The group is over-funded and has under-delivered, said Sunil S. Dhaliwal, a senior associate at Battery Ventures. You see companies raising $150 million to $200 million trying to be the next Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) or EMC, and theyre going to get slaughtered."
Chris Baldwin, a partner at Charles River Ventures, said that most startups should avoid competing head-to-head with the larger players and instead focus on fringe problems that arent being solved for customers.
Youve got to look for where customers are unsatisfied, said Baldwin. Its like being a cattle rustler, youve got to come down out of the hills and break off a piece of the herd thats not under control.
But Baldwin noted that the larger companies are susceptible now, mostly because they have taken advantage of their customers by raising prices, driving the customers to look for more inexpensive products. EMC and Veritas Software Corp. [Nasdaq: VRTS] have done startups a favor by holding up the price umbrella and reminding customers how much theyre paying."
Some panelist offered an optimistic note for the industry coming out of recession. Robert Montague, managing director with RBC Dain Rauscher Inc., said his firm conducted a survey of storage resellers and found that sales increased 6 percent in the third quarter of 2001 and were expected to increase another 24 percent in the fourth quarter.
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