It happens
Chris, it happens to the best of us.
We sometimes choose only to see, believe, acknowledge and accept statements and sources that agree with our positions and it blinds us to information that may disprove our perceptions or call them into question.
Krischer, Hollis and Burke are no different.
Hollis clearly hopes to "expose" any affiliation Krischer might have to competitors perhaps with the hope that such information might cause readers to question Krischer's motives and distract them from the questions asked. I don't know about Krischer--I've never met him--but we've done a substantial amount of business with most major vendors including EMC and HDS. While disclosure is important, it becomes mostly irrelevant to a discussion in which the participants/subjects of the discussion have all been clients at one time or another. In the context of most of the analysts I know who do business with hundreds of competitors in dozens of categories, Hollis and his peer's new found love of "transparency" is a red herring. The day an individual like Hollis questions my integrity based on "who is paying my bills" I'll gladly trot out every EMC invoice from the past 8+ years along with those from his competitors. Then what? then perhaps he can drop the song and dance and answer the questions.
Kirscher is, in my opinion, justified in his disgust with regard to any personal attacks. Such behavior doesn't belong in these discussions.
Having said that, it seems like all three gentleman are engaged in a phallic waving contest that will never be resolved by way of half-baked blog comments. It seems the back and forth comments quickly became one big unintelligible mess that few people will have the time or patience to navigate. They each refuse to acknowledge any shred of truth in the others' comments.
I urge readers to save their time and apply it to something more valuable and insightful than adult adolescent bickering. I speak from experience. I've wasted far too much time participating in the same.