Re: Perception is reality
I have to agree with the "not just a blip" comment. After yesterday's disastrous Q3 earnings announcement, I find myself looking back at a few data points over the last few years and I've come to the conclusion that Nimble has made the wrong strategic decisions, and that this isn't just a "blip".
Here are the items that raise a red flag to me:
1. Nimble spent time developing scale-out, which I think turned out to be little more than a check-box item, and perhaps just something they could pride themselves on and say, "Look what we did!", but it wasn't a revenue driver.
2. They developed Fibre Channel, which I do think is needed to penetrate enterprise accounts, but hasn't had the revenue ramp I would have expected. I think other investments would have been more prudent (all-flash array).
3. The VP of Sales fiasco from earlier this year. No matter what the real issue was for that, I still place that FUBAR squarely at the feet of the exec team, and Suresh in particular. They made a wrong strategic decision regarding the person to head up the revenue generating arm of the company. To me, that's inexcusable.
I think instead of spending (wasting?) all that time and money developing scale-out and Fibre Channel, they should have predicted the need for an all-flash array sooner and been developing that instead so they could be on the leading edge. Now, they're just going to be an also-ran. When they come out with an all-flash array, it's going to be more of "Who cares?" because everybody else already has one. I'm not saying all-flash would be the end-all be-all for a storage company. I just saying I think it would have been a better investment in time and money than the things they chose to develop instead.
Taken individually, any of these items might be insignificant. But when I look at them as a whole, and at different points along Nimble's recent history, it leads me to one conclusion as an investor (and this is just my opinion)... Nimble's executive team is not capable of making the correct strategic decisions to grow the company. And this is backed up by the disastrous earnings announcement and loss of almost 50% of their market cap.
Because of this, I think it's time for Nimble's board to take a cold hard look at the performance of the entire executive team, and be prepared to clean house. I think Nimble needs new leadership, and I hope the board is open-minded enough to replace the exec team if they agree also.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
