And he (Gilder) absolutely pans fibre channel as a "short term solution."
I read the piece, too. What I don't understand is how Gilder connects the success or failure of fc with the success or failure of NAS. NTAP's architecture for clustered systems uses fc. When a new storage network architecture is born, NTAP will have no problem in delivering new product incorporating the new stuff. This is because NTAP does not develop custom hardware. Their software can use industry standard interface code or a slimmed down derivative to support whatever the new architecture makes sense.
So, I believe, fc is a media that is agnostic with respect to the battle between SAN and NAS.
Again, with ASPX I was just wondering if there were anything "salvageable." If the best people have left, I guess not. I see rapidly declining sales - not a good sign in a business which is growing by 50%+ a year.
You said it all. My Gorilla and Kings investment style certainly has no room for investing in a "salvage" operation. I doubt venture capitalists are interested either.
also, I would be interested in input from all the NTAP faithful - any there any other companies on the horizon, such as cache flow and inktomi, which pose a serious threat to ntap's dominance? if so, in what area - storage or cache? .
The web caching industry, which is not the same as the SAN/NAS industries, will remain extremely competitive for the foreseeable future. There is no dominant player and there is plenty of room for innovation. I do not expect a King nor a Gorilla to emerge from this market tornado. NTAP does not "dominate" this market. NTAP dominates the NAS market and caching competitors pose no threat to NTAP in the NAS market. Interestingly, no other caching competitor offers NAS. The strength that NTAP has is that it can host its very scalable caching software on the NetApp filer, creating a very fast, simple, reliable caching appliance. No one else does this.
emc is in a different area of storage - this i have learned from one of you. and sun does general server stuff, not appliance serving - am i correct?
You are correct, but you probably realize that Sun is NTAP's biggest competitor for storage systems, as the battle in the NAS market is to replace traditional storage systems provided by Sun to its server customers. NTAP's job is a missionary one, first educating the potential customer about the benefits of NAS versus Sun's non-appliance, server centric offerings.
EMC and NTAP, I am sure you know, are colliding in their lower and higher scale margins, respectively. There is a wonderous battle brewing there, but don't that battle scare you away from either company. There is plenty of business to go around and they will both continue to do well in their current Kingdoms.
what about e-mail serving? in one of the executive interviews "e-mail" was mentioned as having huge potential for specialized serving.
E-mail serving is a special application for filers. There are some technical nuanses in e-mail/server protocol that NTAP has had to work closely with e-mail software engineers to overcome. The result is that NTAP has recently become an excellent e-mail filer. I have not noticed NTAP touting this fact very loudly, so that market niche has not expanded as fast as many thought.
OTOH, NTAP made some special considerations in its software to support News serving early in NTAP's history. Many ISPs by NTAP filers to serve News.
And not having a technical background in computing or engineering or electronics ( i'm an english major) this is no easy task. I did receive NTAP's annual report this past weekend. Very impressive - and I found it interesting that cacheing is projected to play a more central role in the company's future. Surpassing storage in a few years.
Fortunately, caching does not have to be a huge success at NTAP in order for NTAP to continue to be a huge success in the NAS market.
I would be interested in anyone's take on inktomi. i hear so much about this company (and have profited nicely from them). how do they match up against NTAP? (I hope not well since I've sold all my INKT stock). .
INKT is making major changes to its caching software to meet the challenge of NTAP superior software engineering. INKT and Cache Flow are among the gang fighting for web caching. I will not invest in that market, as I do anticipate a dominant player to emerge any time within the next few years. That's just my investment style. You could probably continue to make good money here, but don't confuse NTAP's success in NAS with the battle in cache.
thanks in advance and I appreciate all the excellent posters in this community. I'm in for the long haul - many blessings to all!
tensforme, great questions. Glad you're here. Please study NTAP's great web site:
netapp.com
BTW, we are, as the TA's say, in uncharted territory with NTAP's price right now. Be prepared for a wild ride in both directions. I advise you now to decide whether you believe in NTAP's management, strategies, and growth potential enough to hang on in a serious dip. If you are not clear about your strategy with this stock, you are liable to sell low on a dip and buy high on a bounce. And watch those stop limit orders. Somehow "the market" has a tendancy to shake out those week hands on volatile stocks like NTAP. Funny how that happens.
As for me, I am holding on even if we dip back to where we were 2 month's ago or much, much futher. In a year or two the upcoming dips won't be noticed, in my opinion.
Disclaimer: I am long on NTAP with an average share price well below any foreseeable dip.
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