My Aperi Take

Read it here.  Last night I spoke with the remaining Aperi consortium folks - Cisco, Netapp, Emulex, CA, Novell, McData, etc. and was relieved to find that they were right on message.  The announcement today will show that Aperi is all about supporting SNIA standards - and even goes so far to as to say SNIA will be the certification ground for proving Aperi code.  I still don't understand the issue around the Eclipse licensing model, other than it does state that if you take and use, you must give back.

The bottom line on all of this hubbub is that there are still tons of vendors in this space that either make money, or hope to make money selling lower level device management as a value, instead of creating value at a higher level.  It is inevitable that that is where things will go, but along the way folks want to get their fare share of the dollars involved, and hey, who can blame them?  To participate in Aperi does not require you to give up code - only that if you use the open source and modify it, you make those modifications available.  That seems to be where the heartburn lies.

So will Aperi sprout wings and come to the aid of the unwashed storage masses (and I use the term literally!), or will it go the way of the dodo like so many who have come before?  Success can only be guaranteed by doing the things that for some reason are the hardest to do - build real code, that has real value to real IT people, and give a truckload of it away.  If that happens, all the naysayers will suddenly find Aperi religion - because they either have too or they will miss the customer bus heading to the bank.

Man, This Blog Is The Kiss Of Death

First I tell everyone how good Rich Napolitano is, and 8 minutes later, he's gone.  Now I say how much I like James Whitemore, and yes, he's history.  Watch out, or i'll put your name in this blog.....

Sun Part 2

A gazillion of you read this article I put out on Sun two weeks ago.  Thought I'd share whats gone on since.

First, it turns out I'm completely right - about everything I wrote, mind you.  Second, I was contacted by several big wigs - present and former - who not only confirmed my opinion, but were happy to shed light on some soon to announced developments.

It seems that some of the folks over at Sun have some brains, and some ability to recognize that doing things the same way ain't gonna cut the mustard.  I was highly encouraged to hear that I should expect some big shifts in strategy, a focus around making money, and at least the recognition that the way the company is organized and structured it will never be truly functional.  Plus, it appears they will once again hit their numbers - which is the only real sign that matters real time - everything else, as screwed up as it can be, doesn't materialize to the outside world for months and months - but revenue is an immediate indicative.

So that's the good news.  I was sort of hoping Mr. Schwartz or Mr. Yen would give me a shout, but neither did.  I got a bunch of calls from folks in the sales force - from around the globe.  I knew some of them, so I was sure they weren't lying.  The ones I didn't know shared some of their gripes, but overall recognized that at least the sales force is far more functional than it has been in years - and that they are hitting their numbers and even some blowing past them, booking wise.  They are very confident in the operations end of the company being able to deliver everything, but what do you expect when you only started forecasting six months ago!!!

I'm still a James Whitemore fan - he's the Marketing dude for Storage - but unlike many is not a transplanted engineer.  He was a sales guy.  He's drank the cool aid for sure, but at least he's a realistic cult member - he knows that there are plenty of things to fix - but he believes that they have so much positive momentum with Galaxy and the revenues, and that this "bumpy" point in time gives the company a chance to clean up its act - and it will.

So, it's all overblown?  Sun is going to stomp on everyones head?  Probably not, at least for a while.  Why do I think that?  If you read my article (or blog, I don't remember which), you read my illustration of Sun's ineptitude - Analyst Relations.  So, while the big shots (or some of them), and the sales folks, and even a few operating people, got a hold of me to confirm my suspicions but remained mostly optimistic, guess what the AR folks did?  They waited a few days, then called up to make sure we knew that they weren't going to renew their ESG contract (for a whopping $25 grand).  While my brain told me that would happen, the romantic in me held out hope that they would look at my constructive criticism in a better light - and react appropriately.  But alas, predictability is the enemy.

So now that Sun needs folks like mine more than ever, one dysfunctional arm of the beast will do their best to keep that from happening.  They seem to be like antibodies.  I'm hoping one of the intelligent folks will figure out a way to navigate around their internal "ministry of intelligence blocking" so that we can help them out, but we'll see.  I'd even do it for free for a few of those guys, they are friends.  Plus, the worlds more interesting with folks like Sun in it.

You know how I'm always harping at IT people for doing things the same way simply because "that's the way we've always done it"?  This is no different.  Making backup tapes of the same exact file 11,000 times is not what anyones idea of "intelligent" would be - but it's just the way we do it.  Eventually, those IT folks will stop doing things like that.  Instead they will re-evaluate what works and what doesn't - and shoot the things that don't. 

In that respect Sun is it's own worst enemy.  EMC and Netapp aren't really overly interested in fighting each other - why should they when it's much easier for them both to steal from the likes of Sun?  We all seem to agree that the Sun install base and the Sun technologies are enormous advantages - so if all they did was concentrate on the broken pieces, and dumped the "because that's how we've always done it" mentality in certain areas, there is no reason they can't live up to their potential.

So there - I've said it.  A company that was just dumb enough to kill a relationship with the likes of me, who couldn't need the likes of me any more, still has me as a hopeful fan.  I must be getting soft in my old age.

P.S. you wanna know whats really dumb about killing my contract?  Imagine the potential damage I could do to Sun from a PR perspective if I was so inclined?  Not for nothing, but I have a big mouth, and I like to use it.  The risk/reward for that move was downright stupid - unless you believe that they knew that both my personal integrity and the integrity of all ESG'ers was so far above reproach that we'd never let that interfere with our honest, professional judgment.  The good news is it's true, but good lord, they didn't know that!  Next time some clown wants to accuse me of selling my opinion, they can put this in thier pipe and smoke it.

P.S.S. Rich Napolitano left 8 minutes after I wrote my article. I'm nothing without bad timing.  Rich was a semi-nuts agent of change, who was/is violently passionate about things he believes in, and that is what makes him great.  There is no way Sun, or really anyone else, wouldn't miss him.  I'll let you know where he lands when he does.  Tim Lie to, Rich's partner in crime in running N.A. sales has been elevated and will take Rich's role over.  Tim is as good a guy as you can hope for.  If Tim has anything to say about anything, he'll help stop the stupidity.

Think Of Virtualization Like A Mutual Fund

John McKnight gave me this analogy, and I can't be happier about it.  It really helps people understand what this "virtualization" thing is all about.

You used to pick stocks.  You watched them perform, you bought and sold based on that performance, and you always tried to optimize the outcome.  You most likely also did this as a self-created part-time job, since you probably were paid to do something else.  Regardless, you did it - and it was almost feasible when you had a few stocks to watch, but once you had dozens or hundreds or thousands, it becomes an exercise in futility.

Most people with real jobs don't do that as much anymore.  They buy mutual funds.  They can create objectives for their overall performance requirements and have a single view into the fund in order to make macro decisions.  People don't have to worry about watching all 100 stocks in the fund - because someone else does it - with the help of automation.  In our virtual view, we really just judge the fund manager.  We don't look at the individual components (stocks), we view it holistically.  Imagine if every time the fund manager wanted to make a change - for all the right reasons, they had to call us and ask us permission.  How inefficient that would be.  What if every time a change was made to one stock, it kept me the individual from performing my job until that change was complete?  That would get you fired I think.

Infrastructure virtualization is the mutual fund.  Instead of stocks think about file servers or block devices.  There are tons of them out there, each one managed individually.  How inefficient.  By virtualizing the file and/or block world, we can put a portal up to the user.  When we need to move their data from one box to another (for good reason or bad) - today we stop them from doing their job.  By creating an abstraction layer the user doesn't need to be affected when we make the move - just like when we sold or bought an individual stock within our mutual fund - we don't know it.  All we care about is that we are up, we can work, and the performance is acceptable.  The IT manager (or the fund manager) is judged on the overall availability and performance of the holistic shop - not one box, just like we wouldn't judge the fund manager on the performance of one stock.

Applying technology behind the scenes to automate processes in order to optimize the overall performance and economic return on the fund is not different than trying to do the same for the IT infrastructure.  Keeping the moves from affecting the productivity of the "user" is always a good idea.  Fund managers use computers to track the individual stock assets and apply intelligence to make decisions on them - i.e. if the price hits X then sell, Y then buy, etc. - all within the holistic portfolio's mission.  This is like ILM for a mutual fund.  In our world, once we obviated the need to screw up the individual users life by micro managing infrastructure, wouldn't it be great if we applied automated intelligence to that infrastructure behind the scenes?  Our policy might be "if a file gets hit X number of times in this time frame, move it from A to B or replicate it to D - and once it cools off, put it back" or "if we haven't accessed this file for Y period, move it from expensive asset 1 to cheapo asset 4".  You get the point.

Perhaps the biggest thing to take out of this train of thought is that it is inevitable.  There were lots of people who made a fortune on Wall St. doing things "the old fashioned way" who fought the advancement of technology.  They lost.  You can still design a car by hand, but no one does.  You can still not use electronic banking, but why?  Would you use an accountant that didn't use a computer today?  Change scares people, but change for efficiency improvements cannot be stopped.

It would be foolish continue to do things the same way in IT even if we weren't adding new stuff constantly.  IT Infrastructure Virtualization will happen because it must happen.  Sure, there will be some folks left behind, clinging to their abacus's, but that's the price of progress.

Virtualization Services

Here's my latest in CW.

Sun: Death or Glory?

McNealy's out, Schwartz is in.  In the first two weeks, he cans Mark Canepa and puts a long timer Sun guy into the Storage spot.  A week or so later, they announce they are canning 4000-5000 people.  Are these signs of an impending turnaround - or a delayed partial reaction in a death march?

The Considerations:

Death:
I have no issue with canning Canepa.  I really like him personally, but lets face facts, the Sun storage business is no less screwed up now than it was years ago.  Mark had some darn good ideas, but my take is that he simply wasn't strong enough to cut through a culture of bullshit socialism.  Getting hard decisions made and executed on is the Sun storage business's ongoing issue - it ain't about technology.  Then, even if you were able to get the storage practice in line, you still have to face the fact that the rest of the company isn't going to help you - and will actually hurt you if they can.

For example, Kathleen Holmgren, a 400 year veteran at Sun, started the storage practice.  She was told by a very, very senior mucky muck that no self-respecting engineer would ever work for the storage group - i.e. all the talent would be in Solaris or Sparc.  With that kind of support, this group was destined to fail.

Now, there are more talented, intelligent "Storage" people at Sun then at any time in the company's history.  The problem is getting someone to listen to them. 

Sun storage will never be a true player until a leader, with Schwartz's direct blessing (mandate, really) cleans house in a big way.  No sacred cows.  They, in essence, need to able to run autonomously - hell, they have their own sales force now via STK. Compared with the other systems/storage players, Sun has been, and remains behind.  HP's storage business has been run like that for years.  IBM's is more integrated for sure, but Monshaw has the place humming - and has the absolute blessing from the big cheese.  The difference?  Money.  HP has always (almost) made money in storage.  It's harder to tell with IBM, but I do know this - Monshaw runs that group as a business - not a social experiment.  His business line managers know every penny they cost and every penny they make.  After spending a zillion dollars for many years trying to play for real in the NAS business with no success at all, one of the first things  Monshaw did was ask "why"?  It wasn't strategic from a development perspective, but it was from a customer fulfillment perspective - so why keep sinking huge money into a losing R&D effort?  Instead he cut a deal with the guys who own the market, Netapp, and let them pay for the R&D.  IBM owns more customers and has more reach than Netapp ever will, so why not?  Plus, both IBM and Netapp hate EMC, and this was a way they could join forces against a common enemy. I love the decision making criteria and action - and that's an example of what's been missing at Sun.

Laying off 4000-5000 people is a start.  Wall St. expected them to announce 10,000 - so the already smashed stock took another beating.  Don't get me wrong - no one should manage their company based on what Wall St. thinks, but there is some logic to this concern.  For some reason when computer companies get into the "old, boring, long in the tooth" stage, and don't make the right moves to correct things - they tend to die slowly and painfully.  One sure sign of this is the big layoff - that is 50% too small.  DEC, DG, WANG, PRIME - all did it this way.  It sucks for morale and doesn't make getting back on track any easier.  There will be another 4000 resumes on the street - and those tend to be the best folks you have.  It's always better (but seldom done) to make the tough cuts once.  If they announce another RIF in six months, it's over.  Mr. Hurd at HP isn't the most popular guy with the 20 year veterans, but he is with the outside world.  Mr. Tucci canned a ton of folks the day EMC reported record revenues and profits.  Popular?  Perhaps not - but absolutely smart.

GLORY:
Schwartz could be right.  Yen could be the right guy for storage (though history tells me he is not, simply because of his pedigree - I haven't met either man personally).  5000 could be the right number.  Let's assume that is all true.  What Sun needs to do is fairly simple.

Get the layoffs done asap.  Try your best to make sure you can the right people.  You will lose good talent no matter what you do, but you should absolutely try your damnedest to keep the ones you know are good on board.

Immediately instill a "new sheriff in town" mentality - this is the perfect opportunity for Mr. Schwartz and Mr. Yen to clean up shop - change the rules, and inject a whole new cultural philosophy into the place - "We Make Money".  We don't care about doing projects for the sport of it.  We don't care about why you couldn't get something done on time.  You will be accountable.  A large proportion of your pay will be based on your success and the success of your group.  If the guy next to you sucks - it will cost you money - so do something about it.  Read the article in Business Week on HP CIO Randy Mott, who Hurd dragged in from Walmart.  I don't know if it will work or not - but what it should tell you is that "change" is not slow - if it is to be effective.  Radical differences are what is required when you have been on a slowly sinking ship for a long time - cosmetic changes may make you feel good, but the boat is still going down.

There has been new blood injected into the Sun mucky muck ranks.  Rich Napolitano is a nut that runs North America - but he's an ass kicking nut that doesn't care about the old way of doing things.  His chief lieutenant, Tim Lieto, is one of the smartest operating guys you'll ever meet.  They inherited some excellent sales talent, then bought some more with STK.  They have slowly been weaning the "friends and family" from the force over the last year, and stuffing it with killers - the kind you need to take on EMC or anybody else.  You would be mortified to find out that some of the absolute basic, management 101 things were not in place (like sales forecasting).  How do you run a business without a sales forecast?  You don't.  That's not running a business, that's guessing.  Simple changes can yield big results.  Forget everything you know and think - start with a clean slate.  What you "were" doing doesn't work anymore. 

There are processes and procedures that all have to be evaluated and challenged.  For example, in my world the interface to all these mucky mucks is typically through what companies call "Analyst Relations".  Sun's AR group is the most dysfunctional in the IT business.  As a business person, I would view the role of AR as a means to maintain relationships with the "influencers" (i.e. big mouths like me that say things in the Wall St. journal) and to be a centralized conduit of information flow.  Good AR folks make sure that they know as much about their products and services as their product managers do.  They don't bullshit me.  Good ones know that Brian Babineau, Tony Asaro and other ESG'ers are brilliant people (and there probably are a few others outside of ESG, somewhere) - and make sure they are in constant communication with the executives inside their own companies so that they can leverage their brains.  Bad ones get in the way.  Bad ones cost a company money, goodwill, and put an awful face on your company.  They don't have their priorities even remotely aligned with the business - in bad ones it tends to be all about fiefdoms.  If you can be that screwed up in AR, how am I to believe that things that really matter aren't just a screwed up?  I can't.  If a process is broken, fix it.  Letting it perpetuate never does any good.  Ever.

Surprisingly to no one, the companies that are fairing the best happen to have the best AR groups.  EMC, Netapp, IBM, etc. have really, really sharp people that know the game cold - and do an amazing job getting value from goofball analysts or consultants and injecting it into their company.  They "make money" for their company.  What a concept.  Because of that, the executives inside those companies know who they want to spend time with - and who's a waste of their time.  It's all about the return on investment - in this case, time. 

That example is just an indicative of just how much has to change inside Sun.  Everything should be challenged.  "Because that's the way we've always done it" is not a valid argument for IT users - nor should it be for a business.  If you want to beat EMC, start by doing what they do - then try to do it better.  You'll won't win a deal against their sales stud by sending in a clown - even if the clown has the best stuff in his pocket.

Challenge everything - find the 100 real business brains out there - and figure out how to extract value from the - whether they are employees or not.

Sun is stuffed to the gills with technology.  That's never been their problem (remember, however, it was never DEC's problem either).  The application of those technologies into what customers will buy is the issue.  Just because McNealy fought Microsoft and Intel does not mean Schwartz has too.  I'm not advocating killing R&D (quite the contrary - I love the idea of putting an O.S. and processors at the storage layer - making real game changing moves that take advantage of your strengths) - but how much money has Sun made on Java, or smart cards, or whatever?  Give the customer what they want.  Solve business problems, not gadget issues.  Apple already did that - but imagine if they gave away IPOD's instead of making a mint on them..

Sun has the biggest footprint of any of the Unix guys - and the customers they have are the ones you want.  They are the big shops who spend the big dough.  If they can simply concentrate on keeping them happy and delivering more products and services into those accounts, they will be just fine.

Run the company like its a business.  Radical I know, but the time is now.  Make money.  Cut costs.  In that order - DG was brilliant in the way it cut costs by firing people constantly.  I think Ron Skates idea was that if there were no people left, boy would they be profitable!  Making money means selling things first - so you may have to invest in more, better, people even while you are shooting others.  You don't make money with the current mix - so you need to shift the priorities.

For storage specifically, you need to have Yen, or whoever, take the new Schwartz cultural directives I just talked about - to extremes.  Identify 100 people in the business - inside and mostly outside of Sun - that you would build your empire with.  100 rock stars in every discipline - from engineering to sales - and go get them.  Nothing changes perception faster than bringing in people that everyone in the industry knows are studs.  It shows you are serious - and serious players like to play on serious teams.  You have to go way overboard most likely, to get around the current perception which is that Sun is where a storage guy goes to die.

Take your 8 smartest people, sit in a room, and figure out a 12 month product plan - based exclusively on what the customers needs/wants and what you can sell and support.  Forget who makes what.  Immediately give the customer what they want - keep yourself alive, and then you have the opportunity to roll in the next great piece of software or hardware.  I don't care how great the product you have in development is going to be - if you lose the customer in the meantime, you won't be able to sell it to them later.

Fire an untouchable.  No sacred cows.  It sends the right message.  Tucci moved Moshe out (inventor and king of Symmetrix) - and they didn't get any more untouchable than Moshe.  All the sudden Clariion was able to bloom and now it's a huge part of their success.

If you do all that - which granted is much easier to write about than to do -you can not only turn this around, but you can be back kicking butt.  You have the hardest part nailed - you have the customer.  It takes a year to change perception.  Hurd took over in April - and you certainly remember what the world thought of HP in March.  BW writer Peter Burrows hated HP - for all the right reasons - and when you read that article you'd think he was Herd's cousin.  Now  HP is rocking - customers are buying and Wall St. is drooling again.  People have short attention spans.  I hate Roger Clemens - unless of course he decided to come back to the Red Sox.  Then I love him and forgive all past sins.  That's the way we operate.

People ride a winner.  Success breeds success.  Give me something to cling too - and I'll cling.  Show me you care.  Stop telling us we're idiots for not believing, and start putting up numbers.  I'm city hall - fighting me is fruitless.

My Bet:  I'm an optimist.  It can be done.  It should be done.  I hope it is done.  Look for radical changes - that will be the sign.