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back to article Tintri terminates 200 staff, cash set to run dry in a couple of days

Tintri has laid off 80 per cent of its staff, including its top sales bod, leaving just 40 to 50 staff behind, however it still expects to run out of cash on June 30. The array maker has struggled since its IPO – sales revenue has been insufficient to end cash burn as its array technology was swamped by the competition. Newly …

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  1. Naselus

    A case of some really solid staff making some really awesome tech... being completely squandered under incompetent management running an unworkable market strategy. Based on their arrays alone, Tintri are one of the better new storage firms; this is down to a long-running management failure that's stretched on for a couple of years.

    15 0 Reply
  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I'm not sure you can blame it all on poor management. I don't doubt that played a part, but I remember visiting their booth at VMWorld years back and walking away confused as to exactly what it was that made them unique. Just seemed like a pricey storage array to me, and at the time it was all spinning disk so they appeared behind the curve. Now maybe it was just a poor booth experience, but I was shopping for new storage at the time (and told them that) and still left wondering why I would buy form them vs Nimble, Pure or one of the other array makers. Never bothered to look at them again.

    2 6 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Just to clarify, no Tintri product ever was "all spinning disk". Even the earliest products were hybrids with pretty generous amounts of SSD and good performance (for 2011 - 2013).

      2 0 Reply
    2. bdj
      Reply Icon

      Sounds like you had a very bad experience. Tintri had some brilliant (at the time) features that no-one else (to my limited knowledge admittedly had), they had VVOLs type support before VMware introduced the VVOL concept.

      Per VM QoS with visibility to where latency was introduced (ESXi Kernel, Host Adapter, Network or Array).

      Per VM replication and snapshoting.

      99% IO served from SSD (Flash).

      Good rates of de-duplication.

      The initial issue for me was they were NFS and VMware only initially, then adapted SMB for Windows support but very simple and powerful arrays non the less. Hopefully someone will buy the technology and keep it alive.

      3 0 Reply
      1. SmashedCrab
        Reply Icon

        And that right there is the issue...

        VVOL...the OS/2 of virtualisation.

        Only NFS...

        'nuff said.

        3 0 Reply
  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So sad

    I'm playing the world's tiniest Violin.

    Geddit? Violin?

    I'm here all week. Try the fish

    10 6 Reply
  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Soo...

    The more interesting questions are:

    1. Who advised the IPO

    2. Who audited the accounts for the IPO

    3. Who collected several suitcases of cash from the IPO and went on to "other greater things" while the sucker marks on the stock market bought a dead tech.

    Call me cynical, but there is no way this was not visible at the point when the IPO was done.

    21 0 Reply
    1. cs9
      Reply Icon

      Re: Soo...

      They had a top notch underwriting team, making this flameout even more remarkable.

      Morgan Stanley was lead underwiter with BoA, Merrill and 5 other reputable names pitching in. Amazing.

      https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1554875/000119312517191336/d120560ds1.htm

      4 1 Reply
      1. Roland6 Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        Re: Soo...

        >They had a top notch underwriting team, making this flameout even more remarkable.

        Not really, given the shenanigans that went on at various UK banks such as RBS, at the expense of their small business customers...

        6 0 Reply
    2. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      @AC

      "Call me cynical, but there is no way this was not visible at the point when the IPO was done."

      Sure it is. All it takes is one data analyst to hit 'delete' on his precious BPMN chart and the enterprise will never be the wiser.

      Now, I'm somewhat joking here but on the other hand I'm also not. I've had a few experiences as "junior data analyst" where I was honestly astonished at the seemingly sheer display of ignorance of upper management regarding their own company. Sure; they hired beancounters for a reason, I'm well aware, but surely you don't need a data analyst to tell you what is going on in your own company?

      With that experience in mind (even though it could be flawed one of course) I don't think it's fully impossible for higher staff not to know.

      1 0 Reply
    3. asdf
      Reply Icon

      Re: Soo...

      Yes a company going into administration so soon after an IPO pretty much highlights what is wrong with our current financial system. Something stinks.

      5 0 Reply
    4. Nate Amsden
      Reply Icon

      Re: Soo...

      There was a report..here on el reg I think not long after the IPO the company may of stiffed the top sales folks which caused some sort of sales exodus and it spiraled down from there.

      Their tech always seemed pretty cool to me I had several discussions with them over the years though not enough to get me away from 3PAR. My last talk with them I think earlier this year was surprised that they hadn't yet had the ability to reclaim deleted space from VMs and stuff(3PAR calls in thin reclamation and was introduced in 2010). Also was hoping Tintri would give more generic support for NFS for file serving purposes(on top of the other stuff) but they never got round to doing that as far as I know.

      Their per VM approach which vmware tried to clone with VVOLs did seem pretty cool, though at the end of the day not a problem that has really ever affected my workloads. As someone who has access to all aspects of the infrastructure I could trace down and kill things pretty easily if they were causing problems. 3PAR has had vvols for years now though I've yet to use them, at this point probably will play around with them next year.

      1 0 Reply
      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Soo...

        Lets see.. if I recall, just before the IPO, Tintri did a 6:1 reverse split of the stock, and then repriced it from 12-13$ a share down to $7-8.

        So what that means is.. if you had 60,000 shares you were thinking you were going to get 60K X $13 a share = $780,000.

        Instead what you got was 10,000 shares at $7 a share or $70,000.

        That's a massive haircut and that was what caused the "sales exodus"... there was no upside to staying any longer as the value of their options was completely eviscerated. That was really the end of the company, a ton of really sharp people left.

        Allegedly.

        PS I always thought the VMStore was a *GREAT* product. Management, not so much.

        3 0 Reply
        1. asdf
          Reply Icon

          Re: Soo...

          Wow 6 to 1 reverse split before an IPO and anybody bought after. Fool and his money.

          1 0 Reply
          1. midcapwarrior
            Reply Icon

            Re: Soo...

            Domo did a 15 to 1 and just went public today.

            Lots of big name backers.

            IPO at about a quarter of th last funding round.

            fool and his money number 2.

            2 0 Reply
            1. grep-v
              Reply Icon

              Re: Soo...

              Watching that. See you in a year.

              0 0 Reply
        2. Anonymous Coward
          Reply Icon
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Soo...

          So here is a brief history of the share price as reflected in employee option pricing and the many private rounds the company did. This is in original, pre-split dollars per share.

          2010: mostly under $1

          2011: not sure

          2012: 1.xx

          2013: accelerating rapidly

          2014: 3.xx? Can't remember.

          2015: 5.xx (estimated, maybe higher)

          2016: 5.xx (estimated, maybe higher)

          2017, pre-May: 5.xx

          2017, May: bankers report "there is no way you are going to get anywhere close to $1 billion valuation". Options repriced to $2.xx. This causes consternation among people who exercised at above this.

          2017, mid June. 6 for 1 reverse split. Estimated new share price: 12.xx. The whole point of this is to get a share price above ten dollars, for appearances.

          2017, IPO: 7.00

          So the common stock has lost somewhere between 99.5% and 99.75% of its value over the last 3 years. Thanks for playing!

          5 0 Reply
          1. Anonymous Coward
            Reply Icon
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Soo...

            Sounds about right.

            The majority of sales team got up and walked from the pre-ipo dinner when Ken said they were pushing it back a day and dropping the price. They never came back.

            1 0 Reply
  5. Vaughn Stewart

    Good Technology, An Unfortunate Ending

    Disclaimer = Pure Storage Employee

    This is truly an unfortunate outcome. At one point in time Tintri understood the challenges of disk-based SANs and envisioned the opportunity to radically change storage operations in support of a VMware (and latter Hyper-V & OpenStack) private cloud.

    In some regards they took what NetApp established and advanced the innovation. For a brief period in time, there was no simpler storage to operate with VMware, yet Tintri never seemed to cross the chasm or establish escape velocity.

    Personally, I believe Tintri suffered due to a lack of a direct competitor - one who would validate the market they were trying to establish. Tintri was unique and ultimately undefined.

    I sincerely wish nothing but the best for all who participated in the Tintri journey. Many friends and colleagues invested their blood sweat and tears to bring their technology to market.

    - cheers,

    v

    12 0 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Good Technology, An Unfortunate Ending

      “Tintri was unique and ultimately undefined.”

      Yes Tintri Marketing never managed to communicate a clear and attractive message. Long time VP of Marketing was shown the door in Sep 2017.

      3 0 Reply
    2. MWData
      Reply Icon

      Re: Good Technology, An Unfortunate Ending

      Thanks Vaughn - agree with your well balanced opinion. It's been a great ride in so many respects, but tragic in a business sense how things have worked out.

      0 0 Reply
  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    A leading provider? Guess not

    I'm surprised they didn't use the phrase "...a leading provider..." in their announcement they were laying off most of their staff. Maybe they finally realize they aren't a leading provider anymore.

    And Mark Gritter still has a pinned tweet of a picture on the day of their IPO on his Twitter feed. That glass of wine he's holding has a higher market cap than Tintri now!

    2 1 Reply
  7. grep-v

    I am not a financial specialist but I noticed that more and more IT start-ups are created with a short term view of IPO then acquisition. They have no sustainable plan beyond that.

    Early investors and Cs cash out on IPO then on acquisition if any. If the IPO is not followed by a quick acquisition within 12 to 24 months, the company is declared as past its expiry date and liquidated.

    Investors and top management would have then cashed out on IPO then would move the next great thing to the repeat the same.

    This is a worrying pattern :(

    1 0 Reply
  8. fredesmite
    Mushroom

    Violin Systems - REDUX

    They are copying the same plot / story as Violin !!! Mass layoffs , no one to answer the phones , the CEO keep the corner office window view

    0 0 Reply
  9. fredesmite
    Happy

    Servers all come with NVE drives now

    Every 2U HP/Dell/IBM server comes with Flash drives now ; Put on Linux 7 and you have a moderately fast file server over 20/40GG NICS; Add some RDMA and you have even a higher performance Flash array ; You don't need Pure , Nimble , or Tintri ;

    0 0 Reply

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