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In 1991 Geoffrey Moore published 'Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers'. This seminal marketing textbook explored the 'diffusion curve' - the rate at which new technology products and services are adopted across any given market. The book is still in print today, is still a bestseller, and as Tom Byers, Faculty Director of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program put it, is 'still the bible for entrepreneurial marketing'.

The reason for this is simple: Moore's description of the way new technologies are adopted in enterprises illustrates a clear truth. Even if you haven't read the book you will be familiar with his terms: 'innovators', 'early adopters', 'early majority', 'late majority' and 'laggards'.

'Innovators' are people that take up products with exciting potential when they are still in their infancy. This is risky but offers major rewards. Next are the 'early adopters' who see the potential in new technology as it becomes workable. When a technology succeeds with early adopters, it can 'cross the chasm' into early and late 'majority' territory: mass-market sales. Finally, there are the 'laggards', last to adopt. Its called a chasm for good reason: for every vendor who successfully bridges the gap, many more fail.

Moore's description of technology adoption is especially apt in 'me too' markets where there is little real differentiation between products - like the enterprise storage market. Take a look at proprietary solutions from any of the household names - be that EMC, Dell, HP, or IBM - and you will struggle to find real differences. Its like the choice between a BMW, a Jaguar, a Mercedes or a Lexus: everyone has a preference, but there's no clear-cut winner on price, running cost or performance.

STEP CHANGE AHEAD
Yet, every so often, Moore's take on the diffusion curve is wrong. Circumstances combine to create a situation where a technology doesn't just cross the chasm, it builds an eight lane motorway and charges across at speed. For this to occur, two things need to happen:

1. The new technology needs to deliver a genuine step change: real benefits as opposed to marginal differences
2. The problem the technology solves or advantage it delivers must be big enough to offset early adoption fears

Both of these circumstances are now present in the enterprise storage market, and accordingly the market is going to change quickly and permanently: traditional enterprise storage vendors are facing a 'change or die' moment because the advantages of software-defined storage represent a step change.

The cost advantage of software-defined storage is huge. Software-defined storage eliminates the need for proprietary hardware and software, so IT teams can work on commodity x86 hardware and discs, generating as much as 50% cost saving. That means massive cost reduction and no vendor lockdown.

PRESSURE POINTS
And the pressing problem or advantage? The key problems with storage are so often stated that everyone knows them - we're storing more and more data, much of it is unstructured and we are keeping it for indefinite periods.

Here's the top seven pain points as measured by 451 Research: (click image)

The top three are data growth, cost management and capacity forecasting. Together these are a perfect storm: fierce unpredictable growth, management issues and cost problems.

In these circumstances is it any wonder that analysts from Gartner to IDC are united in forecasting the unstoppable rise of software-defined storage? In a word, 'no': open source based software-defined storage marks the beginning of a new era of more agile, scalable and cost-effective storage, and will emerge as the dominant storage architecture.
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