Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Analysis :: Netapp sues SUN !

The latest sue is from Netapp and it comes in the wake of ZFS' popularity. Netapp claims that SUN has been unfairly distributing ZFS technology(which infringes 7 Netapp patents) to third parties , without informing those parties about the infringement of Netapp patents. This could particularly get bitter where SUN's open ZFS is the closest competition to the Netapp FS. Jonathan Schwartz ,CEO , SUN however responded saying - "We're all focused on innovation and winning customers, not litigation," he wrote. Sun uses its patent portfolio, he explained, to protect communities and indemnify customers.

"Sun indemnifies its customers, so I'd encourage all interested parties to compare the economics of ZFS and Thumper to what you're currently forced to pay -- the savings are absolutely shocking," Schwartz said. "The rise of the open-source community cannot be stifled by proprietary vendors. I guess not everyone's learned that lesson."

I am sure there is more to come on this . :)

2 comments:

Ameya Agnihotri said...

SCO has gone bankrupt...fighting linux...

Gokul said...

but how relevant is that to the dispute on ZFS ? i guess the ZFS license is not as free and open as GNU .. Netapp can stil afford to i guess..SCO was anyway struggling ..