Technology, meet Market

The writing is on the wall, and you should be aware of it. If you are using a cheaper storage system (NAS or iSCSI), or considering a purchase of one, you should be aware that this market is flooded, and consolidation - either through mergers or downright company failures - is almost inevitable.

I'm not a big fan of the "buy what you know" theorum. They used to say "no one ever got fired for buying IBM", but the corrolary to that statement should have been "but maybe they should have". If you are buying a brand name because of the name, you're probably making a poor choice for your organization.

But at this time in the storage space, I have to recommend you stick to the bigger players - the ones with name recognition and solid financials. The market is growing quickly at the low end, but not at the rate that new companies are throwing their hat into the ring. More specifically, not fast enough to support them all long-term.

I'm not going to name vendors here unless many of you reply here asking me to. Why? Simple, that type of prediction is better made by a financial analyst. Too often the best technology loses to the better financials and marketing engine. I have some ideas of names that won't be around in one, two, or five years, but they're just ideas based upon empirical evidence. Ask a financial analyst for a somewhat scientific approach to these predictions.