Decho ... (Decho) ... (Decho)

It's short for "digital echo", hence the feeble attempt at wordplay in the title of this post.

It's also the name of the new EMC company that's going to be focusing on the information services for consumers.

Ostensibly formed through the combination of Mozy and Pi, this is the part of EMC that'll be focused on an entirely new market segment.

But, as always, there's a bit more to the thinking than shows up in the press release.

The Big Idea

We've all seen the IDC numbers about the dizzying amount of information that's being created, and how the rate is picking up ~60% per year.  That's the headline.

But, if you dig a bit deeper, one of IDC's findings is key: the prediction that 70% of this information will be generated by individuals (people like you and me), yet 85% will be entrusted to someone else for safekeeping.

So, if you're going to be in the information infrastructure business (which EMC is), this brings up the rather interesting strategic question of just how EMC plans to directly participate in this wholesale shift in the way information is generated and managed?

And, if you're an EMC watcher like I am, certain parts of this new picture are becoming very visible.

The acquisition of Iomega to play in the consumer space.

The announcement of Atmos for cloud-optimized storage.

And today's announcement of Decho to provide cloud-based services for digital consumers.

A Bit More About Decho

We think of Decho as an entirely separate business at EMC -- separate management, separate organization, separate infrastructure and so on -- not exactly the same way we view VMware, but similar enough in certain regards.

Decho is free to pursue their strategy using any technology as they see fit.  Their job is to succeed in the digital consumer market, and -- given the amazing traction of Mozy for backup -- they're not just any startup.

I think the decision to create a separate standalone entity speaks volumes as to how EMC's thinking has matured: this is a market that's important to EMC, we really don't have this sort of thing in our DNA, better leave to people who DO understand this space, and give them what they need to be successful.

Where's Pi?

Many of you may be wondering, where's the Pi stuff?  Pi (short for personal information) is a fascintating ground-breaking technology that EMC acquired a while back.  Paul Maritz (now CEO of VMware) came to EMC through that acquisition.

Pi is still there, folks, it's just not part of this announcement -- yet. 

Trust me, Pi is definitely worth waiting for.

Thank goodness saner heads prevailed, and they didn't end up calling the combined entity MoPi or Pizy or something worse ... :-)

Can You See The Synergy?

Yes, we've only unveiled a few pieces, but there are those of you out there who will find what we're doing fiendishly obvious.

Imagine bazillions of Iomega devices going to market, each with an option to back and/or manage the information through a cloud. 

Or, perhaps, the world's most successful personal online backup application offering you an option for personal information management? 

Or, just maybe, a COS (cloud optimized storage) infrastructure to store, manage and secure it all?

There's more to the story, of course -- but if you were to triangulate the pieces that are already in the marketplace, you wouldn't be all that far off ...

There's More If You're Interested ...

Posts are up from StorageZilla and Chris, as well as Beth, El Reg and Xconomy, and perhaps a few other places I haven't seen yet (like their own blog!)

Comments

[Martin G]

I see a lot of the pieces but I see a missing piece at the moment. True, I generate a lot of data at home and store a huge amount and I'd love to offsite it all but at least here in the UK, I'm somewhat bandwidth constrained. I've only got 10 Mbit in and about 1 Mbit out (blimey, I remember when 64k was loads). So when are EMC going to lay fibre to the world? So have EMC anything which is going to help there?

[Chuck Hollis]

Hi Martin

My heart goes out to you.

I've got Verizon FiOS at home (an effective 7.2MB/sec in and out (that bytes, not bits). It changes how you use the network in a very subtle but profound manner. And, anytime they want to upgrade me to 20MB, I'll seriously consider it.

When I have to use more normal bandwidth (say, on the road), it really has become a pain -- I find myself having to work differently: drink more coffee, multitask more -- I need the network to keep up with my brain.

Today, the only thing we can offer you is local caching (via Iomega) and dedupe for backup. But, given your technical bent, I bet you and I both realize that far more is possible, isn't it?

Cheers!

[Blaine Berger]

It's interesting that EMC sees Mozy mostly as the play for the digital consumer market. We've got a subset of business customers interested in Mozy for other reasons and the pilots are going well. It's an easy sell because Mozy lets you "multi-tennant" the customers including the ability to designate a storage administrator to manage their own machines.

Looking forward to Decho and hoping that the business aspect of Mozy continues to garner continued attention as well. I realize that Cloud-based computing is en fuego but Mozy also solves a pain point beyond the consumer market.

[marc farley]

Looks cool enough - will there be a free level of service and if there is, can I resell it to Alex M?

[Chuck Hollis]

Blaine -- absolutely right!

Digital consumers live in workplaces as well, don't they? And you're right, Mozy solves some of the same needs in the corporate world that it solves at home.

It's part of the gameplan, I just neglected to talk about it in my post -- thanks for pointing out my omission!

-- Chuck

[Chuck Hollis]

Marc -- LOL!

Yes, there is a free level of service, or at least there was at one time. I think it's still there, haven't checked.

But the idea of charging for something that's essentially free -- there's a strange, brilliant logic in that. Because, as we all know, people tend to assume that "free" means low quality, or a marketing ploy, or similar.

Thanks!

[Lisa Badalamenti]

I see a lot of the pieces but I see a missing piece at the moment. True, I generate a lot of data at home and store a huge amount and I'd love to offsite it all but at least here in the UK, I'm somewhat bandwidth constrained.

[Sudhir Brahma]

I found it rather difficult to resist responding to this one and the general discussions on Cloud computing (aka thin client's new avatar as I see it).
To me, EMC’s offerings appears to be inching closer to a "who will bell the cat" kind of a problem when it comes to finding buyers/data-centres willing to make that kind of investment with just one company. In general, most investments tend to be staged, split across various products and grow with the market requirements. It will be interesting to know how EMC’s marketing folks have figured that one out. Most buyers are indeed averse to putting “all eggs in one basket” so to say…they want to encourage competition right in their back-yard.
As a user, I will love to have a cloud computing kind of environment at home- putting on the computer will be much like putting on the TV that has a mouse and a keyboard attached! …None of the worries of power or disk failures to bother about.
In general, I feel that getting the basic infrastructure to enable such possibilities could take a front seat. The last mile access is probably the weakest link today. The grand applications that run within such devices are good but we don’t want their species to wither away simply because there were not enough users.
regards
sudhir.brahma@gmail.com

[Steve Baker]

I would like to be able to access my individual files from anywhere and treat the cloud copy as the master copy.
1. Does Mozy permit the user to see his folders and files and access files individually from the cloud storage or does the cloud component serve only as a backed up bundel of all designated folders and files?
2. Does Mozy use Amazon S3 or an equivalent multi-location high redundancy backup arrangement for maximum safety?