Is Your Storage Vendor Serious About Storage?

Today's news was sad for parts of the community, but somewhat inevitable.

Apple decided that they were essentially getting out of the enterprise storage business.

I'm not one to criticize Apple's move -- in some regards, it's not surprising -- but I think the announcement will cause many to reflect on who they're buying this technology from, and their commitment to the business.

BTW, like most of you, I have enormous respect for what Apple has done over the past decade.  I fully appreciate who they are, and what they're trying to do.  On one level, they've redefined what it means to be "cool" in the technology biz.

But, with all due respect, they had no business being in the storage business.  As a reseller or OEM, perhaps.  But as a manufacturer of the core technology, it was a really bad idea from Day One, IMHO.

What Was Announced

Clearly, this won't go down in history as the most graceful exit from a business, but I think that Stephen Foskett has the best post on the subject.

One day, Apple was selling a decent Xserve storage array.  The next day, they weren't, instead referring customers to their new partner, Promise.

Now, if you had spent a boatload on Apple's slick-looking arrays, you'd understandably be a bit peeved.

As well you should.

What's Going On Here?

For server vendors, the storage business is like a moth to a flame: they're fascinated with the revenue potential -- as well as the strategic positioning -- of being entrusted by customers to house their most important asset -- their information.

But, at the same time, once they get close to the flame, they realize it's very hot indeed. 

Massive R+D investments to stay current with the latest technologies. 

Huge customer support investments to provide exceptional service and support. 

An enormous pre-sales consultative investment to understand customers environments, and recommend the right solution. 

A ginormous services delivery organization to manage customer outcomes.

Not to mention government-sized investments in multivendor interoperability qualification testing.

Or investing in building a value-added ecosystem of partners and software vendors.

As well as complementary technologies, like backup, or replication, or ILM, or ...

Well, you get the picture.

Can Server Vendors Pull This Off?

They certainly keep trying. 

Witness Dell's acquisition of EquaLogic.  Or IBM's curious acquisiton of XIV.  Or Sun's erratic, wobbly orbit in the storage world.  Or HP's continuing reorganizations.

One wonders if they have the stones to keep investing to support keeping their current products current, as well as a half-decent go-to-market, let alone investing exponentially more to be credible selling outside their installed server base.

I don't know what you think, but if I was a savvy IT buyer, I wouldn't go looking for the best of the storage world in the server vendor's portfolio.  Sure, there's some decent product there, but it's certainly an adjunct to their server business, and not an independent business focus in its own right.

As an example, The Storage Anarchist (admittedly yet another EMC blogger) has publicly questioned IBM's commitment to the storage business.  Biases aside, he's got a point. 

And, although this is no scientific measure, their lead advocate (Tony Pearson) is reduced to promoting their winning a "brand leadership" survey (?) from some obscure PR firm. 

Sad times, indeed.

But Even Pure-Play Storage Vendors Are Challenged

Storage is a tough business, to be sure.  Not for the faint-hearted.  Or the resource limited.  Even the "pure play" storage vendors are being forced to open up their wallets and make acquisitions to stay relevant.

Witness NetApp's recent acquistion of Onaro, just to be relevant in the storage management discussion.  Or HDS's recent tie-up with BlueArc, just to be relevant in the NAS discussion.

And, to be fair, those are the biggest "pure play" storage vendors out there (other than EMC, of course).  I just can't come up with any answers about how the smaller players (e.g. Isilon, Compellent, 3Par, Pillar, et. al.) will continue to stay relevant in the overall storage discussion going forward. 

That youthful, cool, startup mystique only lasts so long, and then people start to ask what you're really going to do for a living when you grow up.

The EMC Disclaimer

EMC is far from perfect.  And we don't have a complete lock on cool ideas and cool technologies.  Trust me, complacency is not part of our DNA these days.

But one thing we are is deadly serious about the storage space.

We're investing like crazy, and innovating like crazy, and acquiring like crazy, and make no mistake -- despite our growth into new areas, we absolutely consider storage a "must win" market. 

So far, so good.  But past success is no guarantee of the future, especially in the tech biz.

EMC is all about information.  Storage is where information lives.  It's a quasi-religious belief at EMC.

And, you'll have to believe me on this, you're just not going to wake up one morning to read a press release that EMC has somehow decided to do something else instead.

It's just not going to happen.

Comments

[George P. Thomadakis]

Hello Chuck ,

Even though i am from the oposite side a NetApp partner that is , i couldn't agree more with what you say . The game seems to be changing and i can see it on the 'street' were server vendors only succeed when they 'bundle' solutions . This is BTW their only real strength compared to the 'pure' guys like yourself and NTAP .
Whenever though there is a ''serious'' play with Data Management and Functionality it is mostly between the 'pure' guys like u and NTAP and the Server vendors are ever absent , or cannot really comply to the customers real needs and problems and are 'trying' to sell things they do not have of undermine you and NTAP. And of course do not forget that both IBM and hp still ''believe'' they are Storage vendors and this is VERY dangerous , but i strongly believe that this will diminish in the coming Quarters as it is not possible for any vendor in any industry to be making wonders in all fields no matetr how big they are, this is just out of the question . You gotta focus more as The information Stored is getting bigger and Bigger and i think that this is were we'll be seing only 2-3 Storage architectures surviving. Look at what happened to the Switching and Routing Bussiness , to the Database Bussiness , to The ERP Bussiness , to the OS Business and everything else for what matters.

Thanks for posting me

[Stephen Foskett]

The truth is, enterprise storage is not, has rarely been, and should not be about sexiness, hipness, or clever-but-flaky ideas. Storage must be the bedrock on which all of IT sits, and IT is the bedrock on which our economy sits. We need straight-faced solid engineering and testing or we're all sunk.

Apple's Xserve RAID was a decent box for one reason: It eschewed everything unnecessary and solidly stored and streamed data. I think Promise's array will do that, too. Users wanting more should look for a company equally committed to delivering solid, reliable features.

But I would like EMC to "copy" Apple's "which array is this?" button!

[MarcFarley]

Hey Chuck, you know I tend to agree with you, but now I'm working for a server company. Hahaha. We'll see how things work out at Dell in the years to come. I guess you've thrown down the gauntlet for us.

I think the issue is leadership vision and commitment to the storage vision. Steve Jobs was not all that interested in storage. Carly Fiorini wasn't that interested either, but Mark Hurd may turn out to understand storage better. IBM is much harder to figure out - but I wouldn't say they have had strong executive endorsements for their storage business.

Michael Dell seems pretty committed and speaks knowledgeably about the business. I think he is an exception.

[Shibin Zhang]

"Witness NetApp's recent acquistion of Onaro, just to be relevant in the storage management discussion."

It's a good move. However, I doubt whether they know how to make best use of Onaro.

"Steve Jobs was not all that interested in storage"

Agree. He is interested in fashion and multimedia things, but I noticed he is adding more and more video stuff to his cool boxes.

[Rådgivende ingeniør]

Yeah, because storage is very important to put some important information. That's why our vendor is very serious when it comes for the storage.