Aliso Viejo’s QLogic Corp. hit rival Emulex Corp. of Costa Mesa with a lawsuit that goes after Emulex for its latest advertising campaign, according to a report.
In a complaint filed earlier this week, QLogic accused Emulex of false advertising, unfair competition and libel, according to a report on financial news site TheStreet.com.
Both companies are rivals locked in a duopoly with some 80% of the market for specialized electronics that go into data storage networks.
The two have traded barbs in the past few years amid fierce competition to eke out market share gains.
QLogic alleged that Emulex published misleading information in a recent blog and a video which showed an egg frying on a QLogic chip, the report showed.
The advertisement was meant to show off the lower power usage and heat output of Emulex’s chips.
QLogic has a stake in refuting the claims—cutting down the amount power needed to run and cool the servers in a data center is like the Holy Grail for managing technology costs.
QLogic also said that that Emulex made untrue statements about the competitive landscape during its recent second-quarter conference call, specifically in regards to gains in a new data storage technology that’s known as converged networking.
Both companies last year introduced what’s called converged network adapters—circuit board cards loaded with chips that sits inside a server in a company’s rack room.
The card allows technology managers to run both Ethernet and fibre channel networks from a single adapter, cutting down on equipment costs and day-to-day expenses of running a data storage network.
Neither company has publicly announced anything about the lawsuit.
The two companies faced off in court over patents and settled in 2004.
QLogic spun off from Emulex in 1994 with the two maintaining a mostly cordial, but sometimes strained, competitive relationship.
QLogic had a recent market value of around $2 billion, while Emulex’s came in at around $980 million.
