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B+F: EMC bloggers clash with analyst

Angry online battle of storage boffins ensues

Storage analyst Josh Krischer is upset at the way leading EMC bloggers, in his words, "spread inaccuracies and FUD on their competition and … attack personally someone who is pointing to the inaccuracies (without correcting or answering)."

The spat has arisen because of responses submitted to Chuck Hollis and Barry Burke (aka the storage anarchist) blogs about the Hitachi VSP product launch.

Krischer thinks the responses to his points were inaccurate and wonders how "ethical it is for vendor executives to spread inaccuracies and FUD" and attack him.

The two EMC bloggers are known for being robust advocates of EMC's products. Krischer's first post on Chuck Hollis's blog included this point: "I don’t work for Hitachi, but I am an analyst with electronic engineering background (from the same technical university attended by many graduates which built the Symmetrix) and more than 40 years of experience in storage."

Hollis replied: "Before we really get into this, I would encourage you to be more transparent about your business model and how that might influence your statements here ... you share with us who is paying your bills, and I'll tackle each and every one of [your] points to my best ability," implying pretty clearly that Krischer is an analyst paid by a vendor to say favourable things about that vendor.

Krischer did not appreciate this dig at what he saw as his integrity and a blog ding-dong resulted.

On the storageanarchist blog Krischer posted this aggressive gem: "What a collection of FUDs and inaccuracies. It would take me too much time to refute most of your statements or assumption." That's like poking a Doberman terrier with a sharp stick. Burke replied in kind: "It is somewhat amazing that you continue to attack Symmetrix even though you've not taken the time to truly understand how its architecture has evolved over the past 21 years."

That developed into a spat about where Symmetrix technology ideas came from, including passing observations such as Burke alluding to Krischer's "unverifiable attempt to create FUD around VPLEX" and Krischer responding: "nobody in the industry is spreading more FUD than your blog".

Krischer can be blunt and irascible, as a former Gartner colleague of his has said, and here we see some of that. It's a pity that generally respected, likeable and knowledgable people get into these bitter differences. Old dogs could do a better job at learning new social media tricks, doncha fink? ®

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