This is surely a boom time for storage partners. Considering developments over past one week in the storage segment, I have a strong feeling that partners will actually have to roll up their sleeves, not in search of business, but to select options. Even AMC contracts will be worth their while in this segment.
News about Netapp acquiring Data Domain, and EMC signing a definitive agreement to buy Configuresoft carried by enterprise portals are already making waves in the community. Top those with announcements by Fujitsu and Hitachi add icing to the cake.
Fujitsu, early this week, introduced its third-generation x10sure solution which lowers the barriers holding small and medium-sized businesses back from exploiting price-performance benefits of server virtualization – without risking the domino effect of multiple virtual machine crashes due to the failure of a single physical host.
Furthering its commitment to enterprise-class storage innovation, Hitachi Data Systems Corporation, announced the Hitachi High Availability Manager, the industry’s first open systems storage array clustering technology that delivers 100 percent accessibility of business-critical data assets and offers customers future-proofing of their storage investments over time.
The company claims that customers can maximize the investment return and protection of their storage assets and save money. With five years of storage virtualization innovation, customers worldwide continue to invest and rely on Hitachi to curb their most pressing efficiency and data protection pain points, essentially in times of the current global slowdown.
Partner sentiment in such times cannot be low. A couple of storage partners I spoke to were pretty upbeat. “Wow these are good days. We certainly look forward to doing more business, developing alliances, acquiring customers and partners. The past few months have been very tough.”
I guess many of the partners will reflect this sentiment. But again as usual, there is no statement or communiqu from any company to the partner community. As of today, they are lost on what the future holds, what to position where, etc And despite this, they are not gloomy..
The reason? Most storage partners working with EMC and Netapp are already doing well. These two acquisitions just fit in the missing links making the product offering a wholesome one. The partners are aware that the business strategy will be unveiled sooner than later, road-maps will be laid out. And till then.
And so till the next weekend…