Zerowait Corporation

Partnerships and NetApp are an ever changing kaleidoscope of storage characters -So how long can they work with their biggest competitor on joint sales efforts?

Long term commitment has never been a strong point of NetApp, as can be confirmed by looking at the shattered partnerships with Dell, Hitachi, and many of their integrator partners. NetApp’s Brendon Howe now thinks that their partnership with EMC / VMware will be a long term success for their customers. See below

“The partnership will definitely have its sales side. “We see no end in sight for pursuing joint sales opportunities,” said Howe, downplaying the suggestion that this creates an awkward situation with VMware’s parent company and NetApp rival EMC.”

NetApp is usually very protective about its account information, but in this case they are giving EMC all their customer contact information. So it should come as no surprise to see EMC sales growing in the NAS accounts that NetApp introduces to VMware sales reps. I would expect that sooner or later NetApp will have to file for a divorce from VMware to protect it’s accounts.

Looking into a CIO’s crystal ball for guidance may leave him with some questions …. Where will this divorce leave NetApp customers who have a VMware installation? EMC probably won’t support NetApp equipment. I suspect that NetApp won’t support VMware on their platforms after a divorce. Looking at a strategic time frame this may leave a CIO with some concerns in the 3 to 5 year time frame.

Recently some of our customers are asking us to help them with their NetApp VMware support, I think it may have something to do with our long term commitment to customers and their high availability infrastructures.

Bowling with Avatars….

Perhaps this article from the New York Times is on to something ?
“I hadn’t imagined that the omniscient, omnipotent creator of the heavens and earth could be an advanced version of a guy who spends his weekends building model railroads or overseeing video-game worlds like the Sims.”

Because there seems to be a disconnect in the Computer technology business – a disconnect between their customers and the reality of business today. For example, a few months ago NetApp began using avatars ( cartoon characters) – NetApp uses Avatars – to simulate their customer interactions and get a better idea of how to work with customers. We now learn that NetApp’s sales have not been up to par, and they are going to have to cut back on some hiring. Perhaps their cartoon characters misled them? ” Sufferin’ Succotash!

More recently I experienced an epiphany when I learned that another Silicon Valley company views the effectiveness of their partners by their bowling and golf skills. I wonder if they use avatars, too?

Many of our customers have told us over the last few years that they like that when they call Zerowait a person answers the phone and that we really care about our customers. Computer technology helps us all do our jobs better, but just because something is high tech does not mean it is going to help you and your company be more efficient. If you want to provide high availability service to customers you have to understand the customer’s problems and how appropriate technology will solve their issues.

Perhaps someday cartoon characters will be going bowling together to solve our customers thorny high availability network and storage issues. But I don’t think it will be anytime soon!

They don’t call it Silly Con Valley for nothing…

A certain Vendor in Silicon Valley – (Campbell , CA ) announces a VAR conference and they tell resellers that they will pay for hotel and airfare if we come. I sign up for the conference and fulfill all their requirements. We have been resellers of theirs for over a year and it would be good to meet them. So I fly out to California for the Conference. I even flew Southwest to save them money! Then at the conference, they give me a coop-certificate and tell me that they will pay us back for the airfare when we submit this form with our next order. We do that within a week or two of returning to Delaware.

But when we try to get our refund…. we learn that there were unwritten rules, that I was not given.

Hi Mike,

I received your airfare co-op credit information, but according to our records, you did not attend all of the events at the conference and therefore are not eligible for airfare co-op credit. Please let me know if there is a discrepancy.

VendorRep1
Marketing
Vendor Networks, Inc.
————–

From: Mike lxxxxx [mailto:Mike@zxxxxxxx.com]
Sent: Wednesday, August 15, 2007 5:17 AM
To: VendorRep1
Cc: VendorRep2; VendorRep3; VendorRep4
Subject: Re: airfare co-op credit

Good morning VendorRep1:

Are you serious? If you are. I seriously need to reconsider our relationship with your company.

Mike

—————

To: mike@zxxxxxxxt.com ; VendorRep1
Cc: VendorRep2; VendorRep4; VendorRep3
Sent: Wednesday, August 15, 2007 11:14 AM
Subject: RE: airfare co-op credit

Mike,

Our investment in the VAR Partner event is evidence of our commitment to our partners. We ask for an exact level of commitement from our partners in advance of the event. Please let us know if you think we have made an error in our attendance records.

Thanks

VendorRep2
——————–

From: mike lxxxxx [mailto:mike@zxxxxxxx.com]
Sent: Wednesday, August 15, 2007 9:24 AM
To: VendorRep2; VendorRep1
Cc: VendorRep3; VendorRep4; VendorRep5
Subject: Re: airfare co-op credit

Hello VendorRep2:

Since you were sitting behind me at the conference, and VendorRep3, VendorRep4 and various salespeople spoke to me at the reception and at the conference how possibly could I have not been there? Also, I filled out VendorRep5’s survey, further testament to the fact that I was there. You and VendorRep3 may even recall VendorRep4 introducing us and that you said were interested in purchasing our domain of www.techstuffyousell.net which we spoke about at the
reception. VendorRep3 spoke to me at length at the conference about your technology, at one point in our conversation we were told that we were speaking too loudly.

Commitment from partners is a two way street, as I have written you before. We have been turned down at every turn by your company for coop marketing, signage, opportunity registration and mailings.

Does Vendor judge its partners by the amount they drink, and our bowling and golf scores? If that is the case, then I agree with you, Zerowait is not a worthy partner for your company. Our qualifications are more in the realm of selling High Availability networking equipment and storage to customers throughout the USA and Europe.

Which we have been trying to do with your equipment since your conference, against very great resistance from your company.

Finally, since the rebate forms were handed out at the conference how could I have gotten one if I had not been there? I remain absolutely nonplussed.

Regards,

Mike

——————————–

From: VendorRep4
To: mike lxxxxx
Cc: VendorRep1;VendorRep2; VendorRep3
Sent: Wednesday, August 15, 2007 12:55 PM
Subject: RE: airfare co-op credit

Mike, no question you were present during the day. However, presenting information to you as an audience participant is only “one-way”. Engaging in conversation is the “two-way” street we were hoping drive down with you, which is the primary reason we hosted extracurricular activities and expected your attendance. We’re all a bit offended by your reference to us judging partnerships by drinking and bowling/golf scores. Perhaps this is your way of indicating you were in fact not in attendance at the Thursday evening or Friday (pre-paid) events. Again, correct us if we’re wrong.

Also, unless your proposed activities made absolutely no business sense, you would not have been turned down for co-operative funding. We hope you can understand our position. We’re open to a discussion if you would like to continue.

Regards,

VendorRep4

Director of Marketing
Vendor Networks, Inc.

————————

From: “mike lxxxxx”
To: VendorRep4
Cc: VendorRep1;VendorRep2;VendorRep3
Sent: 8/15/2007 10:20 AM
Subject: Re: airfare co-op credit

Hello VendorRep4:

In my extensive conversations with VendorRep3 at the conference and at the reception there was never any mention of a condition put on the rebate for the flight.

Does VendorRep3 recognize that conversing with him does not constitute a “two way discussion” within your definitions because we talked for quite a while and I was asking very specific questions. Also I spoke individually with many of your staff members at the breaks, it must be that only nocturnal conversations are real.

After your conference I was pretty excited, and worked dilligently with my staff to revamp our techstuffyousell.net website to sell your products. Since that meeting we have started an inbox marketing program specifically about your products.

Whatever.

—————-

From: VendorRep2
To: “mike lxxxxx” ; VendorRep4
Cc: VendorRep3;VendorRep4;VendorRep1;VendorRep5
Sent: Wednesday, August 15, 2007 1:31 PM
Subject: RE: airfare co-op credit

This conversation is over.
Your reseller status is revoked

*******************************************************
You just can’t make this stuff up…

If you want to see the complete text without the names redacted – email me.

Disruptive business model from Google coming soon.

Google is now offering bulk storage services, that may be a lot cheaper than buying your hardware and managing it yourselves. Google can probably buy drives at deeper discounts than the largest array manufacturer, so the old Storagenetworks model of outsourcing your secondary and tertiary storage may make sense if Google can drive the prices low enough.

The issue becomes one of whether corporate IT folks trust Google with their data and data security. If they drive the prices low enough, IT folks are going to have a hard time justifying the cost of expensive storage arrays for storing data that nobody looks at. Data security may become the trump card for outsourcing secondary and tertiary storage.

This article is interesting reading if you apply the pricing to the cost of storing and managing TB’s of aging data.

“Google is initially offering four storage plans, starting with six gigabytes for $20/year, and culminating with a whopping 250GB – this is similar to a lot of people’s hard drives – at $500 per year. On the middle ground, there’s 25GB for $75 and 100GB for $250. The space is shared by your GMail account and “Picasa Web“. As more and more people put their high-res digital photos online, and as megapixels go up and people become used to leaving everything in “the cloud”, I’m sure this will be a healthy source of Google revenue.

In that sense, Google is competing now with hosting companies. But if you intend to use Google’s space only for Picasaweb pictures, I humbly suggest you do the maths, as I think hosting companies still have an edge. The hosting provider I use for one of my domains has, for instance, a 110 GB plan – yes that’s gigabytes of storage, and 5TB of data transfer per month – for $5 per month (that translates to $60/year for 110GB vs Google’s 100GB for $250, in other words $0,54/GB vs Google’s $2,50/GB).”

NetApp invests in Qlusters.

I thought this is an interesting development because NetApp, HP, and IBM are all partners of this company that former Dell CEO Kevin Rollins is running. See here

I wonder how much longer it will be before Hitachi and EMC invest? : )

Brocade’s former CEO is going to jail, he focused on personal short term profits, and not long term company value. And he is going to pay the price for it.

I put together some random thoughts on this issue below.

I guess they found one of the witches NetApp’s CEO was talking about here ...

In Silicon Valley the worry is what will happen to the NHL Sharks.
“Reyes conviction could threaten Sharks’ ties
By David Pollak
Mercury News
Article Launched: 08/07/2007 07:24:21 PM PDT
Greg Reyes’s conviction Tuesday could end his role as a major investor with the ownership group that operates the Sharks.

The Storage consumers of the world may be interested in other aspects of this, and how it affects companies that are represented in their data centers….

From the San Jose Mercury –

Another take from Robin Harris –
“This has no impact on the Brocade of today, other than their culture is a direct descendent of the company that Mr. Reyes built. Like EMC, Brocade was a sales-focused culture with a “whatever it takes” mentality. They achieved fast growth for a time but are floundering because they handed their future over to storage OEMs who could care less if Brocade lives or dies. Their strategy is in worse disarray than EMC’s while their core fibre channel business is starting to decline.

I hope they can turn it around, but I’m more than dubious. Most of the world doesn’t need fibre channel and there are better places to buy Ethernet and Infiniband.”

IMHO – When any company’s executive staff is focused on short term personal gain rather then long term shareholder and customer value decisions are going to be made that attempt to lock in customers to a proprietary technology. When dealing with this type of company customers need to understand what the objectives of the executive and majority shareholders are. Investing in technology that will not be supported for the long strategic term will eventually cost customers more money after they are forced to upgrade.

Why independent monitoring & review is so important.

Over the last few weeks a couple of very large companies have embraced our ZHA Exception Reporter monitoring tool. There are a few reasons for this but the primary reason is that these companies realized that NetApp monitors their autosupports with a different perspective than the customer does. NetApp uses Autosupport to help them convince their customers to purchase more equipment or a system upgrade. Zerowait and our customers use ZHA Exception Reporter monitoring to help them get the most ROI out of their current NetApp storage.

Zerowait’s business is the maintenance, management and support of NetApp filers. We do not sell new NetApp equipment – our focus is on the long term support of Filers. Therefore, our business focus is on providing the most ROI from your storage investment. Our independence allows us to help you maintain your equipment for the long term at a very reasonable price.

If you want to learn more about our ZHA Exception Reporter monitoring you can go to this link.

Customers are our best sales people

Last month I was visiting with a customer in California, and he told me how much of a pleasure it is to work with Zerowait. We were having dinner at a very nice restaurant, and the customer went on to tell me that he knew he was not our largest customer, but he felt that he was always given priority service and support whenever he called us about a service issue or about an upgrade. He wanted to tell me how much he appreciated the efforts we put into servicing his account. As the dinner went on he wanted to know where he fit into our account structure. I told him that many of our accounts are Fortune 100 accounts and that several of our accounts are in the 6 figure a year range, and indeed he was a smaller account for Zerowait. I explained that it is just as important to have long term customers as big customers, and we really appreciate his telling his friends and system administrator peers about our company. Most of our business growth has been through referral and recommendation and this organic growth has been very good for us.

As the evening went on he wanted to know how we developed our expanding NetApp monitoring, maintenance and management services. I told him that most of the ideas for the monitoring and maintenance service came from our customers, and that one of our semiconductor customers actually helped us to formalize our services and come up with program names so they would smoothly fall into the customer’s capital and operational budgets. The management programs we developed are based on the needs of a variety of customers who wanted us to manage their upgrades and systems at remote sites. Managing data migrations has become a very big aspect of our service business, and it is growing because people know we do it well.

As dinner wound down he wanted me to make certain that I thanked our engineers when I returned to our offices for all of the help they had provided him. He told me that with Zerowait support, storage is not a problem and the costs of storage growth are quite reasonable. He also told me that he had been talking to a friend of his and they were going to request a quote from us soon. Sure enough the next day my office had a Request for Quote from his friend which we bid on.

Customers really are our best salespeople, and we really appreciate their help!

Now one Appliance can Toast, Griddle and make your Coffee! Buy one today!

Last month I was visiting with a customer who has a considerable investment in his NetApp storage infrastructure. Management of his storage is becoming cumbersome because it has become a general purpose storage appliance. Storage is growing inversely to the staff’s ability to manage their storage resource. All they can do is continue to buy more raw storage and incorporate it into their general purpose volumes.

How many storage administrators are stuck storing everything and anything that is sent their way? Can an appliance do everything well? Of course not! But when storage administrators are forced to run a storage landfill specialization and performance seem to be of tertiary importance. Keeping the line of trash running and making certain there are no leaks is primary .

Jon Toigo speaks often about the need for Storage management, I think the time has come to start paying attention.

In many ways storage has become a landfill, that works good enough for most applications. Specialized appliances for High Availability and High performance storage will be coming soon, because people keep storing their trash with their customer, business & accounting records.

“To err is human. To blame it on somebody else is even more human.” Arthur Bloch

Yesterday one of my readers suggested I read the Blog of Dave Hitz. Dave is a founder of NetApp and has made a lot of money with his ideas and the ability of his staff to create and market his ideas to the world’s storage markets. It is because of his success that Zerowait is a vibrant, growing company servicing the legacy products that his company created but no longer wishes to maintain.

What concerned me was this comment on his blog.

“One of my frustrations with capitalism is that – on average – corporations seem much less interested in doing what’s right than individuals. (Perhaps spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations somehow inhibit moral behavior. Topic for another blog.) “

Dave has the power to change his company’s sales and marketing tactics, after all he is the founder of his company. If he is frustrated he should work to change the company from within. Dave can insist that marketing & Sales presentations are honest, he can and he should. A business’s ethics start at the top and filter down through the ranks.

Long term value in any company depends on integrity as perceived by its customers, vendors and employees. Zerowait provides disaffected NetApp customers with high availability and affordable monitoring, maintenance and management for legacy NetApp equipment. Our customers recognize that we provide the tools to get the most value out of their storage infrastructure with our service and support solutions. Ask our customers, they will tell you !