First, I want to apologize for the long delay between posts. There have been multiple outside influences on my time over the last 6 months (acquisition and then job change, primarily) but I hope to do better, or at least be mediocre on a more regular schedule. :-) Now that I have more than a couple days under my belt, I wanted to make the first post in hopefully a series to share my view of some of the changes that are being made, and being announced, around the Acadia/VCE joint venture that I work for.
Interested? Read on…
Just a quick side-note about me: I love companies in "startup" mode. For the last 10+ years I've worked for companies that were in a "pre-event" phase, and both of my last two employers went through either an IPO or a major acquisition. The environment in places like these are very different from larger companies, both in what is demanded from the employees as well as in the structure that is in place. Personally, I thrive in places where I'm allowed the freedom to contribute, and to see those contributions make a difference. I was very concerned that by moving to a company that is owned by such large parents that I'd feel like a number who was far removed from the shaping of things. So far, my concern has been very much misplaced.
Since I've only been with Acadia/VCE for two weeks, I don't have a ton of context for where the company has been, outside of my experience as a customer. What I do see is that there is a lot of excitement around what the company is becoming, and that starts at the top. Michael Capellas kicked off our team meeting last week, and was very clear about what worked, what didn't, where we were headed and what our mandate was. It was very refreshing to hear a clear vision enunciated from the top of the company, because that makes it easier for everyone to line up and row in the same direction.
With the announcement of the solutions for SAP and VMware View, there will be lots of announcements around what, exactly, VCE is becomming and what role it's going to play in the design and delivery of Vblock solutions. I'll let people more qualified than I am handle those high-level details. What I wanted to talk about was the team I have found myself on, and some of the cool things we'll be doing.
I belong to the Verticals and Service Provider Solutions COE under Todd Pavone and Jonathan Donaldson. Specifically, our team is tasked with the development of, and sales support for, solutions that are built on top of Vblocks for industry verticals, especially Service Providers. The initial verticals that I have been assigned include Telco, Media and Entertainment as well as the Oil and Utility space. I am paired with an Alliance and ISV Manager/Rock Star in those same verticals, Laura Lazarescou, and together we work with customers in our vertical to identify and integrate the software stacks that are critical to their business into pre-configured solutions that take advantage of the rock-solid architecture of the Vblock product. In short, think of all of the great reasons to buy a Vblock, and then think about having the application you were going to need it for pre-integrated, tested and supported on top.
Selfishly, this is such a cool place for me to be. I love product development, I love working with customers and every once in a while I need to geek out in the lab to stay grounded. I get to do all three of those things here, and I get to work with the Service Provider space that I've gotten to know so well at a really well funded and incredibly staffed start-up. The handful of projects I've gotten involved in so far have been eye-opening to say the least, and it's fair to say that both our team as well as the Horizontal Applications COE are going to have lots and lots of new offerings to introduce over the next few months to sit beside the recently released View and SAP stacks. Stay tuned!