Zerowait Corporation

Creating a global strategy one customer at a time.

Over the last few years it has become clear that our business grows mostly by reference and referral. NetApp customers, like all technology consumers, need to get all the value out of their equipment that they can over the long run. NetApp’s sales force and technical sales engineers are evangelizing their new products to customers to sell product and make their quarterly numbers. Zerowait provides an independent, long term view which helps customers evaluate their current and future storage purchases strategically. Since Zerowait is an independent service and support business we can help customers evaluate their storage growth in light of their equipments specifications and work with hem to tweak their systems to get the most out of them.

Sometimes we speak to NetApp customers and they don’t understand what we do. Imagine that! 😉 Zerowait provides independent monitoring, maintenance and system management to customers of NetApp equipment. Through our monitoring services we can provide insights on how to maximize your storage systems usage, and we also provide advanced parts replacement at a price much lower than the OEM. Our maintenance services include system upgrades, drive swaps and storage migrations and tuning. Our management services include everything from helping customers specify their new equipment to managing our customers storage infrastructures.

Zerowait provides the complete range of services to NetApp customers who are looking for an independent view on managing their storage investment. NetApp makes great hardware and software, Zerowait helps you get the most out of your IT investment over the long term.

Many years ago when we were a succesful reseller and RSP for NetApp we introduced a large brokerage firm and mutual fund company to NetApp’s technology. We made an appointment with the NetApp folks in Sunnyvale and the District Representative from the DC area met us in Sunnyvale at the new NetApp buildings & conference center. The CTO from the company we were introducing to the new technology wanted a strategic partner, and at the time NetApp was the new kid on the block. So after the meetings in California, it still took many months of missionary sales work to show the customer that NAS was a really good way to go for his storage, and Zerowait was going to be around for a long time supporting the equipment.

As time went by the customer was getting more interested in trying and buying the equipment and as it was a very big customer, we had a bunch of mutual meetings with the customer and our engineers and some NetApp folks.

As the deal got very close to closing, NetApp decided that we could not sell in that area anymore and took the customer direct. This customer is now one of NetApp’s largest eastern customers and NetApp gives them very good service and from what I understand astonishingly good price discounts.

Like so many other customers we introduced to the technology they fell in love with NetApp’s simplicity, but as time has gone by this cusotmer, like so many others, is wondering if there may be a way of extending their product life cycles beyond what the vendor sales force requires to keep their sales numbers up.

And so we are chatting with them again, 6 years isn’t so long in the life of a growing business.

NetApp’s former partner Dell is going to ‘Clobber pricey NetApp’

It looks like Dell is about to try to get even with NetApp for past transgressions.

Dell: ‘We’ll clobber pricey NetApp with new iSCSI kit’
By Austin Modine in San Francisco
28 Jun 2007 02:30

“Some of our competitors are making cheaper storage devices, but they’re not more capable,” said Asthana. “They won’t do it because they don’t want to cannibalize their upper tier storage.”

I wonder how long is a strategic timeframe in these companies’ minds? This is from 1998…

WHEREAS, the parties wish to form a strategic alliance whereby Dell will
have the following rights on the terms and under the conditions set forth in
this Agreement: (i) to purchase and distribute on an OEM basis certain NetApp
filer products (pursuant to which OEM arrangement Dell would add to NetApp’s
filer products an exterior casing of Dell’s design, Dell brand markings, disk
drives (mass storage), memory (other than base memory) and NIC cards; (ii) to
have NetApp port NetApp’s filer operating system and related software for
operation on Dell manufactured platforms and to distribute such Dell platforms
with such ported NetApp’s filer operating system and related software; and (iii)
to manufacture filer products based on NetApp’s hardware designs and
incorporating existing (i.e., non-ported) NetApp filer operating system and
related software.

Has Looney Tunes moved to Java Drive in Silly Con Valley?

Yesterday evening I was discussing NetApp’s cartoon customer characterizations with a couple of our mutual customers. We provide monitoring, maintenance and management of these customers filers after they buy them from NetApp. What really pissed these folks off was the way NetApp is taking away Command Line Interface, and then boasting about it, as an idea concocted by their cartoon characters. I had missed this when I read the article yesterday, because I was laughing so hard, but the engineer pointed it our to me while we were drinking a beer at Iron Hill Brewery.

Personas have led to replacing of the command line interface for the products (which required programming skills) to a ‘drag-n-drop’ one, so even a user who does not understand the nuances of the products can use it, he says.
I wonder if the NetApp product manager that come up with this is named “bullwinkle’ and has a degree from ‘Whatsamtta U’ ?

I know that our engineers think that taking away NetApp’s CLI seems like a pretty boneheaded idea . We think our storage customers are pretty smart folks, which is why we talk to them and visit them as often as we can. Customers want the most value they can get for their storage dollar. Can a company as large as NetApp really be this out of touch with its customers?

Which cartoon character came up with the idea of handicapping their new FAS2020 with only 1TB of memory?

You just can’t make this stuff up!

NetApp – whatever happened to simple maintenance, management and cost control?

Many of our NetApp service and support customers come to us because they have heard from coworkers and peers that Zerowait can help them control their maintenance costs, and then they learn about our remote management and other services that can help them control their out of control maintenance and upgrade costs for their NetApp equipment.

Recently, I heard from a customer in NYC that their NetApp SE was strongly suggesting they upgrade to a newer system. As I asked some questions I found out that their current hardware was not maxed out in anyway and could easily handle more, users, disks, and shelves. The customer learned that the SE was truly a Sales Engineer. Sales is the first word in that title, and they are not looking out for the customer’s long term interest, but instead NetApp SE’s are trying to sell you more equipment to boost their personal bonuses.

Can a vendor’s Sales Engineer ever put the customer first? It is an interesting question that needs to be asked. I think the answer is that an independent maintenance organization is the only way for a NetApp customer to get the most value in performance and long term usage out of his equipment. NetApp sells boxes and software, not efficiency.

Instead of asking customers what is in the customers interest and building products for them, NetApp has embarked on building Avatars of their perfect customers, so that they can build perfect products for them.

One way of developing better products is by tuning into clients’ data management woes, understanding requirements, and shaping products to reflect needs. However, the knowledge that after-sales and marketing folks get from the field does not always permeate to the engineers/developers.

And that is why the company created Mike Raja and Joe and four other personas. Joe could be a DBA (database administrator)/Chief Information Officer/any other user of NetApp’s data management products.

“This is a new approach that we are trying. Innovation is important and these personas for users of our products help continually innovate,” Louis H. Selincourt, Vice-President, SMAI & Offshore Operations, told eWorld over lunch at the company’s headquarters in Sunnyvale, California, recently.

The idea came from the book, “The Lunatics Are Running The Asylum” penned by Alan Cooper, whose company makes software more user-friendly.

“Personas create a consistent ID of our users, so we can discuss them across the company while brainstorming,” says Selincourt.

So now NetApp has created cartoon characters to act as their perfect customers… You just can’t make this stuff up!

At Zerowait we listen to real customers, and their real problems, and provide real solutions. We invest our research and development funds in creating better ways to help our customers, while NetApp is investing in cartoon characters to help their customers.

Testimony in the Brocade options scandal brings to light a rather interesting perspective by Silicon Valley Corporate management.

On the third day of the trial that began this week, a witness told the jury that Reyes told her during a private conversation that the back-dating of stock options in order to increase their value was “not illegal if you don’t get caught,” according to reports.

Nevertheless a conviction of Reyes may encourage the DoJ to make some more examples of Silicon Valley chiefs. At least a few will be watching this trial with more than a little concern.

It is worth reading the whole article, but clearly there was something funny going on. It certainly doesn’t look like the management had the long term interests of their customers, investors, or employees in mind. Are these statements representative of how the management was trying to build the company, or just on how they were trying to cash in quickly for themselves?

What happened to selling the ‘Magic’ of NetApp? It seems they are resorting to competing only on price now. Somehow – I don’t think NetApp can compete in the commodity storage business, they have a high cost support and maintenance model.Their sales strategy seems broken, it looks like they are fighting for the high margin business with EMC , and also fighting for the low margin business now with companies that are built to sell commodity priced equipment. Salesman go where the commission dollars are. Low margin typically means low commission. And saleman always work harder for a good commission.

“The mid-tier has a need for packages with everything bundled, including disaster recovery, backup and recovery, and repositioning,” Chalaka said. “A lot of competitors are starting to offer this. We have been offering it ala cart, but it’s been complex for resellers. Also, our prices have been higher than the competition’s.”

The bundles represent a list price drop for NetApp of between 16 percent and 47 percent from their original prices, bringing the bundle prices to 10 percent to 20 percent below the competition, Chalaka said.

Can a company used to high margin sales and expensive technical support compete in the commodity storage business? Most companies are not succesful when they try to drastically switch their sales model. Maybe CDW can sell a bunch of storevaults at a low margin and NetApp can make it up on volume? Companies have tried this tactic in the past.

Only time will tell.

“To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.” George Orwell .
If you think your data is important and a corporate asset, defending your network is as important as the security of your storage.

However the firewall folks and anti spam folks don’t seem to be working with the data storage encryption folks, I wonder why that is? Instead of creating a secure unified network and storage infrastructure we seem to be creating environments made up of a hodgepodge of different solutions that have not been tested together. Every company tries to put together a solution based on marketing information and sales presentations that neglect to mention that each vendor has their own security patches that you have to purchase and update regularly. Every implementation ends up unique because no two networks have the same releases of software on all of their defensive hardware and software. And no one has ever tested all of the releases in your situation before.

The DoD is increasing its budget and still they admit they are insecure….

The U.S. Department of Defense has noted the increasing number of hackers trying, and succeeding, to get into military networks. This sort of thing has been going on since the 1980s, when a gang of West German hackers, hired by the Soviet secret police (KGB) were caught inside Department of Defense networks, stealing classified data. But in the last few years, the hacker activity has accelerated. Currently, Department of Defense networks get probed six million times a day. Since last year there has been a 46 percent increase in attacks on Department of Defense web sites. There has been 28 percent more email based attacks. These are increasingly targeted at specific types of military users, or even individuals. There were more than twice as many attempts to insert viruses, worms and Trojan horse software on military systems. The attackers are looking for information, or secret control of, or at least access, to military systems. Some of the attacks have been massive and well organized. There have been at least four of these major attacks in the last year, hitting targets like the National Defense University, the Naval War College and Fort Hood. Each of these cost $20-30 million to clean up after.

What can a business do to defend itself? What business has the budget of the Defense department? Network Security, Data Security, with limited resources you are vulnerable to atttack, and with almost unlimited resources the DoD is still vulnerable to attack. So what vulnerability do you try to solve today with your available resources?

Recognizing Vendor Lock in and how to avoid it.

Whether you supply information technology, or merely use it, you will benefit from understanding, classifying and measuring switching costs. The “friction-free” economy is a fiction; look for more lock-in, not less, as the information age progresses. Hal Varian 1998

It looks like NetApp is taking lessons from Hal Varian’s playbook-
During the last earnings conference call, Network Appliance’s Chief Executive Dan Warmenhoven said the company is seeing software subscriptions grow and become a larger portion of total revenue. Software subscriptions can “embed the company with customers for years” and provide recurring revenue to boost cash flow, he said.

Click here for a great powerpoint by Hal Varian on Lock in

Data Points that may mean something:

1) One of our NetApp support customers wrote me this week that he can get a FAS3020 head with 3 years support from NetApp for $30,000.00 with ISCSI and NFS licenses. I found that interesting. Searching the internet the best GSA price I see is:
132-8
FAS3020HA-BNDL2-R5
FAS3020HA CFO,ISCSI,CIFS,NFS,SRESTORE,R5
$35,905.00

2) I learned this weekend that the NetApp FAS3020 will be End Of Lifed (EOL) by the end of the year.

3) I have heard that the new FAS2020 has only 1 Gig of memory. That is odd, why not put more memory on the system NetApp?

4) I also heard good things about Equallogic last week, sounds like NetApp is keeping an eye on them, especially in the PACS area. Maybe the healthcare industry is waking up to the fact that a Seagate drive is pretty reliable and NetApp charges too much for them?