CRN Interview: Richard Belluzzo, Quantum

Richard Belluzzo, who stunned the software industry last May by stepping down as president and COO of Microsoft, quietly resurfaced in september as CEO of tape drive manufacturer Quantum. Senior Editor Joseph F. Kovar recently talked to Belluzzo about his vision of the storage industry, plans for promoting Quantum products in the marketplace and the future of the company moving forward.

CRN: Why Quantum? What attracted you there?

Belluzzo: I've always enjoyed being able to lead an organization, build a business, take something that has got promise and opportunity, and provide the leadership to make it become a reality. And I looked at Quantum, and I felt that Quantum had many attractive elements to it. I think the size [could be scaled to be able to do something significant. I think that the storage business,especially our focus on data protection,has a lot of promise.

CRN: What do you mean by data protection?

Belluzzo: First of all, when you look at the marketplace and you look at the technologies and the products that people use to back up, restore and archive their critical assets [and their data, that is actually a very large market. It's growing rapidly. If you look over the next several years, it's a $30 [billion to $40 billion market, if you consider everything . . . We have seen many events recently that have put more pressure on companies [to have a reliable, cost-effective way to protect and store their data. And we also see this as the area that customers have the most frustration.

So to Quantum, that all means opportunity. Opportunity to innovate. Opportunity to take our technology, our history in tape drives and tape automation and continue to build products and solutions. As we partner with resellers, as we partner with OEMs and others, we can take that technology and bring it to the marketplace.

CRN: Will Quantum be looking to bring in more solution providers as a result of the enhanced data protection, or will it work with existing solution providers?

Belluzzo: Right now in the program that we have in place,our Quantum Academy program,we are building a pretty strong distribution offering with a variety of VARs as well as distributors. %85 And so we feel like the footprint we're developing is the right footprint not only for what we're doing today with tape automation, but [also for what we're doing with enhanced data protection.

CRN: So you don't see a pressing need to expand [your solution provider base in any great numbers?

Belluzzo: I believe that you should do a few things well, and I'd rather have a fewer number of resellers that are really focused on our products than a large number of resellers that aren't as experienced and don't feel like they can make money with these systems. We want to start out with what we have today and make it really work well %85 and not think of expansion at this point.

CRN: How many solution providers does Quantum have?

Belluzzo: Altogether, I think we have something like 15 enterprise-focused VARs, 80 [VARs in what we call the high-performance and midrange range and 2,000 active resellers that are registered. So it's ample coverage for the product offering that we have.

CRN: In the past year, Quantum spun off its NAS division, sold its hard-drive business, went through a reorganization and brought you in. Where do you expect to see Quantum a year from now?

Belluzzo: According to the guidance we've submitted, we will achieve [growth and profitability before a year from now. So within a year, you can expect to see us growing and making money and having some new products in some new areas that are very exciting and have a lot of energy and enthusiasm among resellers as well as the industry at large.

CRN: How are changes in Microsoft's strategy affecting Quantum moving forward?

Belluzzo: I think the most near-term [effect was our decision to get out of the NAS business, which we felt was somewhat affected by Microsoft's strategy in terms of using Windows technology to build that addition. It really became more of a commodity business. %85 [The NAS market is an area that Microsoft is addressing. It did impact our business, as it did anyone in the NAS business who had a non-Microsoft solution. And we decided we didn't want to make the investment to continue to differentiate our products moving forward, because it would only take away from our opportunities in data protection.