Raymond, do you follow/what's your take on storage? Similar in some minds to fiber optics (ie., "even if capex budgets cut, spending will continue to grow in storage en masse", say the bulls). Another similarity: Venture funds threw gobs of money at storage in the past couple years (although how many those got out the door, IPO?)...
Like other techs, storage still overvalued, but I believe storage IS the "last to go" now in capex budgets....doesn't mean it won't go...just that its the last! If anything deserves some premium in the valuation, could it be these guys? EMC and NTAP seem to be the big plays here- they are running roughshod over the competition....the smaller switch guys, like BRCD, are totally uninteresting, I think, because they make almost everything in comparison look cheap (even though they dominate their markets)..
Can companies really delay implementing this stuff (very long) if their data is growing geometrically, or do you see this as just more PR fluff, and that storage is subject to same gravitation forces as fiber optics, PCs, etc? Regardless of the real implications, the quote Ruettgers likes to use is mind-boggling: "More information to be created in next 3 years than in the last 40 thousand"... |
