The result was total confusion. The company provided extra incentives for its salespeople to sell disk (remember, tape was its core and also its most profitable offering). That didn't increase revenues all that much, so then the firm hired disk sales and engineering specialists to help its salespeople sell more disk. Again, it was pushing a less profitable product compared to its main product line.
As you can imagine, this was bad for the company. But it was also bad for users. Why? Users lost a company that was building great tape and tape library solutions. Instead of tending to its knitting and making great tape, the manufacturer stretched itself too thin and became average at everything. It could have been the company I have been clamoring for in my "tape canceled" rants (here and here), but instead it was marginalized, bought, and it faded into oblivion.
This OEM-for-resell mentality risks distracting a company from what it does best and puts core offerings at risk from more focused companies. If you are going to venture into a new market, at least be committed enough to buy the technology -- or better yet, develop it yourself.
George Crump is founder of Storage Switzerland , which provides strategic consulting and analysis to storage users, suppliers, and integrators. Prior to Storage Switzerland, he was CTO at one of the nation's largest integrators.
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