I Backup, Therefore I Am? Symantec and Backup Appliances

sigmund freudSymantec announced this week that its sales for the last quarter were below expectations with the reason being poor sales for Backup Exec. The CEO, Enrique Salem, stated during a call to address the earnings shortfall:

“While we experienced a pause ahead of our Backup Exec product refresh, we continued to see momentum in our backup appliances.”

Backup appliances? Yep. Symantec has found religion, and it’s backup appliances! Once again, the line an advertisement from the Tracy Kidder “Soul of a New Machine” springs to mind – to paraphrase:

They say Symantec’s entry into backup appliances will legitimize the industry.

The bastards say, welcome.

I could go on and on about how Symantec claimed they’ve been shipping a backup appliance for years with Dell – but on this blog we’ve been there and done that. I could note once again how insanely expensive Symantec’s Backup Exec appliance is compared to ours – but on this blog we’ve discussed that as well.

No – what I ABSOLUTELY LOVED in this article was a quote from the Symantec CEO:

“We have the ability to sell software, the media server and deduplication in one device, and that’s something none of our competitors do.”

Really? NONE of your competitors? Interesting. No one can do the server, software, and deduplication on one device? Hmmmm.

Denial in psychology was postulated as a defense mechanism by no other than Freud. He said that denial occurred when a person is faced with a fact that is too uncomfortable to accept and rejects that fact despite what may be overwhelming evidence.

Shifting from psychology to philosophy, Descartes is best known for his principle “I think, therefore I am.” Speaking for Unitrends, I can clearly state that our philosophy is “I backup, therefore I am.” Or, to put in slightly more aggressive terms, we had 100% growth last month – how did you folks do?

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