The answer's obvious. The market's expanding and EqualLogic is in the sweet spot for iSCSI storage expansion. Hence, this will not largely damage the EMC relationship (there's plenty for all) and Dell's global reach will expand sales across the board.

I was involved in two storage solution opportunities last year and competed against EqualLogic. We lost both times - it really is a very good solution.

Hopefully this will be about the limit on Dell's involvement. If Equallogic can piggy back onto Dell disk purchases, but remain seperate apart from that, I would not like to be a competitor.