Summary
With this acquisition, EMC made a giant step to own a key technology today seen as a fundamental component in IT for effective data management with an immediate impact on cost. But, this move introduces some doubt and uncertainty for end-users and partners due to several dedup techniques available in EMC portfolio already.
Analysis
EMC customers and partners trust their vendor but have also many doubt when EMC did such deal. In fact, as we all saw, EMC react to NetApp proposal and then won the deal, EMC was not at the origin. We can understand the strategic aspect of this merge for EMC, it makes sense for many various reason as it does for NetApp or even a few others vendors such servers or storage ones. Now the situation could be seen a little bit fuzzy as EMC already has several key deduplication technologies in its catalog coming from acquisitions - Avamar for remote backup with source deduplication acquired for 165M$ in 2006 - , now Data Domain and things coming from Quantum and FalconStor. Hum, a lot of products, not so easy to deal with, to motivate channels and arbitrate and above all to potentially merge in a clear product line. EMCÂ announces that Data Domain is maintained as separate department as they did for VMware so they secure the existing channel estblished by the acquired company. This entity is driven by Frank Slootman, the former CEO of Data Domain.
Key takeways are:
- EMC has choice between source and target dedup with leading market product and can easily answer all end-users challenges.
- EMC maintains Data Domain as a separate group and establish a key department dedicated to next generation data protection solutions with backup and archive.
- The effect is immediate: EMC is the clear dedup leader vendor, the situation won't be easy for NetApp and even others except IBMÂ with Diligent.
This author consults with leading institutions through GLG
Analyses are solely the work of the authors and have not been edited or endorsed by GLG.
