Karma Follow Up
by Pete Gerr on August 25, 2010
Yesterday I posted a blog that caused quite a bit of chatter in the industry. This blog has since been removed in an effort to get back to the facts and summarize the key points that I meant to get across about XIV:
1) From my perspective, though XIV was positioned as the “next big thing” both to the industry and as a replacement for IBM’s aging DS8000 series, 2 years after the acquisition XIV has become neither the “next big thing” nor has it fixed any of the myriad problems within IBM’s storage portfolio.
2) The acquisition of XIV, rather than unifying the IBM product portfolio and the IBM storage organization, caused or contributed to the emergence and growth of a rift between the XIV teams and the IBM teams across engineering, sales, and marketing teams. I think it’s easy to blame IBM management for not “fixing” this problem but personally I think that explanation is short-sighted.
3) And most of all, if, as I suspect, some or all of this is accurate, it’s a shame. It’s a shame because XIV, which I personally think was over-hyped, and isn’t in the same class as a USP or even our AMS, held a lot of promise for IBM to help resurrect its storage portfolio. It’s also a shame for those in this industry who were maybe looking for the “next big thing” in storage technology to emerge and thought XIV might be it. (I think) They were wrong.
Comments (5 )
Adrian on 03 Sep 2010 at 2:41 pm
I absolutely agree with you. Of course is not in the same class, and god forbid even close to an AMS… The thing is, it’s in a class above! Thanks for pointing that out.
Paul Rosham on 08 Sep 2010 at 11:24 pm
Gee, Pete – what criteria do you use to determine what the next big thing is?
Also, what of the “myriad problems within IBM’s portfolio” did XIV need to fix, and how do you know it hasn’t fixed them? Given your position in HDS, aren’t you affected somewhat by a conflict of interest?
I’m a happy XIV Sales person, and get on really well with my fellow IBMers in all of my sales opportunities – in fact I am run off my feet (Phew!)
Again, your viewpoint on what is or isn’t comparable to your own products is subjective and biased – get some customer quotes! I think you’ll find that they have a better way of judging the quality and effectiveness of the various storage products.
Pete Gerr on 09 Sep 2010 at 4:20 am
Hi Paul, and thanks for reading and responding; the great thing is we’re all entitled to our opinion and perspective; I hope this is a venue for debate and discussion, which is what we’re doing now (so the system is working) 
.
Of course my perspective is biased towards HDS, as yours is towards IBM/XIV. However, I think if you’ll read more than just this single blog post, you’ll see my range of interests is very broad from consumer products, to the value of information, to disruptive technologies and business models. My perspective comes from my nearly 15-year career in this industry, having worked for a variety of vendors and having spent almost 5 years as an analyst when over 100 of the vendors in this industry were my clients. Again, thanks for reading and hope you’ll continue to.
All the best,
Pete
Hugh Wason on 29 Sep 2010 at 2:07 am
Pete, You’re off the mark, on so many points, a comprehensive response is a waste of time as those, with reasonable industry knowledge will have no difficulty in discarding these views as having little association with facts. A 15 year career in the industry? Is this the best you can dish up… as an analyst? Your insight into IBM, their products and the XIV ‘Team’ relationship with the IBM ‘Team’ + assessment of the XIV technology indicates a bias to discredit rather than acknowledge… Clarion was hardly an innovative product when EMC acquired Data General; your experience during this era seems to have left you embittered…
Pete Gerr on 29 Sep 2010 at 2:26 pm
Hello Hugh,
Thanks for taking the time to respond, though it would be helpful if you provided some facts to support your statements. Additionally, it would also behoove you to state where you work, as I know your employer has some strict and obvious guidelines around social media transparency and interaction.
During my 4+ years as an analyst IBM was a client of mine and I saw firsthand the state of their storage hardware and software portfolios and roadmaps in context of all other vendors – my opinions at that time were fairly consistent with what they are now regarding IBM’s portfolio when taken in total. As far as my bias is concerned, I currently work for HDS and so I’d say I am biased towards HDS, as I would suggest you are, in favor of IBM.
