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Like ASG, Lilien Systems also talked to 3PAR years ago and backed away from the company, said Dhruv Gulati, executive vice president of the Larkspur, Calif.-based HP solution provider.
"It had good technology," Gulati said. "But it was a very small, lean company. If there had been more channel traction at the company, we might have signed on before."
However, Gulati said, Lilien is now looking forward to working with the 3PAR technology. "It's good for our midrange customers, and for the high-end, too," he said.
Gulati said he does not see the 3PAR products replacing EVA in the short term. "But over the long-term, it will," he said. "I don't see why HP would have two virtualized storage offerings. At some point, HP may converge their development."
The fact that three of the four storage technologies HP will focus on going forward come from acquisitions shows how HP's investment in storage technology has fared, Gulati said.
"It tells us that HP in the last five to seven years hasn't spent as much on storage R&D," he said. "At some point, that will bite you in the back. But it's a non sequitur. If you have best-of-breed products and own the IP (intellectual property), that's not an issue. HP has the rights to those technologies, and can continue their development."
John Convery, executive vice president of vendor relations and marketing at Denali Advanced Integration, a Redmond, Wash.-based solution provider and HP partner, said the speed at which HP is bringing the 3PAR products to market demonstrates how the vendor has moved to decentralize its decision-making process.
"In the past, HP was like a battleship: slow to turn," Convery said. "Now they're moving in nanoseconds. Randy Seidle (HP vice president for ESSN Americas sales) is empowered. Frank Rauch is empowered. They don't need to check with anyone else to make a decision. Nobody is afraid to make a decision at HP in real-time."
Nobody at HP from the top down was really happy with HP's storage business, Convery said. "And they're going to do something about it... HP knows they need to move fast. They're investing up front to drive growth."
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