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Snide hashtags, F1 cars, death by PowerPoint: I'm sick of EMC hypegasms

Great, the new kit. Where's the beef, chief?

Storagebod EMC has done it again and managed to turn what could have been an interesting product refresh into something that just irritates me and many others.

It's ongoing teaser campaign started off badly when the storage giant's marketing types put up a "sneak preview" video and decided to have a dig at their lead competitor – then the flacks tweeted using the hashtag #NotAppy.

And then the hype cycle started to ramp up. So now this week we have a ridiculously overblown product launch with some tenuous link to F1 motor sport. Tyre-changing competitions and the like, which appears to be fun but it just interrupts the presentations and destroys the flow.

EMC is just very bad at this sort of thing; speeds, feeds, marketing mumbo-jumbo linked in with videos and stunts that trash competitors, bore the audience and add little value, in my honest opinion. But all with the highest production values.

So what did the event feel like? It felt like an internal knees-up, a shindig for EMC bods to high-five themselves while their customers wait patiently. This felt more like an EMC party of aeons ago along with a smattering of cheerleaders from social networks.

There was little about the value, the use-case and what it will allow customers to do. And talk about death by PowerPoint: who wants overly complex and busy slides?

And no humour … no humour at all! Make me laugh, make me smile. Obviously I’m sure that it all played well to everyone else, and perhaps I’m just not the target audience.

However, I think the technologies launched today might be interesting: I think if the VNX2 code has undergone a rewrite, it’s long overdue and an achievement. It deserved better. ®

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