Equallogic and Dell

Recently Dell bought Equallogic an iSCSI vendor. This is a very interesting opportunity for the Dell customer. Dell customers want simple straightforward no-nonsense solutions that have a clear billing structure and this exactly where Equallogic comes in.

One of the big strengths of the growth of Equallogic was its commitment towards it sales channels. Resellers were dumping other vendors (e.g. NetApp) based on the fact that they would get a bigger margin with Equallogic….. Oops I am writing good!1?! Equallogic model with Dell direct sales…. This must generate some future tension...

Second dilemma is the alliance with EMC… EMC is able to provide enough iron for the midtier segment and has a huge storage portfolio. The problem with EMC kit is that is not a transparent solution for a box mover…. Dell has a sharp quarter driven focus and that doesn’t match with complex storage solution that take several quarters to implement…

Dell is all about cutting cost and eliminating the channel so with direct sales the customer gets the best price… That is also about it... Don’t expect more from Dell then a good price… Their service providers are crap and as a result they are not a player into the enterprise space (where the healthy margins still are) The Dell/EMC alliance will not break due to the fact that Dell is one of biggest server box movers and has an strategic interest with VMWare.

Some predictions ….

- Dell will push CLARiiON in the high mid tier market segment…. Eroding further the margin of the Fujitsu Siemens and other OEM’s and annoying EMC sales;

- Channel model wont work with Dell, suppliers will drop Equallogic from their portfolio and switch to other customers (e.g. Lefthand Networks, Isolon, etc );

- The trick that EMC did with VMware will not work in this case, Equallogic has very exciting technology but is not the clear market leader;

- Packaged sales (e.g. ESX + server + storage + network+ services) will bring a clear benefit to the SMB market. Direct sales will not work in this market spaces…

A question that is never asked: does the SMB market require a dedicated infrastructure…. I don’t think so … it is much more interesting for the SMB market to have a look a SaaS model (e.g. Salesforce)…. Got the picture? Exactly outsourcing the IT operations in the SMB market space... Let’s be frank what key processes are there in the SMB segment: collaborative services, file services…. and what else…. Mark my words: check Google apps ;-)

Nice to hear your comments…