EMC World and Christmas

He’s said it again!  A while ago Mark over at Storagezilla said that he thought it might be a great idea if the storage industry rearranged its calendar making EMC World the industry event of the year .  Well he’s said it again, this time in response to Snigs post on Vendor Marketing .

I’m sure he says it somewhat tongue in cheek, hoping people will bite and keep talking about EMC, a bit like what I’m doing now ;-)  However, I couldn’t let it go unchecked again.  Hey, may be he’s 100% sincere, if somewhat naïve?  Who knows?

Basically he is suggesting the following –

• Bring the whole gang together, EMC, HDS, NetApp, IBM, HP… you name them they’re on the list, under the same roof.  Good idea.
• Run breakout sessions in the same rooms.  Err potentially a good idea.
• Show their wares on the same floor.  Good idea.
• Give keynotes on the same stage.  Err potentially a good idea
• Call it EMC World.  HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Although I can see where HAHAHAHAHAHA!  Sorry I couldn’t help laughing again.  Anyway, where was I?  Oh yes……. Although I can see where he might be coming from, and I do think there is some potential in it, I think there is also the distinct possibility that the event could become a farce.  Running the risk of turning into something resembling the House of Commons during Prime Ministers Question time (for those of you who have not had the pleasure of witnessing this - basically you have at least two sets of people who disagree on absolutely everything, even the things that they really agree on.  They shout, heckle, fall asleep and occasionally throw paper across the room at each other while people are speaking).

But the presumption that such an event could be called EMC World leaves me speechless!  Why would everybody unite under such a banner?  He of all people should know something about the difficulties of trying to unite different people under one country, or company, flag.

I see the idea as being similar to expecting every religion in the world to alter its calendar to celebrate their major festival at the same time the Christian world celebrates Christmas, oh and by the way, they also have to rename their festivals to “Christmas” as well.  Duh!

Christmas is great and EMC World is great, but I just don’t see everybody else joining in the fun.

Nigel