Ben,
As someone who occasionally writes for searchstorage, and works with
their editors and writers quite a bit as an expert source and a speaker
at their shows, I'd have to say that I believe you couldn't be farther
from the truth. I don't know of any other source of information in the
storage industry that is less biased than their magazine and website.
Let's take a look at your premise:
>As a disgruntled former user of those two products [NBU & BE]...
>This site has no credibility to me.
So if anybody ever becomes disgruntled with a product, that says that
forever that product can not be named as a good product, or the process
that named it so is invalid and corrupt? If that was the case, then no
products would ever be named as top products. Do you have any idea how
many disgruntled customers every single backup product has? Do you have
any idea how many people I've helped to move them from one product to
another (sometimes only to move them back)?
>Looks like nothing but purchased marketing space to me.
That's just a bunch of hogwash. If that were true, then EMC could win
it every time. They certainly know the space and have a TON of
advertising dollars. I can speak as a former contributor to the
"product of the year" process, and as a quote source on many an article
that was unfavorable for various companies, the editorial side of
searchstorage/storage magazine doesn't in any way take sponsorships/ad
space into consideration when doing their articles or awards like these.
I actually can't think of another magazine in the industry that does a
better job in this regard.
<conjecture>
Now what MIGHT happen is that EMC (and any other company not named as a
product of the year) will contact their Tech Target
advertising/sponsorship sales rep after they see this article and say
"HEY! Why weren't we in there?" The sales rep may then do some research
on the particular question at hand, and explain the process to their
client. The process may be flawed (as all "best of" product selection
processes tend to be), but it wasn't rigged.
I wasn't personally involved in this one, but I can tell you how they've
worked in the past. They tend to reach out to as many people as
possible, including readers, consultants, and analysts, and ask them
what products they think have been movers and shakers that year. Then
they evaluate all the responses and come up with the list. Is that
process flawed? Of course it is! The first flaw is that they're not
talking to everybody, so their sample is not complete. (They're only
talking to people they're connected with. They may not, for example, be
talking to you because you've now written them off.) The second flaw is
the sheer difficulty in comparing the relative worth of on backup
product to another, especially when you're comparing multiple TYPES of
backup products. But I would say that in both of these flaws, they do
the best they can.
</conjecture>
I will state again that I don't know of any other source of information
in the storage industry that is less biased than this magazine and
website. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
---
W. Curtis Preston
Backup Blog @ www.backupcentral.com
VP Data Protection, GlassHouse Technologies
-----Original Message-----
From: EMC NetWorker discussion [mailto:NETWORKER AT LISTSERV.TEMPLE DOT EDU] On
Behalf Of McBeen, Ben
Sent: Wednesday, January 23, 2008 10:01 AM
To: NETWORKER AT LISTSERV.TEMPLE DOT EDU
Subject: Re: [Networker] [Message not Scanned] [Networker] Top Products
and Guess What Didn't make the cut
As a disgruntled former user of those two products... This site has no
credibility to me. Looks like nothing but purchased marketing space to
me.
Yosemite on the other hand... those guys have some interesting stuff.
I would LOVE to go back to using their software. We are just to big.
---------------------------------------------------------
Ben McBeen
Information Technology Systems Engineer
Plumas Bank
530-283-7305 x7602
On Jan 23, 2008, at 9:49 AM, Ken Gehring wrote:
> Looking at the top storage and backup/recovery products for 2007 from
> the Storage Magazine site, looks like Networker didn't make to cut
> this year as one of the finalists.
> Interesting that 2 products from Symantec did.
>
> Personal opinion
> While I like Networker, EMC needs to get their act together.
>
> Ken
>
> Here is the link
>
http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/general/0,295582,sid5_gci1294887,00.
html
>
> --
> They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little
> temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
> --Benjamin Franklin
>
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