>>If the first sentence is true, then why do so many want to make this out to be an EMC v. NTAP showdown? I don't really believe that statement to be true,
though. EMC, going down-market, and NTAP, going up-market, are bound to collide. The platforms that they attach to are irrelevant. EMC's customer
base very definitely includes Solaris and NT buyers. The difference in their markets is in how the two devices are used, not who is buying them.<<
Have you read "The Innovator's Dilemma?" I'm only partway into it, but one of the observations seems to be that it is much easier for an "upstart" technology to move upmarket than for the established technology to move downmarket.
>>You sound like you or someone you know has
"experienced the EMC effect." Their sales guys don't budge an inch, and their engineers budge even less. That's smart business, but it doesn't help out
the visionary customer very much.<<
Is it really smart business to thwart the visionary customers? Christensen argues that refusal/inability to meet this kind of emerging need is exactly the problem.
>>My view of the market is that NAS filers are an
excellent choice for low-volume storage, and EMC (and IBM, Hitachi, et al) are the right choice for high-volume storage. The split probably occurs today
around the 10TB (that's a SWAG, based on end-user conversations) delineation between low- and high-volume data. Again, IMHO, it's the management of
this data that will define the market more than architecture. <<
Once upon a time, 20MB was a shockingly huge hard drive for a PC. Now, 10 GB is routine. If I were an EMC shareholder (I'm not), I would worry about "low-end" systems being able to handle larger and larger amounts of data, thereby squeezing the "high-end" market.
Katherine |
