Any experienced tech veteran will tell you that building a new company in a new category is no easy feat. It's hard enough for a new entrant into an established market to get customers to take notice. Building category as a new company is a huge challenge, and frankly most don't succeed. Just look at the bone pile of companies out of business, and the bruises on their investors.
Bocada has been incredibly fortunate to have bucked this trend, riding on the shoulders of great customers, like Agilent Technologies who became our first major enterprise customer, way back in January of 2002. Today we find ourselves with more than 200 customers worldwide, including many of the largest, and best run IT environments in the world across the banking, telecom, life sciences, oil and gas, consumer, and technology industries.
Lately, the signs point to recognition that our category has emerged. Major storage software and hardware vendors, as well as new upstarts have entered the fray. After 3 plus years of pioneering every sale, Bocada is now being invited to the table by informed prospects. Moreover, members of the media such as Chris Mellor have begun to ask deeper questions about where we win and why, and the analyst community, lead by The Taneja Group and The Enterprise Strategy Group have validated that customers need to seek a solution to data protection management. And while there may be some question of exactly how to name the category ("Data Protection Management," Secondary Storage Services Management," and so on), one thing is for sure, 2006 will be a defining year for this market.
Drake
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