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CISCO EYES VERITAS AS PARTNER

Cisco Systems Inc, a top maker of equipment that runs the Internet, said recently that Veritas Software Corp will probably become one of its partners as it seeks to increase its presence in the data storage business.

Veritas "will probably be one of the companies Cisco partners with as it moves into data storage," Cisco president and Chief Executive John Chambers said during a conference sponsored by the Gartner research firm in Orlando.

"You will see us with a number of players. That company (Veritas) will probably be one of those three or four companies," he said.

Gartner analyst Mark Fabbi told Reuters there has been a lot of talk that Cisco and Veritas are working closely on the software component of data storage, which includes storage management.

In August, Cisco said it was buying out privately held Andiamo Systems Inc but would not close the deal until 2004, waiting to see if the small start-up could become a top player in the data storage switch business.