Now that NetApp has counter-bid EMC's offer for Data Domain, you have to wonder what the impact of losing the deal means to the storage giant.
There is some speculation that EMC was merely ginning up the cost of Data Domain for rival NetApp but I'm not so sure. EMC chief Joe Tucci was pretty clear that the acquisition of Data Domain was an effort to add the technology to their portfolio of deduplication solutions. I'm not sure if a vendor needs four or five flavors of deduplication technology to be competitive but EMC certainly believes it.
So what happens if EMC doesn't get Data Domain?
I think EMC gets stung a bit if they do not buy Data Domain. EMC's bid was a validation of sorts for Data Domain. If EMC does not win, competitors (and especially the company that buys Data Domain) will have a field day exploiting this validation against what EMC currently offers. It won't significanly hurt EMC but it will make it more difficult for them to sell target-based deduplication technology. Avamar would become the dominate backup technology for EMC (it already may be) and they will avoid the whole "who has the best target-based dedupe" debate.
But it won't look pretty.
The leadership at EMC isn't so naive to not realize the exposure they were potentially creating for themselves by making an unsolicited bid for Data Domain. They have stuck their neck out far enough that they have to buy Data Domain at any cost.
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written by Storage Girl, June 03, 2009
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written by Jan Polking, June 05, 2009
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written by joseph martins, June 05, 2009
To me, it's a non-issue. Dedupe is important, without a doubt, but it's one cog in a massive information management machine. I've written this before on other forums but it's worth repeating. Dedupe is not new. We were implementing file level data reduction techniques (in applications such as content management) many many years ago. Storage vendors simply took it to the next level over the past several years.
I believe the focus should be on services...that is to say, on helping customers navigate the challenges and opportunities of efficient information management. Most of the cost of information management comes from people, policy and process inefficiencies, and, political infighting - not the decision to buy one widget over another.
Frankly, in terms of the big picture, it matters not who buys Data Domain. The acquisition will be old and irrelevant news before the ink is dry, especially to anyone with even a basic understanding of information management.
The brush does not make the artist.
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written by Tim Masters, June 05, 2009
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