Toshiba said today it plans to expand into special-purpose storage servers, a growing and increasingly competitive market.
Toshiba had tested the waters in June by showing a storage server built by Western Digital subsidiary Connex at the PC Expo trade show, but the company said the new storage product will be made by Toshiba.
Toshiba offered few details on the new effort, other than to say that the first product is code-named Marlin, that the sales and support effort will begin by the end of September and that other products will follow.
Toshiba will face a host of big-name competitors, including Hewlett-Packard, Network Appliance, Compaq Computer, Dell Computer, Maxtor, Quantum and Seagate Technology.