[Tom Loftus]

Hi Kelly-

I did take a conference call with the NetApp sales rep and a tech and they were helpful, but when the specific questions of bandwidth and workflow came up they didn’t really have good answers. Their take was that they could provide the storage, but they partner with Quantum would actually provide the management/user interface via XSAN (which I have heard can be difficult to manage)? During the call, the tech seemed to have concerns with the ability to deliver what we needed (I might have mis-interpreted the tone, but that is how it appeared to me).

NetApp was going to provide me a rough estimate/quote based on the requirements I had (x amount of users using x editing client accessing x amount of total storage), but that was about 3-4 weeks ago and I have not heard anything.

I also then took a call with Quantum, and they pitched their control & storage setup, but they pointed me towards flavorsys – another “partner” solution – when it came to project sharing. I’m also waiting for some more specific info regarding the Quantum proposal.

I personally really like the ease of use of Facilis. Both NetApp/Quantum and Quantum seem to have some interesting products, but at the end of the day I’m an editor and I need something that is easy to manage, and easy for our other editors to use.

Sorry for ramblin. Long story short, it doesn’t appear to me that NetApp alone can deliver a turnkey video editing SAN storage/control system.

Good luck.

tom