Views on the Industry

Cohesion

If I had known the first thing about storage, I would have written about how after rummaging around Hitachi's web-site, I thought: "wouldn't it be good for Sun to find a way to pick up in-house Storage assets that would Finally allow an end-end solution?" I apologize to my future investor readership that I did not write down my thoughts and given a little bump in the direction of today's announcement with Storage Tek. Sure, I've heard of them, but even after reading the slides, I have no clue what they bring to Sun. I have liked the software assets being developed and acquired mainly because one of my lost friends on the research side was on it before declaring "Java is dead" and running off to do a start-up. I imagine he was kidding. But what this acquisition has me thinking is that data storage and physical storage have some connection, and this would only be clear in the world of office environments. For a long time, as long as there have been computers and wiring, the office environments companies have been looking for ways to integrate technology in to the products, and for as long as technology has been in business, there have been ways devised to manage the bulk of data. Surely there must be some intersection. For as most office workers would agree, there lives at work are made or broke by their management of data, logically, virtually, and physically.

The office environments companies, of which Steelcase is the leader, do a good deal of research on the types of needs that users have with data storage and physical storage - - this is one of the key areas of functional planning when it comes to individual workspaces. It is the office environments companies that are interested in making this solution as integrated as possible, and this brings in the technology solutions to solve one aspect of the data storage issue. The research has shown that office workers can be either a piler or a filer, with the implications on technology storage being robust need for technological solutions.

I have thought there was some connection between technology and office environments for some time, and think that the move of Sun to a more core endeavor such as the lifecycle of data management, could help a company like Steelcase move beyond physical storage issues, and more in to data storage planning solutions. Ultimately data comes in both forms, on paper and in database format on the screen. By working together or by looking at the same types of problems, Sun and Steelcase could move in to the areas most effecting users of the products they offer. This may open up new avenues of growth and cohesion.

posted by douglas dooley @ 10:40 AM