Sun's results in the survey indicate prospective buyers know Sun does a lot of things, but they don't seem to think it stands out in any single area. In Fibre Channel SANs, for instance, respondents tied Sun with Dell Computer Corp. (Nasdaq: DELL) in fifth place for name recognition. Despite this nod to market leadership in FC SANs, though, Sun received relatively little support across the other four categories. Its worst score came in service and support, where Sun managed a meager 2.5 percent leadership grade.
In fairness, Sun had plenty of company. Overall, prospective buyers were tough on the vendors of FC SANs. Still, Sun placed nowhere near its top competitors in the survey ranking for the category, a list that includes EMC Corp. (NYSE: EMC), Hitachi Data Systems (HDS), Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ), and IBM Corp. (NYSE: IBM). The other four scored in double figures in at least two other leadership categories besides name recognition. Suns highest score outside of recognition was 5.4 percent for quality and reliability leadership.
In the NAS category, Sun's scores tied those of startup Snap Appliance Inc. for sixth in the overall ratings, even though most customers didn't even know Snap. Sun got minimal scores for leadership in the categories of price (1.8 percent), product performance (5.9 percent), quality and reliability (2.7 percent), and service and support (3.9 percent).
Sun appears to have lower name recognition in software than in hardware. Fifty-two percent of the respondents recognized Sun as a supplier of SAN management software, and fewer than half (45.3 percent) saw it as a leader in storage resource management.
Sun's software scores were less than stellar: Its 2.3 percent rating for product performance in SAN management software points to a real problem for the company. Indeed, Sun was eclipsed in this category by a smaller player, CreekPath Systems Inc.. Suns other scores in SRM were actually higher than it received in other product categories, but it failed to achieve double digits in any area.
To realize the benefits of cloud-native software, an application must actually be cloud-native—designed to run in the cloud, interacting with disaggregated cloud services, fully manageable as code—to deliver the expected benefits.
By combining resources and expertise, the AI-Enabled ICT Workforce Consortium will offer a blueprint for how industries can adapt to an AI-dominated future.
IT leaders should heed the guidance of cybersecurity insurance providers who think businesses should prioritize security education, incident preparedness, regular internal audits, and ongoing vulnerability scanning and patching.
