Trust but Verify week part 2
Partnerships for the common good are great for everyone involved, but long term partnerships require trust and verification. NetApp has a history of making statements supporting strategic relationships with manufacturing and reseller partners. However, they seem to have a problem with keeping relationships for the long term. There are many examples of this over the years, and it is worthy of a discussion with NetApp, whose trail of broken relationships is lengthy, to find out how long they will support their systems and customers. Does NetApp consider its customer sales techniques tactical or strategic? What length of time does NetApp consider to be strategic?
Question 1)
A) How long did the Dell / NetApp relationship last?
B) What happened to cause the Dell /NetApp relationship to fall apart?
C) What was NetApp’s strategic support strategy for the customers with the Dell branded filers?
D) How does the current Dell/EMC relationship affect NetApp’s long term market penetration?
E) Did anything NetApp do cause Dell to begin a relationship with EMC?
Question 2)
A) How long did the Hitachi / NetApp relationship last?
B) What happened to cause the Hitachi/NetApp relationship to fall apart?
C) What is NetApp’s strategic support strategy for the customers with the Hitachi branded filers?
D) How does the current Blue Arc/Hitachi realtionship affect NetApp’s long term market penetration?
E) Did anything NetApp do cause Hitachi to begin a relationship with Blue Arc?
Question 3)
A) Based on past experience how long can customers expect the IBM / NetApp relationship to last?
B) What will be the support strategy for customers if the IBM/NetApp relationship to falls apart C) What volume of IBM sales will transfer IBM sales from the Incremental sales volumes referred to by NetApp management to respectable sales volumes?
C) What is IBM’s strategic support strategy for the customers with NetApp product sold through IBM’s channels if the relationship falls apart?
