Posts by Mark 49

It may have been released, but it's still a bit flakey.

So far I've only tested using VMware but some time during the beta phase something went seriously wrong with GNOME in that it fails to boot in to the logon session. Even now, using the official Live CD or the full ISO in a fresh install in a VM it won't complete the boot if GNOME is the chosen desktop - which is awkward since it's the default desktop. KDE or xfce install fine.

One other nit I came across. The official install uses kernel 3.6.10 but the already available patches will upgrade to 3.7.2. The kernel headers installed for 3.7.2 are missing some header files. For a VMware installation where you want to add the VMware tools, the lack of a version.h will stop VMware tools being installed.

To my mind they've got fixated on the fact that they were 3 months late according to their initial release date and pushed it out to just get it out there. It's still a work in progress.

Have a look at the server

Yes, Metro is also forced on to the Windows 8 Server. Now there's a real WTF !!!!

Who is going to be running Server on a touch screen tablet ? On normal PC hardware it's incredibly difficult to find out where all the server management tools are.

Apparently, this is part of a push by Microsoft to deprecate the use of the desktop on the server altogether and force everyone to use PowerShell.

Since you are being pedantic about Columbus Day, can I be pedantic about your usage of the word decimated ?

Decimated has a very precise meaning. It means the culling or loss of 1 in 10. Deriving from a Roman punishment for a legion deemed to have acted in a cowardly manner. The punishment was the execution of every 10th man in the legion.

If the indigenous peoples of America, north and south, had only been decimated, then I think they would have been comparatively overjoyed and would today probably still be the dominant races on those continents. They were not decimated, they were exterminated in vast numbers. Some to extinction.

What is this guy on ?

This product sounds exactly like Adaptec's EtherScsi product developed in the late 1990's which was one of the things Adaptec brought to the effort to create iSCSI.

OK, so this product shifts T.13 ATA commands over Ethernet as opposed to T.10 SCSI commands but otherwise sounds identical - and hence, with identical issues.

Both systems work point to point based on MAC address, for a start this means that in general terms the traffic is non-routable i.e. it has to be on the same Ethernet segment. Yes, you can get a MAC level bridge, but what's the point ? Another thing not generally realised about this type of solution is that going direct over Ethernet means you're being very network unfriendly. Raw Ethernet frames will selfishly flood the network to the exclusion of all other traffic. You may achieve a decent transfer rate to the remote device, but if you're sharing the network segment with any other traffic such as SMB network shares, you're going to find the network shares dropping out at frequent intervals.

More than 10 years ago Adaptec concluded that this was an evolutionary dead-end with limited applicability. The guys who designed it have spread across senior roles in many more adventurous storage companies, funny they never proposed resurrecting the concept.

The fractional performance gain by eliminating a network friendly protocol is really not worth it and I bet the remote disks get saturated long before that even becomes a vague consideration.

USB 3.0 will kill this.

Almost there

Chris, not a bad article, at least you describe the massive management failures of Adaptec as a prelude to investors lead by Steel trying to get some of their money back after years of seeing it p*****d against the wall by bad management of which Sundi is merely the worst in a long line.

What I would dispute is the the purchase of Snap was the most costly mistake. The really big one that you miss was the purchase of Platys for $150M by Bob Stephens. This was an iSCSI offload technology that when bought from Platys was nothing but a few wires attached to smoke and mirrors.

At a conservative estimate Adaptec spent $300M on trying to develop that product. They did produce a basic iSCSI HBA but the 2nd generation for generic protocol offload never worked. One of Sundi's first acts was to give it away to ServerEngines for almost nothing, certainly the IP and the R&D team was sold for less than $1M.

Now that dwarves the fiasco with Snap.

Where Snap is significant is that it was the straw that broke the camel's back. When Snap were bought they refused to integrate with the rest of Adaptec. They continued to operate as if they were still an autonomous company and stiffled all attempts at creating synergies. By that time Adaptec could barely afford to properly fund one organisation let alone two warring ones. The failure to initially sell Snap and then Sundi's decision to put most of Adaptec's R&D in to a new generation of Snap servers effectively killed the rest of the company.

I know many people look at Adaptec now and curse the "greedy bankers/hedge funds". But as you've highlighted the problem was really greedy mismanagement that stretches over decades.

Steel Partners - A Correction

Why did you have to write the last paragraph to describe Steel Partners as the swooping vultures coming in from the kill ? You've written the proper facts before, why put the wrong ones up now ?

Steel Partners have been major investors in Adaptec for nearly FIVE years. When they first invested many saw their focused strategy to realise value out of R&D and a proper sales model as the one way of saving and reviving a former giant of the business.

Sundi and his cronies not only fought them all the way, they spent a lot of time inventing creative ways to make it too expensive for themselves to be fired whilst continuing to rape the company in salary and expenses. During the last 5 years Sundi's strategy of doing whatever was diametrically opposite to what Steel was recommending has seen Adaptec's quarterly revenue drop by over 80% and a conservative estimate is that he's burned through $500M in one failed initiative after another.

A lot of people thought that Sundi's predecessor, Bob Stephens, was a disaster. Sundi has outdone Bob magnificently, or tragically depending on how one looks at it.

The ousting of Sundi by Steel is not something to be lamenting. If the company was to have been saved it should have been done at least 4 years ago. No one who has been involved with Adaptec will be sad to see Sundi go, in fact a lot of ex-employees are celebrating and if a big hole opened up and Sundi fell in they would celebrate harder.

The demise of a once great company like Adaptec is not down to some "money grabbing hedge fund", it's down to nest feathering bad management going back more than a decade. The current actions are merely due to Steel trying to recoup the millions they invested in Adaptec during the years they were denied any say in how the company was run.

The raiding investor ????

To the AC who complains about raiding investors - normally I'd agree with you but Steel Partners can hardly be called raiders in this case. Steel first invested in Adaptec in around the time Sundi became CEO, several years ago.

At that time, Adaptec might have been a basket case but it was posting revenues in the region of $120M per quarter.

When Steel invested in Adaptec many insiders hoped that it was the start of a turn around. Instead, Steel had an extended fight to get representation on the Adaptec board and Adaptec senior management has always done the opposite of what Steel wanted. This has continued right up to the current crisis as evidenced by the Adaptec proposals to effectively remove the board positions occupied by Steel.

During the time that Steel have been major investors in Adaptec they have watched Sundi take the quarterly revenue from that $120M (which was considered disappointing at the time) all the way down to $18M. The head count has gone from about 2000 to 350. It doesn't take much knowledge of downsizing to know that the senior management and bean counters are safe and that the axe falls on those who actually do and produce things. I.e. Adaptec don't have any major R&D capabilities any more.

I don't know anyone who has come across Sundi who doesn't think at best that he's out of his depth. Most just consider him to be an expensive idiot. It does take a special genius to under perform the sector by 100%.

When the news came out that Steel had the requisite proxy votes the news was greeted with cheers by the vast majority of former Adaptec insiders.

Over several years Steel have invested a considerable amount of money and seen the value of the inevestment p****d against the wall by Sundi, Mark Lowe et al. If my pension included shares locked in such a poor performing company I'd become an activist investor, too.

Sadly, the time to realise value from Adaptec was some 5 years ago. What might be realised now may be enough for the likes of Steel to break even, but I'd doubt it. Sundi's reign at Adaptec has been like Gordon Brown's reign here - an incompetent disaster.

A failed company

Considering that Sundi has now been in charge for 4 years and during that time Adaptec has seen revenue decline every quarter, about the only value left in the company is the real estate and the cash in the bank. Even the IP is dimishing in value as time passes.

During Sundi's reign Adaptec has lost all OEM RAID business to LSI and others and at the same time lost 90% of its R&D. The closure of R&D around the world with work moved to India was catastrophically mismanaged.

It's a long slow death from which most shareholders just want to realise some value before there's nothing left. When Steel first came in there was some hope that value would be realised but the infighting has resulted in the once all conquering market leader reduced to little more than a niche player.

Actually, this is nothing new for Adaptec. Look at all the major storage infrastructure companies which are successful and were founded by refugees from Adaptec where their ideas for innovation had been ignored.

The sad thing is that if Steel do wind down Adaptec to realise value from it and Adaptec disappears in its current form - no one will notice or care.

A true performer and gent

Strange that of all the comments, there's nothing from anyone saying they saw him perform. Back in Jan 1990 I saw Les Paul in the Irridium Jazz Club in New York. A wonderful setting, a narrow room that saw our table barely 10 feet from the stage. It's an evening I never forgot largely because he was a man relaxed with himself and his surroundings, he was in his element.

I can’t help smiling as I think of Les jamming tonight with Jimi Hendrix with John Bonham and Keith Moon battling on drums. Oh, and watching on in awe and screaming with joy at the top of his voice would be one Bill Hicks. So long guys and thanks for passing by this way – you made a difference.