The alliance between IBM and Network Appliance has borne its first fruit.

IBM on Tuesday unveiled storage systems aimed at small and midsize businesses, including the TotalStorage N3700, a NAS solution targeted at companies with fewer than 1,000 employees. Slated to ship by the end of the month, the product represents the maiden offering from the IBM-NetApp partnership, which was announced in April.

Under the arrangement, IBM agreed to OEM NAS and SAN appliances from the Sunnyvale, Calif., storage vendor. At the time, IBM executives said the NetApp relationship would give the Armonk, N.Y.-based company a better chance to compete with rival EMC in the midmarket storage segment.

In addition, IBM rolled out the DR550 Express, a storage archive system that offers non-rewriteable, non-erasable data management, and a SAN Starter Kit designed to help SMBs consolidate storage. Both products are available now.

The TotalStorage N3700 is priced at $50,000, the DR550 Express runs $45,000 and the SAN Starter Kit costs $16,376, according to IBM.

In announcing the new products, IBM executives said storage solutions tailored for SMBs must be easy to install and use. Both IBM and NetApp said the products launched Tuesday would be the first of several offerings to emerge from their collaboration.