CommVault® Stands to Benefit from Reseller and User Dissatisfaction with Symantec

In the North American data storage market, there are an estimated 700 or so independent reseller partners hawking their services around storage hardware and software products. Add in the number of reseller partners in the international market and that number probably quadruples. However what makes these partner organizations tick is having access to software that they have confidence works with any type of storage device.

While this point may seem like no big deal to end-users, I've talked to too many good resellers who have very little tolerance for risk (ie - selling products that don't work into customer accounts). They know that if software or hardware doesn't work as expected after it is sold into a client account, nothing but bad things usually results. At a minimum, their client has no reservations about letting them know that the reseller needs to make things right. The best part of the deal is that their client lets them fix the problem and provide all of the replacement hardware or software for free just so the reseller won't forget the lesson. Every reseller loves that part of the equation - extra work for no money plus the prospect of loosing the client.

So while end-users may sometimes wonder why their preferred reseller doesn't offer them a wider portfolio of hardware and software products, the answer is simple. Their reseller knows how the game is played. Sure, resellers receive incentives to sell other products but smart resellers also know that the idea of software supporting a heterogeneous storage environment works much better in magazines, columns and blogs than it does in the real world. So no matter what additional incentives, rebates and programs are offered up by storage hardware manufacturers to the reseller to offer other software or hardware, they are just as inclined to pass as risk offending their existing client base.

This wasn't always the case. Going back in time about five years, the data storage channel had a lot of independent software products from which to choose. Legato was still independent and not wed to EMC storage. Veritas had not yet merged with Symantec. Tivoli was perhaps not as deeply embedded into IBM storage as it is today.

Fast forward to 2008, and the list of enterprise data management software that can be sold to work with any type of storage hardware is very short. Yes, Symantec is on the list but many channel organizations report dissatisfaction with their overall relationship with Symantec: it's a reputation that persists regardless of whether or not it is deserved.

So while resellers and users may wish they could stay with Symantec, they crave a new choice in data management software that is built around a suite of products rather than a portfolio of point products. Ideally both resellers and users want this product to be less complex and work as advertised. Users would also add that they would prefer not to pay the PO until the product is installed, fully deployed, tested and signed off on.

In this software void CommVault's Simpana® software suite has emerged as a viable option. CommVault is the only other independent software provider that possesses the needed credentials for enterprise consideration. Already CommVault has a worldwide user install base of over 7000 customers, continued growth with projected earnings of $198M by the end of their fiscal 2008 and it was recommended in 2006 by Gartner as being a "strong positive" for enterprise organizations.

To gain reseller and user confidence, CommVault already guarantees that their Simpana software suite works as advertised. They give users the option to wait 60, 90, even 120 days to pay on their PO in order to give them the time to install their suite of products and verify they work. They also guarantee that the integration between their different software products - archiving, backup, continuous data replication and search - is real and there from day 1, not a future add-on.

CommVault's Simpana software suite has all the earmarks of a disruptive technology as it is much more than just backup software but a full-fledged data management software suite. This is truly what end-users need, what resellers want to provide and what CommVault says it is delivering now.