Sphere 3D Corp. (ANY)

[derek32smith]

Mac, allow me clarify some points for you (since you state you don't have a technology background):

First, Nutanix did attend and present at VMworld. In fact, they were a Gold sponsor. See the links below:

http://www.vmworld.com/community/conference/us/sponsors

http://www.nutanix.com/blog/2014/07/17/making-web-scale-waves-at-vmworld-2014/

Second, "Know what you own".

Overland does not sell what the market calls hyper-converged storage appliances. Overland sells commodity NAS and SAN based storage solutions, which as you claim (incorrectly I might add) are being replaced by hyper-converged storage solutions.

You suggest these are popular with companies that don't have sophisticated IT departments. That is debatable, but let's agree that Fortune 5000 companies have the IT talent required to put together storage solutions without hyper-converged solutions.

Note: The V3 appliance is not a hyper-converged storage appliance but an all in one virtual desktop appliance based on VMware View that includes local CPU, RAM and storage. There is a significant difference between the technologies.

Perhaps an analogy would make it easier to understand. The Prius and Tundra are vehicles made by Toyota. Both have four wheels, brakes, engine, transmission, seats, windows and doors. But they are vastly different vehicles with different purposes and markets. Again, "know what you own".

Please note, though Nutanix has enjoyed success, hyper-converged storage solutions make up less than 1% of the storage solutions market today.

PS Congratulations to the Sphere team for the recent AmeriFirst win. It is a nice small NAS solution sale. Well done team. But, I would suggest it is typical run rate Overland business.

This quote says all you need to know. "Doing backup through software on a Windows computer was horribly slow. This direct SnapServer NAS to RDX connection is killer fast!"

"Killer fast"? I would hope so when compared to backing up corporate data using a Windows PC! Backing up corporate data using a Windows PC? That tells you all you really need to know about the size, scale and sophistication of AmeriFirst.