Last week I was visiting customers in Delaware. Some of them have been customers and friends for well over a decade. I met with folks from a university, a big colo provider, and a large computer services company. All three organizations have large storage infrastructures which include NetApp equipment and just about every other storage vendor.
One customer is building out their Wilmington data center and they were talking about how Zerowait helps them control their NetApp support and hardware costs. Another customer has a substantial NetApp infrastructure and will be working with Zerowait on adding a lot of storage over the next few months in their data centers. Zerowait is picking up more and more customers who are looking strategically at their storage investments and trying to get more value out of them. To an increasing number of members of the NetApp user community, Zerowait is the preferred answer to sky high NetApp support and upgrade costs.
A couple of our customers mentioned that there seems to be a dichotomy in NetApp between the Filers and the E series and they were unsure how the two lines complement each other. The systems don’t share an operating system and seem to have very different pricing and value propositions. Just like the E Series equipment that NetApp sells our SimplStor product line does not share the OnTap operating system, but SimplStor is an affordable, highly reliable platform that is flexible and gaining traction. Customers are interested in using our SimplStor for tape replacement and also are looking into FC applications for SimplStor. In 2012 we grew strongly in the Energy sector and the Film and VFX business.
When the conversations turned to Zerowait’s prospects and growth expectations for 2013 and beyond, I explained that we are building out our Texas location and also have adapted our business model to the Australian marketplace very successfully. Zerowait is preparing for growth this year as more of NetApp’s customers embrace our solutions to provide them affordable additional storage and extended service cycles for their existing NetApp storage investments. Each of the customers I met with last week recognized that Zerowait fills a unique and growing market niche, and they all expect to do more business with us over the next few years.
It is always fun to catch up with old friends.