Around The Block Blog

by Liem Nguyen, Director of Communications and Social Media, Dell Storage — February 22, 2011

Today Compellent shareholders approved the merger with Dell, which means Compellent Fluid Data is joining Dell’s lineup of innovative, award-winning storage products. We’re thrilled to be a part of a great company that shares the same passion for intelligent storage and its role in the enterprise.

Dell is the world’s best at listening to customers and injecting this feedback into everything they do, whether it’s in product development or product support. Dell has also shown a strong commitment to its channel community, which is a big deal for a channel-driven company like us. For Compellent customers, partners and employees, there’s a lot to be excited about today and for the future.

Phil Soran shares in this blog post his excitement for the acquisition and the positive changes for our customers, partners and employees. One of those big changes is that we’re going to combine our C-Drive event with the Dell EqualLogic User Conference and create a new, bigger Dell Storage Forum. Scott Horst, our VP of marketing, explains the reasons why it just made a lot of sense to unite these great conferences. Heck, I feel like we just won the Super Bowl, because we’re going to Disney World!

When the news broke that Dell was planning to acquire Compellent, our customers and partners let us know they were excited about the huge opportunity for the company and our community. We’re grateful for their loyalty and commitment, and it’s an honor to share blog posts from customers and partners who took the time to voice their support for the merger, such as:

• Greg Folsom, Vice President and Information Technology Director, Arnold Worldwide
• Eric Nied, Information Technology Director, Radiology Ltd.
• Luke Bergeron, Technical Writer, Alliance Technologies 
• Sonia St. Charles, Chief Executive Officer and Founder, Davenport Group
• Mike Kelson, Technical Director, Atlanta Technology 

So many customers and partners wanted to weigh in that we collected their comments and we'll post additional blogs over the next couple weeks, so please check back soon.

And, finally, if I may get a little personal here, I’m also very excited about joining the Dell team. Actually I’m re-joining Dell. I spent 9 great years in various technical and corporate communications roles prior to coming to Compellent and I get a kick out of knowing my old badge number is waiting for me. When I started at Dell in 1998, the company was 20,000 strong. Now it has about 100,000 employees. Make that 100,600 employees.

Here are some links for more information—I’ll update with more links as we go along:

• Darren Thomas’ Blog over at Direct2Dell
• Lance Boley’s Blog in the Dell TechCenter
• Dell Storage Forum website
• Compellent press release
• Robert William's blog over at DellShares 

by Phil Soran, President, Dell Compellent — February 22, 2011

To our customers, partners, shareholders and employees:

Today, Dell announced  that it has successfully completed its acquisition of Compellent. Before I go any further, let me just pause to say thank you.

We didn’t become the world’s fastest growing SAN company by ourselves. We got a lot of help from our loyal customers, partners, employees and shareholders. I believe this acquisition validates the trust you placed in our business and our technology. The opportunity in front of us wouldn’t be here without your passion and hard work.

As for the opportunity ahead, our shareholders approved the merger because they recognized the synergies between Compellent and Dell. For both, our roots are entrepreneurial and our cultures are similar, we have a shared vision for the future of IT – and we’ve separately engineered innovative technologies in line with our vision. From today on, our two companies will work as one to make that vision a reality for enterprises around the world.

As we celebrate this milestone in both companies’ successful histories, I’d like to offer a few thoughts about the days ahead:

What This Means to Our Employees

Nine years ago today three guys got together in the basement. And I want to acknowledge my partners, John Guider and Larry Aszmann. Guys, take a bow. In 2002, when we started this company, we had a vision: to create a company that would innovate and improve on the existing state of storage – to create fluid technology that encouraged customers to purchase fewer, not more, drives; to provide excellent service and support; and to be a true and honest partner to the channel and to our customers.

I’m very proud of the achievements of our employees – how we created something worth almost a billion dollars in value. Let me give some examples of the great work done by our team over the years:

• Delivered $414.9 million in total revenue from 2004 to 2010
• Supported a total of 1,300 dependents and employees
• Teamed with 522 channel partners
• Processed 23,506 sales orders, and
• Shipped 7,000 controllers in 4,100 systems to 2600 customers

Not many companies can say they did that. Together, this team started a business, raised money, built a product, found channel partners, and turned it all into something much bigger than the sum of its pieces and parts – bigger than all of us. And together we will help Dell redefine the data center.

 

What This Means to Our Customers

First and foremost, I want to emphasize that our world-class customer experience will not change. I recognize that for many of our valued customers, Copilot is their favorite Compellent feature and our customers can continue to count on that personalized level of service excellence you have come to know and love from our great Copilot team.

Dell is committed to adding more resources to support our customers, and more resources to keep innovating our product. Together with Dell, we can accelerate new features, new integration, and scale deeper into the data center to help customers turn IT from a cost center to a flexible business productivity center.  I thank you for your support and it’s very gratifying to see such great enthusiasm for joining the Dell family.

 

What This Means to Our Channel Partners

You’ve heard me say that the channel is in our DNA. Our goal with Dell is to protect and grow Compellent’s channel relationships.  Dell announced a long-term registration program for all Dell PartnerDirect channel partners that are certified to sell storage, helping partners grow and nurture their customer relationships as trusted IT advisors once they have sold a Dell storage solution.

All current Compellent partners will be “grandfathered” into the Dell Certified Partner Program as Storage Certified Partners, which offers many benefits, including access to a diverse portfolio of products, healthy margins and list-price discounts. More information about these benefits can be found on the Dell PartnerDirect site.

 

The New Dell Storage Forum 2011

We have joined forces to launch a combined storage conference to help partners and customers get the most from their product investment and ongoing relationship with us.  Our first ever Dell Storage Forum will take place June 5-11, 2010 in Orlando, Florida at the Walt Disney Resort.  This is where storage magic will happen.  The new conference will take all of the things you love about C-Drive and grow it into a bigger event. It’s also the first time Dell will dedicate a track just for channel partners.

Scott Horst’s blog explains why it made sense for us to combine C-Drive with the EqualLogic user conference, two very successful events, into one for the entire Dell storage community. We will also look at hosting Europe and Asia events throughout the year – so stay tuned for updates.

Thanks to your vision, loyalty and support, we have created a community that is passionate about innovative storage technology. Innovation is core to Compellent and our award-winning product. We know we have something very special in Compellent. And Dell recognizes it too.

Thank you.

Phil

by Scott Horst, Executive Director of Marketing, Dell Storage — February 22, 2011
Compellent’s C-Drive Makes a Fluid Move to the 2011 Dell Storage Forum

For four years, C-Drive has been the one week a year we bring the Compellent “experience” to life for our entire ecosystem – partners, customers, media, analysts, technology partners, and more – to drive education, networking and training across multiple days, venues and meetings. Our core philosophy has always been to continually move partners and customers from information to participation in everything we do, driving a fluid learning environment that adapts to the needs of our stakeholders every time we see them.

And now, that we are officially part of Dell, we are combining Compellent’s C-Drive with the Dell EqualLogic User Conference into a combined conference. Compellent C-Drive 2011 US previously scheduled for May 1^st – 6^th in St. Paul, Minnesota at the RiverCentre will be fluidly rolled into the Dell Storage Forum scheduled for June 5^th – 10^th in Orlando, Florida at the Disney Hilton Resort. We are very excited to be part of something that we can all grow together into a bigger, better, and bolder event.

The 2011 Dell Storage Forum will offer sessions, strategies and best practices for the entire Dell Storage portfolio—from Compellent to EqualLogic to PowerVault and more–to ensure this becomes not just an event, but an ongoing initiative for Dell Storage and a recurring investment in our partner’s and customer’s mutual success.

And, for the first time, the Dell Storage Forum will be open to all Dell Storage channel partners selling our innovative storage technologies to businesses and data centers around the world.  There will be a full day of sessions solely for partners, instructor-led training and certifications, and the chance to attend the same technology and product tracks as end users.

‘The Virtual Era Is Fluid’ at 2011 Dell Storage Forum, But You’ll Leave with a Solid Foundation

In its new fluid form, the 2011 Dell Storage Forum will serve as a face-to-face gathering built for the virtual world, allowing everyone to connect to Dell Storage and to each other, to gain a deeper understanding of the technology and the team that can help us all get better together.

The Virtual Era has arrived—and it’s here to stay. Pushing us into this new era of computing are three powerful trends converging like a perfect storm–data volume, velocity and value.

The amount of data IT organizations are grappling with every day is exploding, and nearly 90 percent of that data is not accessed after its creation. Much of this data is created outside of the walls of the traditional office by a mobile workforce and moving from device to desktop to datacenter with increasing speed. Before our eyes, data has transformed into the growth driver for organizations as they strive to find new sources of revenue while controlling costs. 

What does this mean to you?  The Virtual Era has arrived, but you need solutions.

For IT, the Virtual Era brings opportunity, but also layers of complexity and challenges. The Virtual Era demands more—a fluid approach to how technology is designed, engineered, architected, deployed, managed and supported. More and more data means companies need more storage.  Businesses today are ever more reliant on storage, and that makes it a strategic decision–far-reaching, fast-moving and fraught with risk.

Yet, companies are increasingly frustrated with the rigid boundaries of their existing storage systems. Whereas other solutions treat data as a static thing, Dell believes data should be actively, intelligently managed and moved throughout a business wherever and whenever it’s needed.  We’re out to boldly tell the world an essential truth about data, and that truth is that data needs to be fluid.

The time for this “fluid” conversation is now, and that conversation will converge at the Dell Storage Forum in June with storage experts, technology evangelists, industry leaders, passionate customers and our channel partners. Everyone will be learning how fluid storage can help drive efficiency, agility and resiliency, dramatically reducing costs and enabling you to reallocate those savings to strategic initiatives that drive your business.

The Virtual Era is Fluid. And, it requires an approach that is just as fluid as the world in which we live. 

From the back office to the front pocket, the opportunity of the Virtual Era is ripe for the taking. To learn more about how fluid defines the Virtual Era join us at the Dell Storage Forum. Register today.

We’ll contact everyone who already registered for C-Drive 2011 on next steps. You can also read this FAQ for more information.