Good News, Bad News

Observations of late:

Chris Calisi is toast at Overland.  It was long overdue.  Very nice guy, but never understood what the company is (low tech player to volume market) and always wanted to add IP, usually at a silly cost.  The business has been slaughtered over the last year or so, with no end in sight so Chris had to go.  The company is trading just above its cash value, which isn't good for those of you foreign to the world of high finance.  I'm pretty sure I could buy them.  Rick Belluzzo (Quantum/Adic) should go snap them up to help him shore up the low end.  They ship a ton of Rios as iSCSI virtual tape targets and still have a fairly large low-end VAR channel.

EMC's CTO, Jeff Nick, turns out to be brilliant.  You don't know him, because Mr. Tucci and co. have apparently not let him out of the basement.  He was the On Demand CTO guy at IBM prior, and is a way forward thinker - which is probably the real reason he's been locked up!  Selling stuff you have today is the mission, not talking about what the world will look like in 8 years.   I bring it up because for the first time since I've known the mighty E, there is a guy there who really has long eyeballs and isn't focused on what to ship this quarter - and if they let him, he just might lend a whole lot of credibility to the end-game for those folks.  I tried to argue with him for a while, but then realized I completely agreed with where things had to end up in IT (which may really mean he's an idiot).  Don't expect to hear him at the next SNW, but feel good being an EMC customer knowing someone is spending time really looking out beyond their nose.

D-Link (yes, that D-Link) is shipping boat loads of iSTOR based iSCSI RAID boxes, and get this, into the SMB space.  The stuff is cheap, fast as heck, and brain dead to operate.  I like this stuff.

George Symons, arguably one of the nicest gentlemen in the history of the computer business, has left EMC (he was CTO of the Legato stuff) and become the CEO of SMB backup player, Yosemite - which just so happens to be 11 feet from his house.  George is impossible not to like, so I'll be rooting for him.

I have misplaced my orthotics, and get foot cramps at bizarre times - like now.  Got to go.