Companies that go from “Good” to “Great” do not get there by accident. They have what can only be considered the best employees, management, technology and support with a cohesive vision that aligns these factors while matching current industry trends. But even with all of those factors working in a company’s favor, sometimes they need that extra intangible that motivates everyone to go the extra mile in the pursuit of perfection: a rival. In the case of NetApp, it feels that pressure from EMC to the point where it permeates the thinking of the entire company.
From the opening remarks by NetApp’s CEO Tom Georgens to the final meeting I had with NetApp’s Sr. Director of Product Management, Spencer Sells, the desire of NetApp to achieve the position of the #1 storage company in the world permeated every meeting and conversation in which I was involved. Yes, we talked about technology, how virtualization was changing the datacenter landscape, NetApp’s new SnapProtect offering, how NetApp was rated the #5 best place to work by Fortune magazine, how it achieved over $5 billion in revenue in its latest fiscal year and how it planned to continue to grow the business.
But even with all of these positives to which NetApp can point, I could sense a hunger among its employees and management that they are not even close to being satisfied with what NetApp has accomplished to date. Rather it wants to be the undisputed leader in the storage industry from both a technology AND market share perspective.
NetApp certainly has made a good case for being the best overall cloud storage solution from a technology perspective. I even wrote as much last year. But everyone in attendance at the NetApp Analyst Days event from NetApp’s management team to its employees to the analysts in the audience were reminded of a painful fact (at least from NetApp’s perspective): EMC is currently by far and away the market leader in storage.
I could tell that silently grates on everyone I spoke with at NetApp. Granted, they rarely vocalize it. But I could sense in the back of everyone’s mind that they are constantly grappling with and examining what it is that they need to do better to close this gap between it and EMC.
As such, they were constantly asking for suggestions and input on what it is that they need to change or say or do or whatever to help highlight the superiority of NetApp’s technology. More specifically, NetApp wants to highlight and differentiate to customers how NetApp’s technology is a better fit than EMC’s to help customers achieve their long term data management and protection objectives.
Now whether or not NetApp ever overtakes EMC is not for me to say. NetApp is clearly increasing its market share and revenue which signals that it is doing something right. Further, should EMC falter even for a moment, NetApp has made significant updates to its infrastructure and internal operations that has enabled it to pounce and quickly take advantage of whatever opportunities that EMC affords.
NetApp’s 2011 Analyst Days event reinforced in my mind once again why NetApp is on an upward trek for all the reasons I mentioned above. But perhaps the biggest reason NetApp is pursuing excellence so aggressively and succeeding where other storage providers have failed has as much to do with NetApp’s internal initiatives as it does with NetApp putting EMC squarely in its sights and using EMC as the benchmark against which it wants to be measured which may ultimately might just be the secret ingredient to NetApp achieving its objective of being #1 in storage.