps).

Major systems firms are a highly significant route to market for Cisco's storage switches. Price is only one factor in complicated, big ticket enterprise sales where support and existing business relationships count for a great deal. But, particularly in the current economic slowdown, price matters.

Byte and Switch's price comparison is here. ®