back to article Pure poaches NetApp preacher

Vaughn Stewart used to be NetApp's chief blogger, but it seems he's now evangelising for all-flash upstart Pure Storage. Stewart, interviewed here by our Speaking in Tech team, has been the director of technical marketing and cloud evangelist at NetApp for the past three years. But earlier this month he was poached by Pure and …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    A lot of movers

    This is the fourth big name I've seen jump ship from Netapp in as many weeks.

    Having spoken to many recruiters and from informal chats with different companies (i'm currently looking for a new role) it seems a lot of my competition for positions are people from Netapp.

    This didn't use to be the case, you'd have to offer serious wedge to get people to move from Netapp but now it's like they are flowing out for the first time.....ever.

    1. SeymourHolz

      Re: A lot of movers

      there are two people in the world that would refer to Mr Stewart as "a big name"; Mr Stewart's mom, and you.

      i am not convinced they are not the same person.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Talent must come from somewhere

    There are over 20 start-ups out there so talent must come from somewhere, and it typically comes from incumbent, successful vendors, such as netapp and emc.

  3. Arnold Romeijn
    FAIL

    Name Fail

    Please get the name right, this looks silly

  4. Homer Simpson 1

    From my persective as a 6 year NetApp employee, NetApp has changed from a "great place to work" to be about the same as EMC. Data ONTAP will go down in history as a combination of the best methods of managing spinning disks ever... but there's a major technology shift happening - spinning disks are being replaced with solid state devices. The technology needed for this new storage is quite different than today's Data ONTAP.

    Instead of embracing solid state disks, NetApp has mainstreamed Clustered Data ONTAP. The problem is that it didn't pull all the features of legacy Data ONTAP and it added complexity of configuration and management that can only be called weird. So NetApp has mainstreamed a product that is useful to maybe 10% of their customers.

    The best people want to represent the best products and the best corporate culture. So they're leaving.

    In NetApp's sales organization, there has been a systematic elimination of all the "nice" managers in order to hire hard nosed sales managers. This is reflective of senior sales management, almost all of whom came to NetApp from EMC. It's not surprising that the culture is shifting. The "great place to work" philosophy has been replaced with Theory A management and layoffs of everyone whomever complained about their managers - almost everyone over 50 years old is gone..

    My opinion is that NetApp is in troulble. They haven't tractked the market to keep the best product for existing technology and the best people are leaving.

    NetApp has so much cash and momentum (like IBM and EMC) in the market place that it is difficult to see how they would fail. But the demise of a great corporate culture and the failure to track solid state disks is going to cause them even more grief. Watch for more bumps in the road ahead for NetApp!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Interesting perspective! How would you say is Netapps' sales model going to change now that vaughn isnt there? As a end customer is he relevant to me or is he just another personality they parade around. like the kim kardashian of the IT world

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Awwww

    He does have nice hair!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Awwww

      He does have nice hair. Is it the mane n' tail shampoo?

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Money Talks

    Pure get's a big investment and suddenly everyone wants to evangelize for them.

    Cause and effect.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Money Talks

      It's got to be a better place than Tegile. I betya money that Tegile is combing through Pure's site for their next marketing campaign.

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