In this blog I look beyond the obvious and try to find out why people and companies do what they do - and what it means for the rest of us. 
Another one bites the dust. Â 3Par has joined the BBQ. Â David Scott in a line dance. Â Yee Haw!
Why did they do it? Â Two reasons – 1. Â 3Par was the only legit truly high-end competitor at the ranks of Symmetrix and USP and Shark. Â If you wanna be in the storage business, you need to be in the storage business. Â 2. Â HP would have bought them if Dell didn’t.
Why did they pay so much? Â See #2 above. Â There were others in the deal.
Is EMC going to be pissed off? They won’t be thrilled but they won’t exactly be pissed either. Â 80% of the Dell/EMC business is the CX120, AX, NS (NAS) and Data Domain stuff – none of which has any overlap at all with 3Par. Â EMC will be pissed when Dell starts winning deals at the high-end, but they are already pissed when 3Par wins them, so net/net – they will be just as pissed as always. Â No new pissing, at least for a while.
What will HP do now? Â I don’t know. Â I believe they need a high-end solution (that they own) and I’m not sure where they get it now. Â They do have the capabilities to develop their own internally, but that will take time. Â They can continue with HDS (or OEM from Dell!) for a while but one must think that this can only be a temporary sub-optimal play. Â They are a big machine, however, and have been doing just fine for a long time so I don’t think there will be any panic maneuvers.
What about IBM? Â Status quo. Â IBM has really interesting mid-market stuff its about to unleash and this won’t derail any of that.
What about NAS at Dell? Â They bought Exanet, a failed Israeli company, and will most likely integrate that file system into EqualLogic – and maybe now even 3Par. Â It will take 12-18 months, however, so in the meantime they will either do business as usual (NS from EMC) or perhaps make a move. Â I think they should buy Isilon – the effective file equivalent of EqualLogic, but they got expensive recently (funny what happens when you hit your numbers consistently!).
Summary: Â Good for 3Par. Â Super nice folk, great technology, great products. Â David Scott is a gentleman above all, and has big company experience (HP). Â He’s as cheap as the day is long, so he’ll fit right in at Dell!
Ballsy move, and if it works the way EqualLogic has (fast approaching $1B in sales), it will be a home run.
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“EMC will be pissed when Dell starts winning deals at the high-end”
Dell will win a lot more than 3PAR ever did. Dell will also encroach on existing Dell/EMC customers. If Dell is smart, the start pushing the F200/400 into some of the smaller deals. EMC won’t drop Dell because they are pissed so Dell might as well go for the direct business.
“IBM has really interesting mid-market stuff”
Actual IBM gear or LSI stuff?
Re; IBM, it’s IBM stuff. And it sounds way cool.
The only Good Storage at IBM is the “XIV” Storage System. It’s Good and Fast.
It does have a Scalability issue ….
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Steve Duplessie, Scott Hanson, andrewgilman, gregorydwhite, Daniel and others. Daniel said: RT @stevedupe: [New Blog Post] Dell Buys 3Par – Everything You Need To Know: http://ping.fm/BaYsM [...]
[...] in a way the little guys weren’t capable of. Dell’s billion-dollar acquisition of 3Par reportedly headed off a similar offer from HP, and will likely spark another acquisition. I imagine the management teams at Compellent and [...]
[...] on Hitachi to provide the hardware and some software for its high end XP arrays. Supposedly HP was in the bidding for 3PAR as well, but likely could not move quickly enough with other short-term priorities on its [...]
What about LOLefthand?
Not following. Are you mocking HP/Lefthand? I like that play personally.
Yes Lefthand. I’ve never personally seen a mid to large deployment of it for SMB but cost/TB or per rack unit is in the tank by design of using commodity computers. It’s great for HP’s model selling a lot of remote management (iLO, insight manager, openview) which boxed SAN/NAS all come with. There’s too many other storage vendors out there who do more (functionality), cheaper, smaller, cooler, less power consumption, rack units.. Pizza box design and pricing models are made to pack CPU, and since virtualization has gotten its teeth in the game, RAM per rack unit and lets storage vendors worry about TB/rack unit. Designing hardware with massive internal storage is good for 2 people: Fixed needs ie. DB and Lefthand. Putting and paying for an internal bus architecture, cpu’s and RAM for a storage ‘node’ is waste. It has always been a quirky product and for them to push it as hard as they do leaves customers with an impression that they’re not to be taken seriously. You sell all this world class hardware and software for infrastructure management and this is your storage solution? More servers? HP as of late hasn’t been hasty on pulling the trigger on purchases and played the game fairly safe in my humble personal opinion. They know and support what they sell safely across the board and integrate. Dell doesn’t. Conclusion: If HP buys Isilon I will be a happy man. Why don’t people say “dell bought 3par? Big deal (no pun intended) HP has Lefthand”
[...] sales in a way the little guys weren’t capable of. Dell’s billion-dollar acquisition of 3Par reportedly headed off a similar offer from HP, and will likely spark another acquisition. I imagine the management teams at Compellent and [...]