XenSource signed an important partnership with Symantec about 9 months ago, that would allow us to integrate Symantec Storage Foundation as an included volume manager in XenSource's XenEnterprise product. The deal was based on the realities of the XenSource situation at the time - namely we were an independent company with our own routes to market. The Symantec Storage Foundation would be included for customers at no additional charge, when they purchased XenEnterprise. Also included in XenEnterprise is a standard Linux based volume manager, LVM, as well as storage repositories for VHD based virtual hard disks on NFS, and iSCSI "LUN per VDI" storage.
When Citrix acquired XenSource, our route to market changed - or rather was amplified - by the Citrix channel partners. The Symantec agreement, which we still view as critical to our ability to address the massive installed base of storage without requiring customers to change their processes, training or technologies for storage management, is now being re-drafted to expand its scope and to ensure that there is complete alignment between Symantec and Citrix in the market. A key part of this is ensuring that the channel is trained to distribute, install and support our product and all of its component technologies, including those of our partners where relevant. Although our integration work against Symantec Storage Foundation is complete, we have not yet completed the work necessary to ramp the channel training, support and certification with the additional Symantec storage management capabilities, so it has been omitted from the XenServer 4.1 release.
Ashlee inferred that this is all about Citrix trying to make money from the deal. The contrary is true. We're keenly interested in helping our partners make money from what we do with XenServer, because it divides the overall value pie more equitably across the ecosystem and thereby strongly incentivizes the channel and our partners to deliver more Citrix product.
See here the full post. I'll be meeting Simon personally in Cannes by the way.
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