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back to article Vblocks bleed out EMC money

VCE – the Cisco-EMC-VMware Vblock company – appears to be experiencing virtual cash erosion, with EMC reporting $132m of accumulated losses. Vblocks are converged IT stacks composed of EMC storage, Cisco UCS servers and networking, and VMware server virtualisation software. The VCE concern was set up by Cisco, EMC and VMware …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Rigid Architectures

    vblocks today represent structures that are too rigid and inflexible. There's a not of unknowns about how they will be upgraded or replaced in the future. One vBlock isn't field upgradeable to another, for instance. VCE can also only use VMware - no Xen or Hyper-V.

    Other vendors are also delivering solutions on converged infrastructures and their solutions aren't as fixed. Perhaps VCE need a rethink about their strategy and whether customers really want to be tied into a proprietary architecture.

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  2. multipharious

    Stick based!

    Thank-you for that! I am laughing my ass off. Holy shit that was unexpected at the end. :)

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  3. jellers
    Facepalm

    Principal Architect - VCE

    I think people are forgetting the structure of VCE. We have no income by design. The parent companies (VMware, EMC, and Cisco) recognize the income individually and not through VCE. So EMC could sell as many storage systems as they want through VCE and we'll still appear as a loss for them because they are funding VCE. This number has no bearing on the success of VCE for any of the parent companies.

    As to the poster who complains about rigidity and inflexibility, you are either a NetApp shill or do not understand the product line. You should schedule a session with a partner and look into the upgrade options. With any product in the line it's possible to start with a minimum blade and spindle count and expand over time, typically with a huge range of options.

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    1. multipharious
      Reply Icon

      hold on holmes...you have 3 posts and claim to be EMC

      jellers, I am with you. The whole thing is very complex. Trust me...I for one get it. I see on a regular basis how dysfunctional OEM, VAR, Strategic Alliances and other "partnership channels" can be. Not to mention the crazy ass way that Quarterly bonuses get paid and targets assigned. If you cannot articulate the value other than saying "we don't get it," then we get to mock...

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  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Here's the reason why...

    Vmware - although the traditional industry standard, expensive in comparison to HyperV or Citrix Xen. Now that the competition has caught up in much of the functionality, customers are less interested in paying a premium for a commodity software.

    Cisco - struggling as a company right now, with a massive mis-step with the Nexus technology, plunging margins and layoffs in an industry which is looking at flatter, simpler and low-latency networks instead of a newer version of the same old proprietary stuff. As for servers, most companies would rather have the #1, #2 or #3 vendors HP, Dell and IBM instead of someone who falls behind Supermicro in their unit sales.

    EMC - Network Appliance loves this amalgam of dysfunction because they reckon it sells more NetApp than EMC gear, if/when customers are falling for it. EMC's struggling to justify frames when the functionality in this environment is in the Vmware core and the traditional SAN is an overkill.

    What else? Rigid designs like this are very last decade. Any time you need to set up a separate company to implement supposedly industry standard gear should stand as a warning to any prospects.

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