Commvault CEO takes aim at emerging storage vendors

Bob Hammer puts down the likes of Rubrik and SimpliVity, claiming they can't do a fraction of what Commvault does

Commvault CEO Bob Hammer has taken a swipe at new entrants to the storage and hyper-converged markets, claiming their "day is about over".

The back-up and recovery vendor has often found itself the focal point of attacks from emerging storage vendors, which claim that it is not capable of innovating at the same rate as leaner firms coming out of Silicon Valley.

Speaking to CRN, Hammer said that these vendors have done a good job with slick marketing, but do not provide any capability that more established vendors in the sector can provide.

"The Rubrik idea is a nice idea but it's just a part of what we do and at the end of the day it's a relatively small part," he said. "I can't think of anything we can't do, and we can do a lot more than they can do, and we are lower cost and higher performance.

"They have a good story and they've done a really effective job in telling that story but, from a Commvault standpoint, that day is about over.

"Cohesity, Rubrik, SimpliVity, just go down the list. There is nobody that is not a start-up that we can't overtake in terms of cost, performance, functionality. There are none. Zero."

Commvault has launched a set of hyper-converged and secondary storage products over recent months, with its full hyper-converged product portfolio set to be available with the hardware in an appliance by the end of the year.

In its most recent results, Commvault saw its year-on-year revenue up 9.3 per cent to $650.5m.

Hammer has been at the helm of Commvault since 1998 and is the vendor's largest shareholder.

Asked whether he has ever considered making an acquisition to bolster the firm's intellectual property, he said there has not been a target capable of adding anything that could not be developed in-house.

"Why would we spend hundreds of millions of dollars when we have all this technology that we've developed on our own?" he said.

"In tech if you're not way out in front then you're in trouble.

"We were doing all these things when these start-ups came in," he said. "It wasn't that we tried to copy them, it was just in our roadmap. The difference with Commvault is we have scale and we have money. We have no debt.

"We keep about half-a-billion dollars of cash on hand; that's how we operate the company. We have zero debts. All this is technology that we have built."

Hammer added that Commvault's R&D track record has led to a number of offers for the firm over the years but that, again, the vendor has a stronger future going it alone.

"Over the years yes [there have been takeover bids], but there is no motivation [to sell]," he said.

"We're a public company so if someone came in with an offer we'd have to listen, but if we can add shareholder value on our own - substantially more than an acquirer could offer - why would we do that?"