Fri 6 Aug 2010
From time to time as a favor to friends, I will contribute as guest blogger. So let me direct your attention to this Guest Blog on Countdown.2.Storage Expo. Rose Ross, who also attended the BDEvent, asked me to provide a write up on the one session that she missed, which was the one that I co-chaired with Mike Miracle. For reference and completeness, here’s Rose’s very-excellent post on the rest of the event.
Rose has been a friend for many years, so, of course, I said, yes. For those of you who don’t know her, Rose is an accomplished PR professional, who carries many titles, including:
It seems I’m not the only one who is a Rose fan. I see on her bio that she is the 2005 winner of the Toigo Award for Best Storage PR Professional. For those that are looking for PR support in Europe, take a look at Omarketing, and for those looking to expand a European channel, take a look at Launchpad Europe.
And under the FTC’s Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising, which focus on “Testimonial Advertisements, Bloggers, and Celebrity Endorsements,” let me assure you that I am not paid by, nor do I receive commissions or referral fees from Launchpad Europe or Omarketing.
Oh, yes, the next BDEvent will be held at the Sheraton in Palo Alto, CA, on January 25 – 27, 2011.
Sat 26 Jun 2010
After we got past our initial reactions to the “Man up and buy them,” comment from George Crump, at theBDevent last week, we got down to some practical discussions about how to make OEM agreements work for both parties. One of the big items that comes up in negotiations is the Source Code Escrow Agreement. The party that wants to make use of some element of software, the OEM-In, wants to ensure access to the source code from the supplier, the OEM-Out, under a variety of scenarios, including defaults by the OEM-Out.
Of course, since the source code represents the crown jewels of the OEM-Out, they will typically do whatever possible to limit the conditions under which the OEM-In gets access to the source code. The OEM-In, on the other hand, wants the broadest possible range of triggers for access to the source code. (more…)
Tue 22 Jun 2010
The most provocative statement I heard at The BD Event in Boston last week came from George Crump, when he said, “OEM agreements don’t work. If a company wants the technology, they should man up and buy it.” Mike Miracle and I chaired the Business Development Roundtable discussion where George made his comment, and I have to say, it sparked a lively debate.
Although I make my living largely by helping companies establish strategic partnerships, including OEM agreements, I thought it would be helpful to list some reasons why potential partners would say “No” to an OEM agreement. (more…)
Wed 17 Jun 2009
Many startups are using free, online survey tools. Today I helped StorageVirtualAppliance develop a survey targeted at users of VMware and other virtual-server solutions. The survey was developed using FreeOnlineSurveys, similar to Survey Monkey, with which I was more familiar.
As I was working with StorageVirtualAppliance, I was reminded of some rules in survey design.
1) Know the purpose of the survey: Lead Generation, Evangelization and Market Awareness, Actionable Information for Product Marketing, Actionable Information for Product Management
2) Think about how you will categorize and summarize the data. Open-ended questions may provide great color commentary or quotable statements, but in large volume are difficult to categorize and summarize.
3) Have an incentive for those that take the time to complete the survey. The incentive could be as simple and inexpensive as a summary of the results, it could be an opportunity to be entered into a prize drawing, or it could be a small cash award.
In addition to helping with the survey, I also offered to help get the survey out to a broader set of participants. So, if you know any IT professionals, please send them to this blog and have them click on this survey link.
Thanks in advance. Participants could win a copy of Eco-Tech Warrior, Greg Schultz’, new book, The Green and Virtual Data Center.
Wed 6 May 2009
One of the sessions I attended at the New England Area VMware User Group meeting in Newport, Rhode Island last week included a discussion on how to take the internal storage of a VMware ESX host and turn it into a virtualized iSCSI storage appliance. I happen to believe that the approach has great merit for many smaller IT shops and for remote office environments. The internal storage of an ESX server, if totally useable and accessible to the ESX host and other ESX servers on the network, is probably the cheapest storage you will ever buy. What I found particularly interesting about this session, however, was the fact that the presenter downplayed the approach as good enough to experiment with the storage virtualization software, but not good enough to run production applications. In order to encourage companies to try the software, the developer offers a free 30-day trial, the expiration of which then renders the server unuseable, unless you purchase a permanent license. While I believe the company has good software, I don’t understand the approach to the market. (more…)
Wed 6 May 2009
I attended the New England Area VMware User Group meeting in Newport, Rhode Island last week. It was a great opportunity to see what challenges IT managers are facing, what solutions they are adopting, and what problems remain to be solved. It was also a good opportunity for me to revisit what I learned many years ago in studying the research of Clayton Christensen and his concept of Disruptive Innovation. Two of my clients have what I consider disruptive technologies. I’ll write about Tek-Tools in this post, and then cover StorMagic in a subsequent post.
Tek-Tools offers the Profiler Suite of monitoring, reporting, and forecasting tools for servers, storage, applications, files, and, yes, VMware. Why is it disruptive? Tek-Tools’ Profiler is easy to install, easy to afford, and easy to use, and it’s “good enough” for the bulk of today’s customers. It does not overshoot current market requirements. It gives quick answers to important questions like: How much storage do I have installed? How fast is it growing? How much is allocated? How much is used? When will I need more storage? Where is my performance bottleneck? How old is my data? Who is violating data retention policies? Which virtual machines are using which storage? Which virtual machines are no longer in use? Which physical machines could I consolidate onto a VMware ESX host, without encountering performance issues? Where is my orphaned storage? (That’s a technical term that means I deleted the virtual machine, but forgot to return the allocated storage to the storage pool.)
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Thu 19 Feb 2009
One of the things we used to discuss, when I was running the storage research practice at IDC, was “When will a market disappear and just become a feature of some larger market?” Examples are numerous. Remember when there was a market for browser software? And, while NetApp is going strong, both Microsoft and Sun Microsystems are trying to make NAS a feature of the operating system.
One of the reasons I joined the board of StorMagic was that I saw the potential for the company to be a market disruptor. Today, StorMagic announced SvSAN software, which, when installed on a VMware ESX server, converts the internal storage of the ESX server into an iSCSI SAN. VMware leverages the fact that most single applications don’t need all the computing power of today’s servers. SvSAN leverages that same fact to provide the storage management function within the ESX server, and also takes advantage of the fact that the internal storage capacity of an ESX server, perhaps the least expensive storage you will ever purchase, is more than enough capacity for a large number of VMware ESX server-hosted applications. (more…)
Tags: ESG, ESX, IDC, iSCSI, Microsoft, NetApp, SAN, StorMagic, Sun Microsystems, SvSAN, VMware
Tue 17 Feb 2009
Posted by jtmcarthur under Leasing, Startups
No Comments
It’s a tired truism that a rising tide raises all ships. And a rising market rewards both the creative and the rote practitioners. In years past, it didn’t take a financial wizard to take out an HP12C, calculate a lease-rate factor, bundle up a package of leases and sell them to GE, BankofAmerica, or Key Bank. Selling off leases enabled the equipment or software provider to recognize a sale, while still allowing customers to spread payments over the useful life of the acquired asset.
Times have changed, and just when everyone should have a lease offering and most thoughtful customers want one, so they can preserve cash on their balance sheet, the big guys that traditionally bought up the bulk of leases have gone packing. So where do you sell off your lease paper now?
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Tue 17 Feb 2009
I’ve memorized most of the screenplay for Rob Reiner’s 1987 film, The Princess Bride. Why? Because it’s funny? Yes. But more importantly, because at least once a day, there’s a line from the screenplay that fits perfectly with the situation I’m confronting. Here’s a line I always recall when facing the seemingly insurmountable challenge:
My brains, his steel, and your strength against sixty men, and you think a little head jiggle is supposed to make me happy? I mean, if we only had a wheelbarrow, that would be something.
Today, I updated my suggested reading list to include Dave Hitz’ recent book, How to Castrate a Bull. In the book, Dave chronicles his life and the life of NetApp, the company he co-founded. And just like The Princess Bride, I find myself quoting from the book frequently.
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