Big Blue storage supremo Andy Monshaw quits IBM

This is good news for IBM, isn´t it?

So he is not only guilty of that XIV abomination, but for the Dilligent AND the NSeries debacle as well. Sounds about time.

And before all the "But I really like the GUI" people click downvote please let me explain:

While all the products are quite ok and seem to make sense at first glance, they share a common flaw:

Each of them soaked up either a tremendous amount of PR (especially the XIV) which could easily have been spent on other, existing products, bound ressources which hindered inhouse solutions (NSeries) or outright killed existing products (DR550 and TS Gateway).

In every field Mr Monshaw was "successful" there already was a proper IBM product which did not survive his reign (DS6000, DR 550), or -especially in case of XIV- cannibalized other products.

Given that XIV was highly controversial (and, imho, not very good) in its first two iterations, it created a lot of dragging against the Flagship and killed the smaller DS6. The latter being especially bad, as it was a (relatively) cheap way to mainframe storage, and with its demise the even more expensive DS8 took System Z sales further down.

The archiving tree is completely dry by now, leaving the exisiting customer base (as small as it always was) without a followup solution - quite a few of them are rather upset with IBM, to say the least.

Why not work for NSA?

I hear they're building another huge datacenter for not spying on everyone, and only intend to keep a little data in it, which they promise never to look at.

So its the kind of thing, you can build an Exabyte class database capable of storing the tiny personal private lives of everyone on the planet, and yet if it goes wrong... meh... if you believe the NSA so what, they never look at it, honest. So nothing lost.

Happy independence day.

That XIV abomination was the only smart thing IBM has done in enterprise storage since the 70's. It was a real chance to be relevant again and they completely blew it. The DS dinosaurs managed to finally kill it after years of sabotage, duplicity and out right unethical behavior. IBM Senior Management also assisted by ignoring their own consultants and their own recent success and re-created the model that failed for 30 years. They delivered the final blow by systematically squeezing compensation, changing agreements or flat out refusing to pay anyone related to XIV.

The facts are the facts and the numbers speak for themselves,. Significant gains in real market share in accounts they had not seen for decades. Winning deals against the market leaders in real accounts on the merits of the technology. But a not invented here bias and the realization that they could not compete with the talent levels of real storage professionals caused their cowardly and shameful reaction. So now they have placed the blame on Andy Monshaw . . .How perfectly played Tuscon, perfectly played