The Big Question
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To me, The Big Question is: Will NetApp be able to crack the big data center accounts?
In my corner of the IT world:
1) The internal so-called "Center of Excellence" for the "our" (beg pardon for the corporate "we") preferred hardware vendors barely know what a "filer" is.
2) Even if they did, they wouldn't be interested in an NetApp solution, because "their" vendor would have their own to sell. (i.e. folks knowing Sun hardware would be advocates of Sun filers, because they identify with Sun.
3)EMC, for better or worse, is already on the inside. System administrators love EMC! In their world, it comes down to a) support (EMC is great) and b) fear of the unknown (who the heck is "NetApp", anyway?).
IMO, NetApp is absolutely making the right moves, by offering data management solutions. It's frustrating, however, to see how slowly the powers-that-be are to recognize and embrace new, better solutions.
What EMC began, and what needs to continue to its logical endpoint, is that data storage and data storage management must be viewed as both logically and physically separate from the devices using the information they store.
We're not there, yet.
To the plus, it makes me happy to think of the vast, untapped markets still available to NetApp.
Still long NTAP (but also long EMC),
Steve |
