Gear has to be idiot-proof to be successful in the midrange, as they don't want to have a zillion IT gurus if all they do is sell paint or donuts,

Microsoft wants the operating system and their tools to have all the value so that users don't need to go outside of the family. It drives Microsoft crazy that people spend a ton of money with EMC and Veritas on boring old storage issues.

DPM will cause an awesome amount of confusion in the backup market.

StorageTek gives Sun instant storage footprint, huge storage credibility, and a fantastic billion dollar service business. Sun gives StorageTek a whole new playground. Together, I can see grid computing and grid storage joining to provide some very powerful solutions moving forward.

It's attractive because you can start really small and get really, really big, ... It's easy, and smart -- the physical design looks pretty intelligent. As you're scaling up, as opposed to doing a forklift upgrade, you can just modularly add in capacity. You won't need a crane to add things in.

The status quo in storage has existed for a long, long time, ... but I think the applecart is about to be upset.