Everyone knows that start-up companies need strong funding, customer acquisitions, and according to Dr. Scott Dietzen, CEO of Pure Storage, a focus on market disruption. In an interview at VMworld 2011 with John Furrier, Founder of SiliconAngle, Dietzen pointed out all of the various components currently available, such as cloud computing, mobile, OpenSource, and changes to the storage landscape with solid state technologies. When all of these things come together, he said, "There are lots of disruptors that entrepreneurs can jump on."
So how do these small start-ups compete with the market leaders? Dietzen rejected Furrier's idea that start-ups want to nip at the heels of the big guys. Dietzen's strategy is that you have to get out in front of the big guys with something revolutionary. Referring to flash storage, he said, "The way we're trying to change the game is to make flash affordable. Everybody loves the performance and the green qualities of flash, its power, and space efficiency. It's just too expensive." If you buy flash from market leaders, you're paying more than $50 per gigabyte, and Pure Storage is getting in for under $5. That kind of transformation can definitely change the landscape, thus making differentiation the name of the game.
Lee Caswell, CEO of Pivot3 believes that storage can be a huge factor in setting your company apart from the rest. Storage used to be boring, but in the past 4-5 years, storage has become a key innovation. Caswell said, "Valuations for storage companies have been phenomenal as an equalizer." He went on to mention VMware's VSA product and EMC with its Lightning Project as initiatives showing that storage can be a critical differentiator for your company.
How can start-ups approach customer acquisition? Caswell explained that offering not only storage, but combining storage and virtual servers together as a common platform is one way to attract customers. Pivot3 offers a converged infrastructure of scale-out storage and embedded virtual servers, thus bringing virtualization into the storage element and being a key differentiator.
What can other start-ups do to get into the market? Dietzen recommends looking at what VMware customers are trying to accomplish, such as virtualizing performance critical workloads like Oracle or doing large-scale VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure). Caswell pointed out that bigger companies get consumed by maintenance. His advice is to look to start-up companies to provide something that can't be done outside. Furrier summed it up by saying that basically, delivering value is the key
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Lee Caswell, Pivot3 and Dr. Scott Dietzen, Pure Storage | VMworld 2011
Everyone knows that start-up companies need strong funding, customer acquisitions, and according to Dr. Scott Dietzen, CEO of Pure Storage, a focus on market disruption. In an interview at VMworld 2011 with John Furrier, Founder of SiliconAngle, Dietzen pointed out all of the various components currently available, such as cloud computing, mobile, OpenSource, and changes to the storage landscape with solid state technologies. When all of these things come together, he said, "There are lots of disruptors that entrepreneurs can jump on."
So how do these small start-ups compete with the market leaders? Dietzen rejected Furrier's idea that start-ups want to nip at the heels of the big guys. Dietzen's strategy is that you have to get out in front of the big guys with something revolutionary. Referring to flash storage, he said, "The way we're trying to change the game is to make flash affordable. Everybody loves the performance and the green qualities of flash, its power, and space efficiency. It's just too expensive." If you buy flash from market leaders, you're paying more than $50 per gigabyte, and Pure Storage is getting in for under $5. That kind of transformation can definitely change the landscape, thus making differentiation the name of the game.
Lee Caswell, CEO of Pivot3 believes that storage can be a huge factor in setting your company apart from the rest. Storage used to be boring, but in the past 4-5 years, storage has become a key innovation. Caswell said, "Valuations for storage companies have been phenomenal as an equalizer." He went on to mention VMware's VSA product and EMC with its Lightning Project as initiatives showing that storage can be a critical differentiator for your company.
How can start-ups approach customer acquisition? Caswell explained that offering not only storage, but combining storage and virtual servers together as a common platform is one way to attract customers. Pivot3 offers a converged infrastructure of scale-out storage and embedded virtual servers, thus bringing virtualization into the storage element and being a key differentiator.
What can other start-ups do to get into the market? Dietzen recommends looking at what VMware customers are trying to accomplish, such as virtualizing performance critical workloads like Oracle or doing large-scale VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure). Caswell pointed out that bigger companies get consumed by maintenance. His advice is to look to start-up companies to provide something that can't be done outside. Furrier summed it up by saying that basically, delivering value is the key
