I hear that DDN (Data Direct Networks) is the ‘best’ kept secret in the storage industry.  Well, I guess that depends on how you define ‘best’. But the word on the street is that storage industry veteran Rich Pappas is going to take over as their VP of Business Development / OEM Sales.

This is pretty huge.  For those of you who don’t know, well, let’s just say Rich put LSI on the map.  Rich was the driving force behind LSI’s OEM sales to Sun and SGI, and this enabled them to also get IBM.  Because of these agreements, LSI has made a lot of money.  Rich was also able to get an IBM agreement while at Emulex.

Rich is a very well respected, technical sales guy with a lot of personality.  So it seems out of character that DDN would hire such a guy unless they were looking at changing their personality – which would be great since most of us have no idea who they are.  Rich is the boost of energy these guys need.  He is a very strategic thinker, and knows some of the best technical minds in the storage business.

Good news is, it seems like Rich won’t have to spend a ton of time convincing one big ‘Blue’ partner to OEM DDN.  I understand that the back end of IBM’s new SONAS product is DDN.  Good for DDN, but that confuses me.  First, IBM spend $330m+ on XIV – the supposed most scalable, fastest storage platform around (I guess the SONAS folks heard about the 8 Reasons not to Jump at XIV).  

I know XIV is FC, but then they have relationships with NTAP to put a NAS head on this system and sell more of their own drives.  Additionally, they have an existing relationship with LSI (thanks to Mr. Pappas) so they could use their ONStor product and not have to deal with another vendor.  It must mean that the DDN product is pretty robust, and a good product like this in this in the hands of a great OEM sales guy could be dangerous to their competitors.

At the end of the day DDN needs to shake things up a bit, put a new face on the company, do some more external sales and marketing and try to leap into the next phase of their life.  If they truly do have something worth talking about, the industry should hear about it.

Speaking of sales, I also heard that DDN is looking for a VP of Channels / Partners Sales.  Word was Alan Yuhas was up for this role.  However, Alan is the “Bizzaro Rich Pappas” (or “polar opposite” for you those of you who didn’t grow up watching the Justice League on Saturday mornings).  This is not what DDN needs to straighten out their already messed up channel and put a good face on the company.