The Biggar Picture: The Business Optimization Blog

If you think about it, life is really just an infinite string of “firsts.” Some are simply more monumental – and long-lasting – than others.

Consider the evolution of the vacuum. The very first powered vacuum cleaner, I recently learned from a Snapple “Real Facts” bottle cap, was so large that it was brought to a house by horse. The year was 1901; the inventor, Hubert Cecil Booth. Since then, we’ve witnessed – in no apparent order - the birth of the upright, the canister, the wet vac, the dry vac, and most recently, the bag-less pivot-ball vacuum. Again, all are “firsts” in their own right – but some are clearly more significant than others.

In the IT world, the number of “firsts” or proclaimed “firsts” are too many to count, and despite what vendors may say, few are as monumental as the invention of the first PC; the discovery of MS-DOS, the first operating system for the IBM PC; or, heck, the first iPhone, which arguably has revolutionized the cell or mobile phone industry at least for now. In the world of storage and storage-related technologies, the number of firsts is likewise numerous – and in some cases more contentious among vendors than many other industries: the first SAN technology, the first NAS product, the first helical scan and linear tape drives, the first virtualization capability (storage, server or otherwise), the first disk-based backup product (hardware, software, or other), the first replication software, the first de-dupe technology, and the list goes on.

For the past 13 years, I’ve watched and covered many of these IT “firsts” from my vantage point as an editor, an analyst and now as a solutions marketer for Hitachi, and what I’ve learned is that while “firsts” are indeed important, the companies that have the greatest successes are those that understand the bigger picture (pun intended!). Inventing the first “you-fill-in-the-blank” widget is important – but understanding the role of this widget in the market near- and long-term is equally, if not more, important. I’ve seen many “firsts” go the way of the dinosaur because the companies responsible for them didn’t take the time stop and listen to what users, the field, analyst/researchers and, yes, other companies had to say.

At Hitachi Data Systems, we don’t live in a vacuum. Solutions have been area of intense focus for awhile now. During this time, we have celebrated a number of important “firsts,” but more importantly, we have laid the foundation for a Solutions business that will resonate with users for years to come.

We’ve launched this blog to provide an interactive forum for discussing issues all things Solutions-related with the intent of helping organizations optimize their IT environments for tomorrow’s business demands. (Another industry first, I believe!)

Let’s chat!