by Liem Nguyen, (former) Director of Communications and Social Media, Dell Storage — September 19, 2010
Last week, Compellent celebrated the availability of Storage Center 5 and the opening of our office in Australia. Brian Bell, VP of worldwide sales, Craig Stockdale, managing director of ANZ, Stephen Madden, solutions architect for ANZ and I hosted locally based customers, channel partners, reporters, analysts and bloggers as well as the IT community at events held in Sydney and Melbourne. Craig and Stephen are based in Melbourne though they spend a lot of time in Sydney. (Look for them next month at the vForum in Sydney.)
On Wednesday, Sept. 15, we converged at the Park Hyatt Sydney hotel, located alongside Sydney Harbor with a spectacular view of the Sydney Opera House. We spent the following day in Melbourne at the Riva St Kilda overlooking Port Phillip Bay. It was a great week. Even better knowing Compellent is now forever linked to Australian history. No, I didn’t get hit in the head with a boomerang. Let me explain.
Australian History Lesson
Two people were key to the founding of Australia: Arthur Phillip and James Cook. Phillip, appointed as governor of New South Wales, led the expedition that sailed into Sydney Harbor and founded the city of Sydney. There are many places named after Phillip, Port Phillip Bay for one. Cook was the first European to discover eastern Australia and circumnavigate New Zealand, and his name is on many places too—places like James Cook University, which implemented two Compellent SANs while working with our long-time partner Regal IT.
We were honored that Lee Askew, IT manager at the university, flew 6 hours from Townsville, Queensland to come to our launch event at the Park Hyatt. The Park Hyatt sits by Sydney Cove where the first European settlement was established by Phillip. I’d be a far wiser man if I told you we chose the location because of the historical significance. In reality, our reasons were a bit more practical; the fun connection to Fluid Data and the location’s availability swayed our decision to go with this location. Only later did I learn from Chris Chambers with our partner XSI that Phillip landed and pitched the first tents just a boomerang’s throw from the hotel. So you could say that Compellent launched its business in Australia at the same spot where the country itself was launched. That’s a good sign.
Many thanks to our Australian community for coming to our launch event, which included customers from Children’s Medical Research Institute, KPMG, Mitchell Communications Group, Metricon, Pepper Homeloans and Stryker, and representatives of our channel partners Geomatic Technologies, Interconnekt, Regal IT, Sententia and XSI.
Click to watch a brief video message from Brian and Craig recapping the launch as well as photos and additional links below.
Sydney:
From left: Craig Stockdale, managing director of ANZ; Brian Bell, VP of worldwide sales; Stephen Madden, solutions architect for ANZ
Watching the Fluid Data customer video.
James Henshaw, head of IT at Pepper Homeloans, and Brian Bell of Compellent
From left: Chris Ober, VP and senior analyst of Ideas International; Darryn Capes-Davis, ICT manager of Childrens Medical Research Institute; and Stephen Madden of Compellent
Melbourne:
The calm before the storm. Literally, high winds and waves came to St Kilda right after I took this photo.
Brian Bell with members of the XSI team in Melbourne
Craig Stockdale of Compellent with Mark Deady of Geomatic Technologies
Additional Links:
Press Release: Compellent Announces Strong Channel Partner and Customer Momentum in Australia, Introduces Storage Center 5
Customer Story: Childrens Medical Research Institute
Customer Story: Mitchell Communications Group
ITwire: Compellent customers speak about Australian storage market
ITwire: Compellent Australian expansion gains momentum
Techworld: Compellent launches in Australia
ARN: Compellent sees wealth of opportunity in Australia
ITNews: Compellent launches ‘fluid data’ in Australia