What's with the shroud of mystery around IBM's "development partner" for its new open-systems virtual tape library (VTL), the Virtualization Engine TS7510? Announced last month, IBM refused to reveal the system's provenance, citing confidentiality concerns. Speculation has centered on software VTL providers like FalconStor and Sepaton, but another possibility is ADIC, which recently added support for IBM 3584 tape libraries and 3592 tape drives to its storage management software. Citing corporate policy, ADIC declined to comment.

				Has the Symantec/Veritas pipeline run dry? According to a source close to the combined company, sales executives were "handsomely rewarded" to close deals in an effort to quell Wall Street critics of the merger. "Basically, a lot of analysts weren't buying the argument that one plus one equals three," the source says. But mortgaging-the-quarter tactics may backfire and observers wonder whether it will affect earnings in the next couple of quarters.

Storage professionals are in demand and in short supply. One storage manager admits he's even resorted to poaching from the ranks of vendors' professional services personnel--he tries them out under a professional services contract and then antes up if they work out. Another manager laments that his firm's internal training program for developing storage expertise is too effective: "We train them and then they leave." A good storage administrator is hard to find ...

Microsoft's Data Protection Manager (DPM) is flypaper for storage vendors. Forget that Microsoft's version of continuous data protection (CDP) doesn't exactly stand up to the true definition of that product category, and that DPM is far from the first or most comprehensive CDP-like app around. "Microsoft is everywhere," says the VP of marketing for a storage array vendor, so when the Redmond gang rolls out a storage app, expediency trumps best of breed. Users, meanwhile, might want to pay close attention to how DPM is adopted and whether Microsoft sticks to its stated plans to support Exchange and SQL Server.

Ever wonder how they come up with Symantec/ Veritas NetBackup pricing? So did one competitor, so he got hold of a price configuration tool through a reseller. He was shocked to find that the Excel spreadsheet it was based on was more than 2,000 lines long. Why aren't we surprised?

If this won't get Brocade to file, what will? As the November 15 deadline looms for the embattled switch vendor to restate its earnings for 2001 to 2004 or risk being delisted by NASDAQ, the company has filed a form with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) detailing the approval of hefty bonuses for the company's top executives, but only once the firm is current in its filings with the SEC. Under the terms of the approved plan, CEO Michael Klayko will receive $780,000; Don Jaworski, VP of product development, $562,500; Ian Whiting, VP of worldwide sales, $540,000; and Antonio Canova, CFO and VP of administration, $525,000 in restricted shares of the company's common stock. Who says the early bird gets the worm?

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