How does that differ from NetApp’s approach to the cloud?

NetApp doesn‘t do that at all. Again, NetApp will sell you their arrays, or you can use their arrays inside of Azure or AWS. But you’re still physically using their arrays. And if you use it on-site, their arrays are still attached directly to an application stack. They‘re not networked across the enterprise.

It‘s incredible how antiquated data storage still is in most cases in the enterprise. Do you remember the external data storage, the external disks that you could buy that you plug into your desktop or your laptop? You might even still have one. If you think about that external disk as a storage array, it’s very much the same, which is that it‘s tied to a specific application stack. It’s not truly networked across the enterprise such that a new set of users can get access to it, because that that array is tied to a specific stack. We‘re the first ones to come out with the software that allows a full fleet of arrays to be utilized as a single pool of storage.

Just to extend the analogy a bit further: Just like those external hard drives, our competitors, instead of selling you the external hard drive, will now rent them to you. What we‘re doing is the equivalent of Dropbox. Our customers now have the equivalent of Dropbox, where they don’t worry about the size or attaching it to any one thing. They can use it across all of their developers. And if they need more, they just ask for more. And if they need less, they ask for less. And it‘s all automatic. It’s all via software.