Tom Buiocchi, Brocade vice president of marketing, said in an interview with Computerworld that the acquisition would benefit users by simplifying their lives with a common platform, switch interoperability and common management tools. In addition, the companies will be able to invest more into engineering and research and development, as well as bring new products to market faster, he said.

Nolan Evans, chief technology officer at FlexITy Solutions Inc., a Richmond Hill, Ontario-based IT integrator that partners with both Brocade and McData, agreed with Buiocchi. He said the deal will help improve interoperability in the Fibre Channel market because there will now be just two major players -- Brocade and Cisco Systems Inc. Evans said a lack of interoperability has been holding Fibre Channel adoption back.

When Computer Network Technology Corp. (CNT) acquired Inrange Technologies Corp., and then McData acquired CNT, McData seemed to absorb the appropriate technology while maintaining its product line, according to Evans. He said he expects Brocade to do the same, perhaps by keeping its line of hardware and adding McData compatibility.

Until the deal closes -- sometime after Jan. 30 -- Buiocchi said the companies will continue to operate as separate entities while a team composed of representatives from each company talks about how best to integrate products, organizations and sites. In the meantime, the companies will continue selling all their respective products.

The companies have not yet determined what criteria to use to decide which technologies in their overlapping product lines will stay, but volume and user loyalty will play a part, Buiocchi said.