OK, first the disclosures.  Tek-Tools is a client.  I’m telling you that, because you may think it’s important information, when you evaluate what I write next.

In the early years of a company, product development is often driven by influential sales managers.  Sales-driven development usually comes from a sales rep saying, “If we had this feature, I could win this deal.”  It is the polar opposite of what I have often advocated to sales execs, which is “Sell what you’ve got, and stay out of the development road map.”  I think sales should have a voice, but no vote.  Instead, I advocate market-driven development, which involves the assessment of market opportunities, product differentiation, and product gaps, rather than sales-driven development, which often leads to a confusing and sometimes conflicting web of development priorities.

I’m writing about Tek-Tools, not because they had an announcement today, which they did.  Rather, I’m writing because today’s announcement represents the results of months of product development that came, not as an opportunistic response to a single customer’s or sales rep’s request, but rather from a decision early last year to direct development resources in strategic ways. It was the right kind of development decision.

Server virtualization is a growing wave, and VMware is the current leader.  Server virtualization is increasingly being used in production environments. Virtualization masks the source of performance and capacity management problems.  The problem could be the processor, could be memory, I/O, the network, the storage. Customers need tools to discover, monitor and manage performance and capacity end to end.  Thus the need for Tek-Tools’ new Profiler for VMware module.

It’s a good piece of strategic thinking on Tek-Tools’ part.  I think they are positioned to catch a wave.  Are you?