OUR Q4 2008 Review

The end of November delivered an unprecedented challenge for us. We had to make up for a dismal October and November in 31 days. We fell short.

Coming out of a challenging Q3, our forecast for our Q4 was a 1.86% Qrt over Qrt growth. The Qrt over Qrt actual came in at a -2.512%.
Vendors that performed better than the majority: **NetApp, Cisco, Data Domain

Vendors that performed worse than the majority: **3COM, Nortel, Sun(JAVA), Extreme, Hitachi, IBM, Radware, Symantec, BMC, Netgear

The positive:
Our focus in the areas of enterprise storage, de-duplication, WOC, enterprise security initiatives such as intrusion detection and prevention are helping us to survive these challenging times.

The negative:
Reduction of our own workforce, expected 10+ % unemployment by end of March, clients in the Fortune 2000 space all waiting to see 1) what will happen next on the macro economic front? 2) within their verticals the majority are watching others in their vertical to see what THEY will do. Talk about a self fulfilling prophecy and strategy as we all stare at each other.

Our optimistic feeling:
Based on client indicators of intent the second half of 2009 will see a slight uptick in IT infrastructure spending.

Our pessimistic feeling:
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**Comments on this blog are specific to our narrowed observations in North America and are specific to our exposure and resulting interpretations. Comments are not predictions of any general technology sector or specific vendor’s performance. It would be irresponsible for readers to make decisions based on our comments and opinions. They reflect only our own unique experiences and exposure to vendors, clients and the industry.