While we missed with our out-on-a-limb forecast that IBM would acquire Network Appliance, we redeemed ourselves by predicting that "2006 could be the year SAN switch vendors Brocade and McData finally merge to battle Cisco more efficiently."
Prediction: Startups Cash Out
Reality: A Banner Year for BuyoutsGrade: A
We hit the nail on the head that major storage companies would fork over for startups with important technology. We said CDP, WAFS, disaster recover, and data compression would be hot areas.
Six of the 15 companies we mentioned as prime candidates got scooped up. We did leave out services and virtualization -- big 2006 acquisition targets -- and came close on this one: "Dont be shocked to see a major systems vendor (Hitachi perhaps?) swallow enterprise NAS vendor BlueArc."
Bob Friday, Chief AI Officer for Juniper Networks, explains how the advanced technology is transforming operations.
Contact center leaders from 8x8, Awaken Intelligence, and 360insight discuss the importance of agent experience.
AI may force enterprises to rewire parts of their data centers so they are fully optimized to run such workloads. The question is do you use Ethernet or InfiniBand?
