Netting It Out

Are you trying to make sense of all of the recent news on Data Domain, NetApp, EMC, and something called deduplication?

To understand what is going on, you could do worse than to check out these articles, references, blogs, and twitterers:

• George Crump, founder of Storage Switzerland, “What Is Deduplication And Why Should You Care?”, InformationWeek’s Storage Blog, June 5, 2009.
• Om Malik’s fine piece, “Why Both EMC & NetApp Want Data Domain”, June 2, 2009, at GigaOM.  Om will help you begin to understand what de-duplication is, and why this matters to you.
• Lucas Mearian, “Start-up costs slow spread of de-duplication”, Computerworld, May 18, 2009.
• Eric Savitz, “Data Domain Again Rejects EMC Bid; Holders Might Not”, Barron’s Tech Trader Daily, posted June 15, 2009
• William M. Bulkeley and Ben Worthen, “Battle for Data Domain Opens Culture Clash”, Wall Street Journal, June 15, 2009
• Lucas Mearian, “Q&A: NetApp’s Jay Kidd discusses bidding war with EMC for Data Domain”, Computerworld, June 3, 2009
• Robin Harris, “EMC plays catchup with NetApp”, at StorageMojo, June 1, 2009
• Larry Freeman, NetApp’s Dr. Dedupe, , provides NetApp’s perspective on the differences between NetApp and Data Domain’s approaches to de-duplication in this June 15th, 2009, blog posting, “My View on Data Domain”.
• Ocarina’s Carter George, VP, Products, provides his perspective on the acquisition of DataDomain in this May 20th, 2009, article, “NetApp-Data Domain: A Sign of the Times”.
• The players behind the scenes: “Quattrone drops into Data Domain”, By David Marcus and Olaf de Senerpont Domis in The Deal, June 5, 2009

The ardent blogger / blogreader should check out these blogs:

• Online Storage optimization
• StorageMojo, by Robin Harris
• Mr. Backup Blog, by W. Curtis Preston
• Kevin Komiega’s Storage Blog
• The Backup Blog, by EMC’s Scott Waterhouse

Are you a Twitterer? People to follow:

• Enterprise Storage Forum
• StorageMojo’s Robin Harris

From the sidelines, it is hard to see how EMC, and their cash resources (and all-cash offer) do not come out on top here, particularly if Data Domain’s only worry is the culture clash between the laid-back Silicon culture and the reputed more hard-driving culture prevailing in many East Coast companies.  Give me a break.  Perhaps it is time to put away the foosball.