There's only one defined constant -- time. With time, everything
changes. We don't even see most changes happening unless they're an
"event." And it's easy to miss even a huge change if it takes long
enough to happen. That's what's happening in storage right now.
Events force revolutions. The intellectual rationale for
storage, as well as securing data, isn't new, but current events
force dramatic public changes. Revolutionary change catches both
sides of our world by surprise: vendors who aren't ready to
participate in the new world order, and IT buyers who aren't
educated about the issues and resolutions of that new order. Market
revolution driven by events allows new vendors to grab a slice of
the business and ride to unimaginable heights. Almost every
successful organization can point back to an event, or an
unforeseen break created by an event, that led to its opportunity
to play.
What revolutionary and evolutionary changes are occurring now
that have enabled so many "upstart" storage players to suddenly
become relevant business entities? At no time in the last 40-plus
years in this business has there ever been a more vibrant,
legitimate "alternative" market challenging the incumbent big guys.
There are now billions of dollars being spent by millions of folks
on IT technologies and services provided by companies that most
people have never heard of. That's never happened before.
Some are taking advantage of revolutions -- security/privacy
breaches have legislatures scurrying to write new laws and the
specter of regulatory compliance has been a blessing to many, but
most are riding evolution. The nature of data has changed; it's no
longer transactional. Our industry was built on transactional data
being the only thing that mattered, but that ship -- while still
very much afloat -- is just a small craft on a very big sea. Not
seeing it coming means incumbent power brokers tend to adapt what
they have and force it into the new world order. That might work
for a while, but eventually it goes the way of the dodo.
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IBM was founded by creating the event, the ability to use business
machines to automate previously manual tasks. Its success meant
that buyers -- the businesses that wanted the machines to make
their operations more competitive and profitable -- created the
next series of opportunities, like software, for example. Most
change happens slowly. The very nature of the human buyer is that
once a decision is made, the last thing they want to do is go
against the company they originally bet on to solve their problems.
Being the incumbent is the best thing you can be in business
because it's yours to lose. Customers don't buy the cheaper,
faster, simpler gizmo from the new competitor until they realize:
a) the incumbent can't even get close to the competitive offering
and, more importantly, b) the problem the competitive offering will
solve is approaching event/revolutionary status. No one buys from
another vendor just for sport. Cheaper, faster and simpler is cool,
but it won't get you the deal until the problems associated with
the success of the previous solution -- or an event-driven societal
change such as a new law or regulation -- force consumers to face
the new reality and admit that the way they do things now, with the
vendor they do it with, won't cut the mustard anymore. Evolution
and time have presented us with the next set of problems to be
addressed, which has forced reluctant buyers to look beyond the
easy way into the new world. What they're finding is a lot of cool
companies and cooler products that have been built from the ground
up to face the problems of today in the new world order, and that
"let them eat cake" attitudes from incumbents may lead to another
historical beheading. Stay tuned. This column by
Mr. Duplessie first appeared in
Storage's March 2007 issue.
About the
author:
Steve Duplessie is the founder and senior analyst for the
Enterprise Strategy Group in Milford, Mass.