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So it gets better.......(NTAP to acquire CommVault?)
I don't plan on making this a rumor mill blog, but this one's pretty good. StreetInsider.com and other financial sites are speculating that if EMC wins the battle for Data Domain (how could they not?), NTAP will go after CommVault.
Now THAT's an interesting move that has a wild chance at success! (In case you couldn't tell, that was written with a lot of sarcasm).
If I were CommVault folks, I'd be worried right about now. NTAP has a great track record of buying software companies and turning them into, well, bought companies. Topio went away, Spinnaker is nowhere to really be seen outside of a roadmap slide that shows the same 'Coming Soon' graphic quarter after quarter, the Decru product seems to show up less and less every time I cross paths with NTAP -- are you detecting a theme here?
NTAP does some things very well. They should be rightly credited with driving the unified storage market to the point it is at today, pushing the thinking of the marketplace to places many didn't think it would go. They have proven that 'good enough' in many situations is really good enough, and unified storage platforms can effectively solve many storage needs in the middle and upper middle marketplace.
They also do some things not so well. They don't utilize space on the array very efficiently. Their implementation of Fibre Channel is a little less performant than I'd like it to be at scale. Their track record of acquiring at least moderately successful software companies and turning them into a game-changing feature or product line is, well, less than stellar. They tend to get a little too testy when someone questions their technical methodologies. Nothing horrific. They aren't a bad company, and their technology is good, just not as good as others, in my opinion.
To me, this acquisition just doesn't make sense. NTAP doesn't have a history of being able to sell software effectively. Bringing a company like CommVault into the fold will take superior execution and understanding that the model for selling software can be quite different than that of selling hardware. It took EMC several tries to grasp this, and it almost didn't work out very well for them (and in some cases it could be debated that they grasped it in time. Legato, anyone?).
How do you go from all but acquiring another hardware player that seems a perfect fit to a forced software buy? You're not going to take CommVault and integrate it into the filers like you could the DD code. Even if they could make it work, it would suck down so much performance on the array you'd have to buy FOUR of them to get anything accomplished in your environment. Do you buy them and just leave them alone, letting them do their thing but add to the bottom line? Maybe, but that doesn't really seem to gain them much. Or do you swallow them up hoping it makes you more attractive to HP and they then gobble you both up to replace their anemic and ailing EVA line and obtain a modern backup product? That doesn't seem to be 'in your face' enough for Donatelli to do, but it might just be enough of a poke in Tucci's eye to do it. It would certainly stir the pot up a little more, and would make some rational sense. It seems more likely to me that HP will pursue heavy R & D in the LeftHand product and try to turn some of that 'Invent' power loose to turn the storage world upside down.
What a weird day this turned out to be.
4 comments
My normal thoughts on the matter are that if you consider what Tucci is doing as begging, you have a very curious view of things. I've not read one legitimate commentary on this little competition between NTAP and EMC as begging by either side. It's good free market competition for a nice little company.
Furthermore, this battle is so far from over, it is barely just getting started. You seem to forget the fact that EMC has more cash and fluid investment available to them than NTAP's entire market cap. That is a pretty good pool of resource to draw from to draw this out. I'm not privvy to any information that says Tucci and the EMC Board will draw it out, obviously, but it sure seems to me that it is in their favor to sow more confusion and delay in the marketplace, and they can.
I hope that if EMC does win the battle, you'll be courageous enough to come back and post a nice comment on just how wrong you were. I'll sure be posting congrats to NTAP on the victory if they pull it off.
On another note, I'm also not sure why an anonymous person who doesn't post their name would think it appropriate or necessary to be insulting in their comment. I believe in robust debate, but I don't have to post abuse, and there's your one and only strike. If you should decide to post again, do so politely, and your comments will be posted. If not, they will be deleted. Thanks for honoring the rules!
http://blogs.netapp.com/jay/2009/06/deduplicating-customer-choice.html
What's your take?
I'm not surprised that they would make the claim. It's actually a good chess move, and one that is frequently deployed against the top vendors in their given space.
I don't think it's going to fly, for a couple of reasons. First, the de-dupe space has new competitors and new combinations of old competitors popping up seemingly every day (did you see CommVault and Dell's earth-shattering announcement today? Get this, you can buy CommVault software with Dell hardware; color me shocked :-]). This space is so new and so ripe for differing approaches that this acquisition really doesn't hurt competition. In fact, it might bolster it, since NTAP already has a target de-dupe product built into their array anyway.
The second reason I don't think it will fly is that the way you can look at the market is so widely varied. There is no one way to do de-dupe. There are new ways cropping up that could completely destroy the current market structure for the technology. It's been awhile since I've looked at anti-trust definitions, but there are threshholds that must be met beyond just market coverage, and the rules are pretty strict.
It's a good question to raise by the NTAP guys, for sure. I think it is a legitimate question, but not a legitimate barrier to stopping the deal, and EMC has a great legal team who understands these issues very well, and they are well equipped to answer any questions raised by the Feds. It may delay closure, though, and as long as that happens, it means NTAP has a chance to launch another round of offensive strikes.
Either way, for me as an architect, it makes talking about these issues much easier because more people are being educated on the technology. THAT, I love.
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