SELL SOME NAS! EMC is a bit chafed at Cisco's inability to sell its Celerra NAS products, according to sources close to EMC. Cisco began selling the Celerra NS Series last summer as part of a file storage consolidation offering that includes Cisco's wide-area file services (WAFS) products. In EMC's words, "The number of EMC Celerras sold as part of this type of solution has been accelerating off of a very small base," says an EMC spokesman. He was unable to give any details of how many boxes Cisco has actually sold. Cisco declined to comment.

				ON THE TOPIC OF WAFS...
				Microsoft's partnership with WAFS company Tacit Networks appears precarious for the startup. Word has it that Microsoft is working on its own WAFS technology, and will eventually stuff file caching and network optimization capabilities into its core operating system. Where this leaves the partnership with Tacit is anyone's guess. Analysts say Tacit is banking on Microsoft taking at least two years to build this functionality into the OS--in the meantime, Tacit will be scooped up. In its favor, Tacit can accelerate NFS as well as CIFS traffic, whereas Microsoft is likely to support only CIFS.

SUN AND BLUEARC TREAD ON NETAPP'S TOES Insiders at Sun Microsystems say the company's 5310 NAS product is starting to beat Network Appliance (NetApp) in some deals because it offers similar functionality at a fraction of the cost. A Sun source says the firm doesn't charge extra for advanced functionality like NetApp does. "We're just getting the sales force motivated," he says. "Then they'll really see us." Sun's not the only one making headway against NetApp. BlueArc's high-performing NAS box offers greater functionality and manageability than NetApp's filers, according to users of both products. Washington University and Rice University are two of BlueArc's latest wins against NetApp.

FALCONSTOR TO JOIN THE BACKUP FRAY? FalconStor Software is planning on entering the backup market, in addition to selling its usual virtual tape library (VTL), virtualization and iSCSI wares, according to sources close to the company. Word is that it's a standalone product possibly targeting midsized enterprises. FalconStor's management team consists of former Computer Associates' ARCserve developers, so these guys should know what they're doing. FalconStor has denied that it has any backup product plans in the works at this time.

PIVOT3 PINS DOWN PRODUCT. Stealthy startup Pivot3 Inc. is building a storage array with integrated VTL and replication for disaster recovery capabilities, say sources close to the company. The product is at least two or three quarters out, but beta tests start next quarter.

IBM REVS UP CDP PLANS? IBM and continuous data protection (CDP) startup Revivio Inc. are in discussions to fend off EMC's partnership with Mendocino Software, industry sources say. EMC announced a licensing agreement with Mendocino in October 2005. Among major vendors, IBM was the first out of the gate with a CDP product, Tivoli Continuous Data Protection for Files, but it offers just what the name implies: It backs up files, but not applications like databases or e-mail. A partnership with Revivio would fill in the gaps, say sources.

AVAMAR SUPPORTS TAPE. Avamar is coming out with a new feature in Axion 3.5--to be released next spring--that will allow any organization to use Axion technology to back up its data to tape. Today, the product is limited to disk only. Organizations will benefit from commonality factoring technology and can still use tape if they want.