It’s been just over a year, since I left IDC to form Walden Technology Partners, Inc. with David Burmon.  While I didn’t expect to continue spending so much time in the storage and data management industry, that is how things have worked out initially.  All of our current clients are involved, at least in part, in some aspect of information protection, storage, or management.  And with the continued growth in information and content, a growth that is relatively immune to the effects of economic conditions, it should not have been a surprise to me. 

Note that I said that the growth of content is relatively immune to economic conditions.  The market for storage hardware and information management software has been proven many times to be highly affected by economic conditions.

Problems in information management have been around forever, and will persist far into the future, as this YouTube video documents.  You’ve got to watch it.  Really.  And it’s not a product pitch. 

Current approaches leave plenty of room for new companies and new innovations.  And budget stresses at data centers create both the opportunity and requirement for innovative approaches.  We think we have chosen a few companies with innovative approaches.  What these smaller companies tend to do is innovate faster than larger companies.  What they can’t always do is test their solution among every one of the 10,000,000 possible combinations of hardware, software, and microcode options available.  Actually, I’m making that number up.  It’s really much greater. More likely in the trillions or quadrillions.

The role we have taken in the last year, is to find opportunities to put innovative, smaller companies together with large companies with the reach and interoperability testing capabilities that can help the innovation reach its full potential.

Thanks to Vernon Turner for bringing this YouTube link to my attention a year ago.