The acquisition of Ocarina by Dell has now closed, and we can now say some things about where we are headed. Mergers and acquisitions can often be a time of confusion, as the new combined company figures out what the new plan will be.
I’d like to use this first blog after the closing of the deal to clear up some of that confusion. Some of our competitors have tried to take advantage of the period between the announcement of the deal and the closing (a time during which neither company can make forward-looking statements about joint operations) to sow uncertainty and doubt amongst some of Ocarina’s most-valued customers: our OEM and resale partners.
Now that the deal has closed, I can say that Dell is actually very interested and committed to pursuing OEM partnerships for the Ocarina technology with other storage vendors.
One competitor in particular tried to imply that our OEM’s would have to drop Ocarina and go looking for a new dedupe technology.
This is simply not true. While each partnership is a unique case, in general, the OEMs that want to continue doing business with us will be able to. What’s more, this is now a stronger solution, both technically and on the business front. Dell plans to invest in growing the Ocarina engineering team – and provide a richer roadmap and have a faster cadence. Clearly, onsite support will now be available worldwide for those partnerships that involve reselling an Ocarina-based dedupe appliance. Software support will eventually be available in many more languages, also around the clock. In addition to those obvious technical benefits, some of the risk of doing business with a startup is now also resolved.
Finally, I think that Dell sees value in an ecosystem of compatible and complimentary dedupe products. It’s great, for example, that Ocarina dedupe can work together with Commvault and Symantec dedupe. We think it is good for customers to see that compatible ecosystem grow. What is good for customers is also good for our OEM’s – by participating in an open ecosystem that gives customers not only the best-of-breed technology, but also a rich set of choices for deployment, they are strengthening the solution they offer and the story they have to tell.
