BD Event vs. SNW

The first BD Event wrapped up yesterday and my personal opinion was it was very successful. My first inclination when writing this blog was to declare SNW irrelevant, but I asked that question, somewhat sarcastically, in an entry a few months ago and I'm just now clearing out my inbox.SNW is not irrelevant, it continues to evolve as a user show and the BD Event is something totally different. It is an event for the industry where briefings can happen, partnerships can be made and relationships built (or mended). There is a need for both events.The BD Event appeals tor new emerging companies that can't, today, justify the expense of SNW but who need to still get their message out and who would get lost in a row of 10x10 or smaller displays at SNW. These guys need one-on-one time with analysts, press and fellow storage suppliers. The much larger SNW is the place for the big boys to show their wares, take down half a power grid and talk to users.I was surprised by the lack of large vendors at the event and it seems like a missed opportunity to me. This room was full of innovators that the big guys could work with to help complete their solution set. Here are few quick examples that stood out for me:TimeSight showed a solution that can dramatically reduce the capacity requirements of storing video images over time. A big supplier armed with this capability could make a significant dent in the surveillance video storage market.Nexenta showed how they have taken ZFS and packaged it up into a very viable and user friendly NAS filesystem that any supplier who is looking to improve their NAS offering (more than a few of those) would have benefited by seeing their presentation.NetEX's HyperIP product can dramatically improve storage transfer and recovery times across WAN segments, which should appeal to cloud storage suppliers, storage replicators and data center migration specialists.Cofio and Digitiliti have products with different approaches that can provide a complete end-to-end data management solution for unstructured data that includes blocking, encryption, replication, protection, indexing. etc.These are just a few examples and I apologize to the guys I missed, but I'll try to touch on some of the key trends in the next few blogs. All three days were full of viable partnering opportunities that the big guys missed. I expect to see them at the next one. What if you're a user? Why does an event like this matter to you? First, for guys like Howard and I, it enables us to provide better information to you about these companies. For the larger suppliers that were there, it enables partnering that might help them help you better solve your challenges. And finally, for these emerging companies, it helps to get the word out quickly and inexpensively.Congratulations to the BD Event on a successful first show.