I got a note from Ivan who used the Contact form on The Hot Aisle to get in touch with me, headed up - Best of breed:
“Steve, great to see your article about Mike and Brocade on TheHotAisle and hope that this will continue the positive rise and acceptance we have in the SAN space. On the basis of your comments however, do you have any opinions as to why the likes of {name removed to protect the guilty} (for example) refuse to consider best of breed and would rather make tactical or quasi political decisions to deploy equipment which is fit for purpose at best and absolutely flies in the face of stated DC policies around Power, heat, port density, performance, scalability and an overall Green agenda? Obviously I am biased here, but I am hoping curiousity does not get the better of me in my attempts to get an objective and reasoned response!!
Ivan you hit the nail on the head about procurement decisions quite often being irrational. In a number of firms I have seen capital cost, technical superiority and running costs play only a minor part in getting to a buying decision.
When your potential customer has a joint go to market strategy with the competion that is worth millions in revenues, common sense often flies out of the window.
Comment by limbic on 13 September 2008:
Hi Steve,
Weird syncronicity this morning. Was just catching up with my weekly feeds and reading this article from the brilliant Kevin Kelly about ocean crossing rowing boats when I swtiched over to The Hot Aisle and saw this mention of Brocade. It tirns out Brocade have some pretty interesting sponsorships!
http://kk.org/ct2/2008/09/hitech-ocean-row-boat...
http://www.rozsavage.com/
JD
Comment by thehotaisle on 13 September 2008:
Jon,
Mike Klayko CEO of Brocade is a very interesting character. I spent quite a bit of time with him and we covered a lot more topics than I wrote about in the article. The overriding impression I came away with is that he is a completely genuine and decent man who cares about the environment, people and Brocade's corporate social responsibility.
Roz Savage is obsessed by protecting our Oceans and stopping the madness of dumping non biodegradable waste into them. I guess being in such close proximity to the surface of the Ocean for so long, she must have been sickened by the constant presence of plastic detritus floating past. Mike sees in Roz someone who shares his environmental views and has the most amazing fitness levels.
Steve
Comment by thehotaisle on 13 September 2008:
Jon,
Mike Klayko CEO of Brocade is a very interesting character. I spent quite a bit of time with him and we covered a lot more topics than I wrote about in the article. The overriding impression I came away with is that he is a completely genuine and decent man who cares about the environment, people and Brocade's corporate social responsibility.
Roz Savage is obsessed by protecting our Oceans and stopping the madness of dumping non biodegradable waste into them. I guess being in such close proximity to the surface of the Ocean for so long, she must have been sickened by the constant presence of plastic detritus floating past. Mike sees in Roz someone who shares his environmental views and has the most amazing fitness levels.
Steve