Re: This will be a slow burn...
Working in the UK channel here, I'll bite.
First, being aggressive in the channel isn't unethical, it's perfectly fine if your product does what it says. Start Ups need to get mind share out there because, and no offence to anyone in sales, sales guys will only ever sell the last thing that came across there desk, or what they've known has made them money in the past. The too many resellers argument is absolute bull, everyone sells HP, Dell, Cisco etc. Do they have too many revellers? No. That's why things like accredited partner discounts exist so that you can't all position the same product.
What is unethical in the channel is:
- over promising and underdelivering what the product can do (making everyone look bad)
- poaching large deals from resellers for internal sales
- dropping the ball on promised support
Your mileage may vary but I personally haven't had any of those things from Nimble.
As for the Pure IPO, this was kind of expected. Just have to see how the market goes. Their support staff have been excellent whenever I've had to deal with them so they're alright in my books.