New Quantum CEO To Emphasize Data Protection

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Belluzzo, 48, officially will start on Sept. 3, replacing 43-year old Michael Brown, who plans to stay on as chairman. When Belluzzo left Microsoft, he made it very clear he wanted to be in charge of his own company.

VB: Was Quantum the type of company you had in mind when you said you wanted to run your own company? What specifically was it about Quantum that appealed to you?
Belluzzo: When I left Microsoft, I was going through the process of knowing that I was going to do something different. I quickly determined that I still had a lot of energy and desire to take a company and make a difference, help a company develop, grow and achieve success. That really motivates me and I really enjoy that. So I began a process of trying to understand what I should do. I didn't go off and start responding to opportunities. Instead, I talked to a lot of people to figure out what made sense for me. I traveled tremendously, talking to friends, customers, partners, venture capital people--a real broad range of contacts. I talked to friends who were going through similar things or had gone through similar changes in their life. As a result, I concluded that I wanted a company that had great potential, that needed to make some changes and transitions. [I wanted a company that had a culture and style I was very comfortable with, a place where I could make a contribution very early on and make a difference quickly. But I did not want to do a really small opportunity, like a startup. And I also was not too excited about some of the larger opportunities because of their complexity and difficulty of moving a large organization forward. That led me to Quantum. I looked at some opportunities and came to the conclusion over and over again that Quantum was the right place to be.

VB: Did you have a lot of prospects?
Belluzzo: Sure, [but I really focused my time around the areas I thought made the most sense. And there were only a few that I considered deeply in terms of meeting with boards and talking to executives and doing some due diligence. But Quantum was always on the top of the list.

VB: Quantum is definitely a smaller and more of a low-key vendor compared to HP and Microsoft. Were there any other jobs that you evaluated?
Belluzzo: There aren't any I can share with you. They were all confidential. I can say that some were of a scale of HP and Microsoft in terms of visibility and size. But, again, I decided that I had done that a lot. I ran a big part of HP. I ran a big part of Microsoft. But I looked at something that I could be closer to the action, closer to customers, closer to the team members, closer to the technology, etc. And that to me is where I wanted to be in this point in my career.

VB: What makes a successful guy with money in the bank and a long storied career want to run a publicly traded company in today's market? Any reservations?
Belluzzo: I think that is going to pass over. I think the vast majority of CEOs are very good people, doing a good job. They are ethical. We've had some bad cases here recently that has built this perception across the whole category, which is overblown. I'm very proud of this company. I'm proud of the ethics of Quantum and I'm proud of my ethics. We will live those ethics every day. I will stand on every decision we make. I'm not going to leave a profession because of few people that have done bad things. That does not make sense.

VB: What are Quantum's strengths and weakness? Are there any gaps or holes in Quantum's technology or business model that can be filled through acquisitions?
Belluzzo: The storage market is a very large, growing market. It's going to be increasingly strategic to customers of all sizes. Within the storage market, there are growth segments. There are explosive growth segments; there are declining segments. It's a mixed bag. Within Quantum, we share that mixed bag. We will first work to strengthen our franchise business--the tape business, which includes the media model and all the things behind that. At the same time, we will build on opportunities of growth. In our case, it's data protection... Then there is our network attached storage business. So put all those together, we believe we can grow. We have transitions to make [to get in the right positions. We have to work to get all our channel partners up to speed, to be able to make sure we are aligned well in terms of the values we deliver as well as the value add that channel partners deliver. So we have a lot of work to do in those areas.

VB: You mentioned that you really evaluated Quantum's culture and it was a culture you were comfortable with. Can you elaborate on that?
Belluzzo: There are a variety of things that make up a culture. And I've been in situations where people talk about CEOs going in and changing a culture. I determined, through my experience, that changing cultures is very, very hard. In history, it's called a cultural revolution, and I was not sure I wanted to lead a cultural revolution. Instead, I decided I wanted to be in a place where I believed the core values were there and the way people worked together was positive. I think Quantum shares my concern for innovation, strong commitment to integrity, working as a team, value for people, etc. All of those things are important factors of having the kind of working environment I'm comfortable with. I want to be able to blend with the culture, adapt and modify it when necessary. But I believe it is fundamentally sound and focused on customers, products and technology.

VB: In one word, how would you define Quantum's culture?
Belluzzo: Collaborative.

VB: How much experience do you have in storage? What kind of change will this be for you?
Belluzzo: I need to be refreshed. In my early career I was in storage at HP. I have a lot of experience with the in kind of products that Quantum delivers. That includes hardware, software, services and channels. All those things, I did. I did them in printers. I did them in storage. I did those with Xbox at Microsoft. That kind of model is something I'm very familiar with--how those products are developed and how you have to work to create the whole value chain. So I need to learn more about storage. I've been studying the last 30 days. I have to do more between now and the 3rd when I start to really get a good sense of the technologies and trends that are underway. I think I've made pretty good progress on that already.