Don't Dupe ISAServer.org or Tom Shinder!
On Feb. 3rd Tom Shinder (a noted ISA MVP and manager of the content at ISAServer.org) posted a brief article to his blog regarding Bluecoat. (http://spaces.msn.com/drisa/blog/cns!BC3213176E0489FD!445.entry?_c=BlogPart) In summary Bluecoat (an ISA competitor) paid for advertising space to pitch a 'webcast' where they made mis-informed and incorrect statements about ISA Server (to an ISA audience!). The NEXT business day Bluecoats stock fell almost 40% (and has fallen each day since). What could have led to this?
- Some might say it is because they announced that their Q3 profit will miss estimates by approx 50%.
- Perhaps it is because customers are figuring out the benefits of having their enterprise caching device also perform valuable security functions.
- Is it because having to deploy a separate device for AV scanning (as one example) isn't acceptable or customers want more options around extensibility, integration and managability?
- Do customers just want more features for a lower price?
- Are they really the market leader? (I am privy to how many processors of ISA Microsoft moved our last Fiscal year and let me just say...Bluecoats claims of 25,000 deployed units WW does NOT put them at #1).
- Maybe it is because customers don't want to trust large investments in a technology from what is essentially a very small (and obviously not as stable as some thought) company that can fall in stock price 40% in one day!
I am giving credit to Tom Shinder and you can bet that I won't ever try to dupe him :)
