Who cares about Data Domain's customers?

Introducing Handlebar Cam - in honor of the TDF.

Chris Fricke commented here, wondering what's in store for existing DDUP customers.  Good question Chris, who gives a rip about you?  Would it matter if you had EMC gear already, as opposed to being a card carrying EqualLogic customer?  If you have anything to say about what happens to customers, let fly!

Comments

[Storagezilla]

We're obviously one movie away from rocket strappedtomybackrollerskatesonmyfeetcam. ;-)

Due to the fact the deal hasn't closed and someone keeps shooting me with tranq darts anytime I move to hit publish on a Data Domain focused blog post I can only point to what's previously been stated by Joe.

I get that right now that isn't enough information for customers. EMC knows it's not.

When the deal closes and that should occur within the next two weeks, EMC will communicate with Data Domain customers and partners.

[marc farley]

That would be an acme brand back-strapped roller skates rocket?

[Bill]

@Storagezilla:

I don't think the question is "Does EMC care about the customers" as much as it is "Where has the discussion been about what is best for customers?"

Across most of the financial and many of the storage blogs, the question came down to "what is best for DDUP shareholders" or "what is best for DDUP employees". As a corporation, of course that's the bottom line, nobody is arguing with that.

But what was lost in the equation was what might be better for the existing customers! Will EMC treat them like Data General customers after that acquisition. My recollection from that time period was that they'd go meet the customer, introduce themselves as the new Sales Management, and say "now that EMC backs this product, we're raising the price by 30%. Have a nice day".

EMC is a lot smarter now than they were then, I give them credit for that. But it will be interesting to see how they deal with this new acquisition.

[Chris Fricke]

I recently read something somewhere that said EMC had stated that they would likely leave the company alone. I don't think that's possible, really, but we'll have to see. I do know that EMC has always been very proud of their products (and they looooove licensing features) and every time price alone has kept them out of our datacenter (except for VMWare but that's a different story). Data Domain is already a "premium" product in this space but I was willing to go for it because of how their design fit into our existing infrastructure. I'd hate to have EMC come in and raise the bar even higher. In fact I'd suggest to EMC that if they want to absolutely dominate the target dedupe market they'll lower costs by 30% across the board and make up for it in the long haul. Pretty please?

[Geoff Mitchell]

Firstly, thanks for sparing us a below the waist shot of you in cycling Spandex.

Now, as for the DDUP customers, I think most customers will play a wait and see game with EMC - actions will always speak louder than words.
EMC's biggest hurdle, I think, will be to maintain the critical life force of engineering, sales and consulting talent in DDUP. The company has built a team of very talented individuals by skimming the best from EMC, Dell, Equallogic and NetApp, as well as a spattering of backup software uber-geeks.
They've paid the sales force a premium for premium quotas and attainment and the engineering teams have been given the R&D muscle to design products in a timely manner that customers have desired.

Will the critical mass stay, or will they look elsewhere for their future employment?
Things that make you go hmmm...

[Steven Schwartz - The SAN Technologist]

They (EMC) did a great job keeping VMware separate, however I think the DDUP acquisition will be more about adding deduplication functionality into the storage portfolio, so I'd be shocked if there is a very swift integration.

At the end of the day, customers will see changes, how major they will be is always tbd. I know Data Domain has gone through major growth changes in order to go and stay public, but they are NO EMC! I imagine the sales team should be worried, and account control, channel programs, etc. will be some of the hardest initial areas that get changed.