Monday, April 30, 2007

Call the Lawyers - Kirby Just Started a Blog!!

This is a blog many people in the storage industry hoped would never be written.

I know too much, and I am just dumb enough not to keep my mouth shut, and that tends to frighten people.

Honestly, I didn't really want to do this myself. For years, people have been coming up to me at industry shows, and sending me emails, emploring me to blog. They probably didn't realize that encouraging me to blog is like emploring an alcoholic to take just one little drink...

I hate reading the mindless ramblings of most storage bloggers. (...it's part of my job to keep up on the buzz, so I have to read everything...) The smarmy insipidness of corporate mouthpiece blogs makes me want to take a shower after I read them.

And, I know I can't hold a candle to respected independents like my old friends Robin and Jon when it comes to depth and insight. I kept asking myself, what could I possibly contribute to the storage blogastalt?

Not coming up with a good answer, for years, I just observed...

Like many of you, I fumed when I was scolded by Mr. T as a fool for thinking virtualization could ever be done anywhere other than a storage controller.

And I fussed about CH's truely lame and yuckily corporate response.

I found myself feeling bad for ML. (I honestly like him, but lately to me he seems kind of lost in the machine. Anyone who can read an SEC filing knows the money's great, but still...life's short. And like my mom used to say, "Sleep with dogs, wake up with fleas.")

I screamed at my screen when JD tried to put his spin on the birth of CDP and the death of the company that brought it to life. What really got to upset was not his self serving mumblings, it was that people seemed to actually beleive that this was the definitive story because some guy (who was completely removed from the action, and has not a clue about what really happened or why) wrote it down.

(Pompously Speaking ...I do know exactly what happened. In fact, I was one of the parents of CDP, and I look forward to sharing the true story when my NDA expires in June - so stick around Storage Sanity for that one.)

And, like all of you, I donned noise-filtering headphones as marketing departments across the industry forced their latest bullspit through the virtual blog of their company's hapless CTO...(if one of my CTOs ever has a blog, you'll darn well know s/he wrote it themselves...)

still I refrained...

Several times my fingers headed for the keyboard, but...somehow each time, fate intervened...

until today.

Today, I have finally reached the tipping point. Today, a perfect storm of industry arrogance, intellectual dishonesty, and smelly, nasty, truly yucky corporate market-o-bloging finally forced my hand.

Today is the last day I will sit in my office, stare open-mouthed at my screen, and mutter, "does s/he really think anybody is going to beleive that crap..???!!"

Today I am decloaking, and I give fair warning to the storaborg. Kirby has a blog. My comments here are not on behalf of past, future, or current employers. I am blogging here for my own sanity, and perhaps for the sake of a once proud industry founded on selling spinning rust that has fed me and my family for almost 30 years.

From now on, if you bloviate, equivocate, exaggerate, fabricate, or especially...smarm about storage - you're mine.

Who's first in line?

9 comments:

Unknown said...

Looking forward to adding you to my reading list Kirby!

Unknown said...

Kirby, I thought you would never arrive. Jon turned me on to your blog. I am looking forward on finding out what you feel and think.

Hal

Unknown said...

Welcome from the guys over at RupturedMonkey. I'm looking forward to hearing what you have to say.

mike said...

I look forward to reading your thoughts. Are you still working for Acopia?
Mike

AceSage said...

Hi all.

Thanks for the kind words.

Yes, I am at Acopia. Will do my very best not to let that taint the discussion. I'm not here to pump - you can find out all you want to know on the company website.

Unknown said...

Dude... you must be drunk. But, I hope you keep drinking and writing. This will be a very, very interesting train wreck ;) I love ya.

-brad o'neill

Anonymous said...

should you have a shortage of topics, give a shout, happy to ramble you off a list ;) best.

Anil Gupta said...

Kirby,

Welcome to blogosphere. After hearing nice words from several end-users at SNW, I am looking forward to you talking about Acopia.

Thanks for including me in your blogroll. Your feedback is very welcome. Send me a note anytime you are in Seattle, like to buy you coffee just to pick your brains. ;-)

Anil

QuantumMechanic said...

Another storage blogger - welcome from StorageSwitched - www.storageswitch.com - a blog on long term storage, records management, archive, compliance and other misc. ramblings...

clark