Seagate’s EVault joins the backup providers swarm Seagate has a new backup target appliance (BTA) that can shoot data to a private, public or partner cloud, as well as having 65TB of usable storage capacity. Why in a mature market are there so very many suppliers? It announced 50TB (3U) and 100TB (4U) EBA (Enterprise Backup and recovery Appliances) appliances last September …
I work for a backup technologies vendor (BackupChain) and would like to comment on your comments. There are apparently more backup software and hardware companies than the market can hold for the simple reason that even the so-called "big names out there" are *still* funded by venture capital and unable to stand on their own feet. Unlike the smaller "wannabes" who do indeed stand on their own feet these "well funded" companies try to flood the market with free stuff or below cost arrangements in an attempt to remove competition from the surface.
Mergers/acquisitions do take place and are often between companies that are controlled / aka funded by the same entity anyways.
That only works if the demand exceeds the amount supplied by the venture capital funded businesses (and that's pretty much redefining "business" as a term). Also having the disk/flash suppliers in the biz as well, receiving orders from the VC-funded businesses, subsidizes their business line as well. Really distorted market here all due to unmet, no make that unsatisfied demand. The customers obviously aren't exactly happy with what they are getting if they are cherry-picking from all the suppliers out there. That or they're really confused on the demand side. Yeah, that too.
Uhhhh . . . what? The big names out there are companies like EMC and Symantec, which are most certainly not funded by venture capital!
From what I can tell, the main reason that there are so many backup vendors is that most backup technology has significant limitations in terms of speed, cost, flexibility, usability, etc., so there's no good one-size-fits-all solution even for a particular market segment, leaving lots of room for competition.
I have not gone through the list, but my suspicion is that of the 100+ companies there are quite a few zombies. They had an initial spurt of customers, still serve them well, but are unable to gain new customers because they are NOT the "new shiny thing on the block" nor are they the big entities that would take the business based on bundling or price. If you were a new buyer in this market you wouldn't look at everyone; hot startups and established entities is where you'd focus. The BC/DR company hot 2 or 3 years ago may now be left in the cold, slowly bringing down spending in sales & marketing, living a zombie-like existence while feeding off of maintenance renewals. Would not be surprised that such companies are the majority in this space.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
