Data storage services provider Pure Storage Inc. said today it’s hiring a new chief revenue officer, longtime VMware Inc. and Cisco Systems Inc. executive Dominick Delfino, and announced preliminary third-quarter revenue that’s ahead of analyst’s expectations.

The company, which sells flash memory-based hardware and software products, said Delfino (pictured) will assume the role of CRO and head of sales immediately. Delfino comes with a strong pedigree, having previously led VMware Inc.’s Americas sales team and held various other positions there and at Cisco before that. Pure Storage described him as “one of the industry’s foremost software sales leaders” and said he has shown proven success in the as-a-service business model.

“He brings a deep understanding and appreciation for where our customers are going, and we are confident in his ability to grow and lead the industry’s best sales operation,” Pure Storage Chairman and Chief Executive Charles Giancarlo said in a statement.

Delfino, who will report directly to Giancarlo, is being tasked with accelerating Pure’s growth in both new and existing markets. He will be responsible for defining new and differentiated go-to-market strategies and delivering on the company’s sales performance goals. “Pure has an enviable reputation in the market of being customer-obsessed,” Delfino said.

Delfino joins Pure Storage at a pivotal moment for the company, which recently made the largest acquisition in its history when it snapped up Portworx Inc. for $370 million. That acquisition is designed to help Pure expand into the growing market for cloud-native and Kubernetes-based storage services.

Providing storage for Kubernetes-based container deployments is an important goal for every storage company these days because it’s an area that has yet to be addressed satisfactorily. Whoever can do so stands to win big, since the vast majority of modern enterprise applications these days run inside software containers, which are managed using Kubernetes.

Giancarlo told SiliconANGLE last month that Pure’s plan is to create a new cloud-native business unit around Portworx and offer a comprehensive suite of data services that can be deployed in the cloud or on-premises, natively orchestrated by Kubernetes. One of Delfino’s main tasks will be to sell those new services to Pure’s enterprise clients.

Moor Insights & Strategy analyst Steve McDowell told SiliconANGLE that selling software and services requires a different skillset from selling storage arrays, which is where Pure has more expertise. He said it’s a much more competitive landscape with far more aggressive competitors.

“Delfino has demonstrated time and again at VMware that he understands the enterprise software and services market, and this is exactly the kind of leadership that Pure needs in its sale organization,” McDowell said. “It’s a great hire for Pure.”

It remains to be seen how well Pure’s container storage strategy will play out, but in the meantime it has some good news for investors. Pure actually gave Wall Street a bit of a scare with its second-quarter results when it failed to provide any guidance for the third quarter, but it now says it’s expecting revenue of about $410 million.

That’s encouraging, since Wall Street analysts had modeled sales of just $404.5 million for the quarter. Pure said it will announce its third-quarter results in full on Nov. 24.

“The preliminary revenue number is stronger than any of us expected, given that the overall enterprise storage market is tracking flat to down,” McDowell said. “Pure is on a roll, executing a series of strong moves that are clearly paying off.”

Pure also said its Chief Operating Office Paul Mountford will be stepping down and leaving the company at the end of the fiscal year. It hasn’t yet named a successor.

Here’s Giancarlo with more about Pure’s plan to deliver container-native storage:

Photo: SiliconANGLE