Despite the revenue shortfall from Kodak, Needham and Company analyst Glenn Hanus nonetheless expects Isilon to weather this storm. "Our independent checks confirm that Kodak should remain a significant customer although quarter to quarter order patterns remain lumpy," he wrote in a guidance note. "Although the company is building a recurring revenue stream from services and reorders, quarterly lumpiness in revenues with backend loading could continue to make visibility challenging."
The analyst also warned that Isilon could face stiff challenges from rival vendors in the clustering space, such as NetApp, which has already vowed to go after the newly public company. "Potentially tougher competition from established companies such as NetApp, EMC, HDS, IBM, and various startups, could result in increased pricing pressure, gross margin pressure and loss or failure to increase market share."
Earlier this year NetApp CEO Dan Warmenhoven vowed to go on the offensive against Isilon, which had accused the vendor of failing to make inroads into clustered NAS. On the conference call, the Isilon CEO denied that NetApp was behind Isilon's current problems, although he was careful not to name any names. "We do not believe that our performance in the third quarter was based on changes in the competitive environment," he said. "Our win rates remain high."
The CEO nonetheless admitted that Isilon still has issues to address with regard to training its new sales personnel. "While we made solid progress on this in the third quarter, more work needs to be done, and we're still not firing on all cylinders."
The exec also touched on the issue of a broader spending slowdown on this week's conference call, something which has already been identified by a number of other storage vendors. "We're still addressing whether any cautionary elements had an impact on Isilon's business," he said, explaining that the vendor will have a clearer idea by its third quarter earnings call on October 25.
Subsea cable alternatives can provide a level of comfort for those concerned about disruptions. Realistically, they will continue to play a small, but critical role in the short term.
Maintaining existing network infrastructures often incurs huge technical debt before newer technologies are adopted over time.
Amid ongoing regional uncertainties, telecom infrastructure in the Middle East has expand to include terrestrial low-latency network infrastructure, which offers resilience and agility in navigating political complexities without relying solely on undersea networks.
