back to article Nutanix CEO smacks down VMware exec over claim it's a new Enron

The ongoing spat between VMware and Nutanix has flared again, with the latter company's CEO Dheeeraj Pandey hitting Twitter to smack down Lee Caswell, Virtzilla's veep for Products, Storage and Availability. This round of the spat between the two appears to have started with a since-deleted Caswell Tweet pointing to this …

  1. Captain DaFt

    Ah, nostalgia!

    It's heartening to see two modern companies remembering the classics.

    Both company's got their names out in front, and even got Acropolis hypervisor, vsphere, XC series appliances, and even EVO Rail mentioned, just for the price of a couple of tweets.

  2. jake Silver badge

    Fucking children.

    Both need a healthy slap from the investors, and/or to get a room and get the inevitable over with. This kind of shit has no place in public.

    1. Gordon Pryra

      Re: Fucking children.

      I BLAME IT ON THE PARENTS!!

      They are only going by the example of their President, how can they be expected to behave when the bar is set so low for Americans?

      1. lordnorth

        Re: Fucking children.

        Really?.....

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Re: HCI - the great distraction of our time.

    This isn't really accurate because....

    *Enron made a profit at some point in history.*

    Lee's statement is valid. Bragging about increased revenue because of a balance sheet measurement adjustment is bullshit of the highest order (and one for that matter that VMware would also be able to take advantage as they have far greater software revenues, as well as actual profit).

    1. baspax

      Re: HCI - the great distraction of our time.

      Nutanix also changed the way they classify their sales.

      I saw quotes where the hardware was $0 and everything was under "software", which had the added benefit of no sales tax. In other words, what would have been $50,000 in hardware and $70,000 for software and services was turned into $120,000 software and services.

      Wall Street likes that as the $50,000 loss on hardware is a one-time hit but due to it magically being software it falls into the "reoccurring revenue" bucket, in other words a future revenue stream. So Nutanix is faking/fudging/doctoring their software numbers to show a healthier company.

      How is this not fraud?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: HCI - the great distraction of our time.

        Haha down voted by Nutanix trolls

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: HCI - the great distraction of our time.

        EMC has been classifing their HW managemnet SW, that can only be purchased at same time as there HW, and that cannot be uncoupled from their HW, as pure ISV-type 'software' business revenue for decades.

        HPE does the same, as does IBM, as does Oracle.

        Same shit that gets these turd companies bigging up 'cloud' their revenue, cos that's what the analysts want to hear.

  4. retired_in_london

    Nutanix is full of shit. They are a pure marketing shell. That's it.

    We have done a large PoC deployment with them and none of their promises even come close to reality. Their VP of marketing was even forced to leave recently due to too much BS over promising customers & potential blow-back.

    Nutanix HCI is now commodity HCI that everybody has, except with extra BS marketing.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      I have a story to tell about their BS:

      They came in and promised us everything we wanted to hear. Then we mentioned data at rest encryption this (paraphrased) conversation happened:

      Nutanix: we don't have data at rest yet but it's coming real soon.

      Us: Ok, what about SED drives? We can probably rig up some key management.

      Nutanix: Uhm, no SED. They are really expensive. But we will have software encryption really soon!

      Us: Uhm, software encryption? We don't want that. We tried Prometric and it sucks. Also, we don't want to lose even more CPU to the infrastructure.

      Nutanix: OUR ENCRYPTION DOESN'T USE CPU CYCLES. NONE WHATSOEVER, WE GUARANTEE IT!

      Us (two computer sciences and one math major laughing like mad donkeys): Get the phuck outta here!

      Nutanix: Also, we have a one-click failover.

      Us: Really?

      Nutanix: Yes, it's coming in 6 months.

      Us: So you don't really have it.

      Nutanix: Oh we do, it's not finished yet. But it's awesome. Don't pay the Veeam tax!!!

      Us: We paid $2000 per server, we are not concerned about that. Also, Veeam has been around forever and has 200,000 customers? We aren't ready to throw away our backup for a v1.0 product that's not out yet by a vendor who has never shipped a BURA product.

      Nutanix: But we can do database failover!

      Us: We don't need that. We run AlwaysOn Availability Groups.

      Nutanix: But this is better:

      Us (our DBA): You don't know what you are talking about. Stay away from this topic please. Any failover will take 20 minutes to boot the vm, SQL AOAG failover is less than a minute.

      Nutanix (switching topic without skipping a beat): We have microsegmentation!

      Us: Ok, we'll bite. You do?

      Nutanix: Not really, but it will come in a year.

      Us (groaning): So you are working on your own SDN?

      Nutanix (hemming and hawing): Well, yes. But we work with Aviatrix now.

      Us: So you don't have your own, or rather, your own is crap and not going anywhere so you validated Aviatrix with your stack to fill that gap. We heard Cisco is buying Aviatrix, what are you going to do then!

      Nutanix (foams at the mouth when Cisco is mentioned): WE WORK WITH GOOGLE! WE ARE GOOGLE! WE HAVE GOOGLE CLOUD SCALE FILE SYSTEM!!!!!!

      Us: We aren't Google.

      Nutanix: Google!

      Us: We run in AWS.

      Nutanix: But you should go Google. Anyhoo, we can run GPU.

      Us: So does everyone else. What about Intel Purley and NVMe? And Nvidia P-series? Our boffins want to run some analytics.

      Nutanix: Google!

      Us: Whatever. Send us a quote, we will check it out.

      Two weeks later we receive a quote that suspiciously has only 12 months of software and support. When we extrapolate to 36 months, Nutanix ended up 80% more expensive than all competitors (Dell and Cisco, who btw offered enterprise hardware instead of some flimsy SuperMicro).

      It's hard to take these clowns seriously. Their core product is commodity and now they are attempting to write ten products at once, competing in ten markets at once. The only reason they really offer is that competitors' products cost money (Nutanix calls that "xy-tax" as in vTax, or veeamtax, or MSTax). Yes, we are aware that software has costs associated, but so does Nutanix' version. Not sure where they are going with this.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Love this interaction. I have heard of similar stories.

      2. lordnorth

        Wow - I'd say that pretty much sums up every Nutanix sales meeting I've been in. Too funny. The references they make to Google are many in number and irrelevant! And yes, they are always more expensive. Mr. Customer, please pay a premium for the off-brand...

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Other HCI Still in program - not competitors?

    Some fairly incorrect statements and years outdated information above, and maybe a dash of slander. Might be worth a refresher on Nutnanix and HCI in general. HCI is far more than locally attached storage, the implementations vary greatly between vendors.

    Maybe ask the question, why does EVERY major vendor (Dell/EMC, HPE, Cisco, NetApp, Lenovo, etc) now have an HCI solution? Is it because they don't work and people are just being duped by marketing? Where are the torches and pitchforks for all the failed HCI projects?

    There are always a few exceptions, but I have not seen any mass evidence that Nutanix HCI doesn't deliver or large IT shops are dissatisfied with their decisions. All I see are El Reg comment trolls hoping to gain a few extra breaths for their dying legacy infrastructure.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Other HCI Still in program - not competitors?

      Erm. Every single thing in the above interaction seems accurate, whether it is using SED vs SW encryption, microsegmentation, or one-click DR. All these are features that promised but don't exist yet. Nutanix marketing is 18 months ahead of reality. Read thru the videos and PR at .NEXT and you'll see.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The Nutanix misinformation is laughable. For example, Nutanix has supported encryption using SED for years. I have a quote from 2014 with SEDs on it.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Updated info?

    Does Nutanix still suffer from horribly integrated "features" and over-selling of their marketecture?

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