NetApp ain't all that: Flashy figures show HPE left 'em for dust

After the news that EMC had topped the all-flash array revenue charts, we learn, courtesy of new Gartner numbers, that HPE also left NetApp for dust. Gartner kindly sent us their original numbers; we obtained the numbers we used in our previous story second hand. These new numbers show that HPE did considerably better in the …

[Nate Amsden]

kind of strange

the 3PAR numbers specifically refer to the 7450, when they have at least the 8450, 20850, and 20450 as all flash options as well(possibly others too those are the biggies though). I would not think anyone would buy 7450 after the 8450 came out there is no point.

But perhaps that is just a typo and implies HP 3PAR all flash in general rather than that specific product SKU.

Obviously one might expect HP's performance in the market to do even better once they get inline compression out the door. Maybe this year(as in out and stable and bulletproof)...? Every time I ask it sounds like it's not far away but I've been asking for a long time now.

[DeepStorage]

Meaningless Fiction by Joe Unsworth

Chris,

I don't know why you even report the Gartner numbers and reinforce the stupid, customer hostile, definition of AFA Joe Unsworth has perpetrated on our industry. If you feel it newsworthy start the article with "as we've previously reported the Gartner definition of all flash is distorted by excluding any system that could possibly hold a spinning disk and some vendors sell most of their all flash in models that accept that ancient device:" Therefore comparisons are meaningless.

I would never use Gartner numbers to say: "Violin Memory is doing better than Fujitsu, HDS and Huawei" knowing that HDS only announced Unsworthworthy models in the last quarter.

- Howard

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Meaningless Fiction by Joe Unsworth

Are you suggesting that customers are choosing not to buy the SKU which, although identical hardware, has a software switch to prevent installing capacity storage? Madness, why would anyone want that kind of flexibility? I much prefer artificially crippled storage systems myself.

That said, the previously printer people also cripple in software so clearly their sales people are better liars and have convinced their customers that there is some magical advantage. Possibly ASIC based. ASICS are amazing. Unless compared with general purpose processors of course which even network people are starting to use! But still, ASICS, what's not to love...

[bitpushr]

Re: Meaningless Fiction by Joe Unsworth

ASICS? I'm more of a NIKE man myself.

[Man Mountain]

Re: Meaningless Fiction by Joe Unsworth

The SKU purely for flash only exists due to Gartner's definition! And a lot of HPE's all flash revenue is still not being counted by Gartner, as many customers do want the flexibility to add some spinning drives. But even those customers are moving all flash now so expect the HPE numbers to keep ramping up significantly as they start to reflect the real amount of flash HPE is shifting!

What's your beef with ASICs anyway? Why would a customer even care?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Meaningless Fiction by Joe Unsworth

Not only would one never use Gartner numbers to say "Violin Memory is doing better than Fujitsu, HDS and Huawei", but there stock price being 52 cents a share should back up that is not the case. Sometimes you wonder if there is any science to these numbers and analysis at all.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait!

You mean the NetApp heyFF and the eeeeeeF are not a 600mil "run rate" business?

It's safe to say April Fool's at NetApp is every day

...and Mr Marks wonders why Gartner has chosen to pigeonhole AFAs into their own MQ. Because the vendors would claim even more incomprehensible numbers and nobody would be able to keep track of this market.

[DeepStorage]

Re: Wait!

I don't wonder why Gartner set up a separate AFA MQ. IT was in their interests. As long as there is a vendor in the leaders quadrant who isn't in the leaders quadrant for "General SAN Arrays" that will pay for reprint rights Gartner makes an extra buck.

I object to Mr. Unsworth's artificial and customer hostile definition of an AFA. If the line was "a system shipped without spinning disks" it would be arbitrary but I'd say within Gartner's powers to define product segments (that is part of an analyst's job). My objection is to the line that says the vendor must refuse to sell a customer spinning disks later even if the controllers and software could handle them. Analysts shouldn't get in between vendors and customers.

[bmadaio]

Touching The Elephant

HDSer here...

I couldn't help but comment, though I'll politely excuse myself from getting into a debate about definitions. Discretion and valor... what's that line?

However, I would argue that reading these quarterly numbers and having the takeaway being that we either need big changes is a bit like the story of the blind men and the elephant. A bit too much context missing for these numbers to be useful...

We only had introduced a definitionally approved "AFA" in the VSP F Series in November. At the end of selling cycles and before the holiday season. We weren't expecting gangbuster numbers.

One of the points raised above is also very true. Sometimes we position F Series and sell F Series, sometimes we position F Series and a customer prefers the non-definition-compliant all flash G Series. It is what it is, customers are happy, market AFA number crunchers, not so much.

And, of course, we also introduced the all new HFS A Series solution in January - post these numbers. As a new line for us, it's still ramping (I'll admit that), but when it hits full stride, look out.

Before you worry about our portfolio, or who is acquiring who, let's remember that this is only one way to look at the market. The flash market is maturing and customers who thought every flash array is mission-critical ready are starting to ask way harder questions - about active/active capabilities, about replication automation, about data eradication, etc. etc.. As a vendor who's Top 10 customers each quarter average shipment size is over 1PB each, we are ready to answer those hard questions and more.

And that's before I mention the continued enhancements you'll see this year. :-)

Bob

[R8it]

Pure is No. 4 behind HP in Q4

Chris, unfortunately I think even your second article may be substantially misleading. You post Pure Storage numbers which are its TOTAL Revenues, including Product and Support Services. The Gartner numbers for the other suppliers cover Product Revenue only. So you are giving Pure a big advantage. It also gets another advantage because you post its Jan 2016 quarterly number as if it was a Calendar year number. All the other vendors have Calendar year numbers compiled by Gartner.

Stifel's Product only revenue numbers for Pure Storage are:

Jan 2016 Qtr: $127.35M

Oct 2015 Qtr: $113.57M

So their true Calendar Q4 Product Revenue number would probably be somewhere in between these two figures. However even if you generously take $127.35M for Pure Storage as their Calendar Q4 proxy number, it points to the fact that they were beaten by HPE All Flash numbers at $138.10M. It means that HP has already burst past Pure Storage in the All Flash market to the No. 3 position behind IBM and EMC, and Pure is down to No. 4.

Sorry if you need to update your tables and graphs again to report an accurate picture. But not a good message to potential Pure Storage investors as the PSTG insider share lockup ends next week. Pure looks as if it is starting to lose competitively before the insiders get out. Caveat emptor...

[Anonymous Coward]

Flash Customer

Having bought North of 5 million $ of HDS Flash-only arrays just last quarter, but opted for the more flexible G model. Since Gartner only calculates strictly AFA models the above charts are skewed.

It is not because the company wants to mix disks in the G model, which could be a Hybrid Controller. But due to more flexible software options and capacity sizing of the Flash.

[XtremJosh]

Apples-to-Oranges comparisons

Chris,

Gartner's methodology counts product-only revenue for the calendar quarter. The chart you published is a mix of product-only and all-in (including support) revenue, and covers the fiscal quarter of some vendors. This is overstating the position of companies like Pure Storage and Violin Memory. This is easily verifiable by looking at their public financial statements.

For example, Pure Storage did $127.3M in fiscal Q4. That's much less than the $150M reported in the Gartner/Stifel table in your article. You can see this information on page 4 here: http://investor.purestorage.com/~/media/Files/P/Pure-Storage-IPO/reports-and-presentations/q4-2016-earnings/q4-fy-16-earnings-presentation.pdf

Furthermore, Pure's fiscal quarter is November/December/January. So you'd also have to adjust the numbers to remove January 2016 and replace it with November 2015.

I point this out because it will change the market share order of some of the vendors.

[mtjwatts]

Eh?

So if I summarise this chart...

We’ve got the numbers from Gartner

Pure’s numbers come from Stifel Nicolaus (who?)

Others numbers should be regarded as approximate

Fujitsu’s numbers may be distorted by Gartners ASFA criteria

Dell, Fujitsu and HDS, Huawei’s hardware may also not meet the Gartner criteria for AFA

So basically here's a graph and chart that we just made up

[Ripper38]

Re: Eh?

@ mtjwatts: NIce one, Matt. Have a beer

[Anonymous Coward]

Using Gartner's definition of All Flash

is the equivalent of using North Korea's definition of "democratic people's republic"

Stop it. Just stop it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sales - vs - IOPS

When the Gartner Chart sucks.....

.... We tell the customer about our Performance Benchmark.

When the Perfomance benchmark sucks....

.... We tell the customer about our market share.

When Performance and Sales suck (NetApp)....

..... We blame the Analysts and Journalists.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sub-prime Storage

Let's face it - NetApp is now sub-prime storage. Maybe Gartner and IDC could create another category just for sub-prime storage.

NetApp would be Ontap of that chart - and everybody's happy.