Cisco has set up a joint marketing programme with four companies to sell its storage area networking (San) products.

IBM, Hewlett Packard, Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) and EMC have signed up for Cisco's original storage manufacturer (OSM) programme to receive special technical and marketing training.

While Cisco has not ruled out extending the programme, it has no plans for expansion at present.

"Our job is to educate the end user and the channel," said Geoff Love, Cisco's business development manager San Europe.

"What Cisco is saying is, 'This is our play in the San world and you can buy our technology safely from these vendors'.

"The sophisticated vendors are looking around at the solutions available and seeing how they can be serviced by one vendor."

Cisco has designed the new MDS 9000 family of switches for the San market to provide interoperability with San products from other vendors.

The company said it will concentrate on building products that form a flexible network backbone that will be able to integrate San technology with the minimum of interoperability problems.

OSM partners will sell and install specific San technology rather than have customers deal with Cisco directly.

"It's a bit of a curious mix because the commercial mandates of each company are different," said David McClelland, area sales manager for Solid State, a specialist value-add reseller.

"Three out of the four companies are system-centric and only HDS has made serious moves towards open interoperability standards for storage; the rest pay lip service to it, although EMC is making more progress than most."

The OSM programme covers all European countries and will be backed up by a technical centre based in Brussels offering training and support facilities.