At Scale Computing, we have been following the Nutanix “VTax” campaign with interest, and I think many of you have been as well. The Nutanix CEO published a blog post where he accuses VMWare of being a bully. You should read the post for yourself, but the crux of it is that VMware is accused of “bullying” Nutanix for trying to help its customers save money - and save them from the “VTax” which they reference in the campaign.
We agree that VMWare is expensive. VMware is the 800-pound gorilla in the virtualization hypervisor space given their early entry into the market and their foothold in large enterprises. However, since leveraging most of the "advanced" capabilities that VMware provides - like live migration (vmotion) and VM HA failover - requires users to purchase and manage external shared storage systems (SAN, NAS, or use special virtual storage appliance VMs) or add software licensing for features like vSAN, the cost and complexity of a typical VMware based resilient infrastructure is beyond what most small and mid market IT shops could or should spend. Factoring in the additional administrative requirements and costs of training and certifying IT staff, the TCO (total cost of ownership) of using VMware is brought even higher.
Based on our conversations with customers and prospects, we think enterprises are also interested in saving money with their implementations. That is why there is so much momentum and adoption around alternatives to VMware. In fact, an alternative like KVM is used not only by us, but as the foundation for Google Cloud, IBM/Redhat, Oracle, Nutanix, and many others.
Though we are a smaller company with an infinitely smaller marketing budget than Nutanix, in 2013 we launched our own “VTax” campaign. We had a blog post and created t-shirts, but what we really loved is our unique “Imagine No VTax” song we introduced at Midsize Enterprise Summit in September of that year (I’m the one playing the piano on the iPad).
It was our first time at this show, and our bold message was "No VTax!" We discussed the total cost of owning a VMware environment vs. SC//Platform. We were proud and excited when we brought home TWO awards from the event: Best Demonstration of ROI and Best Execution of a Mid-Market IT Solution. Six years later, Nutanix is driving home the same message and we are glad that their large and expensive marketing platform is empowering more people to hear the message.
We are so glad that this discussion is being had in the market. We would also contend that Nutanix might want to take a look in the mirror and think again about the very old story where a not-so-shiny-pot called a kettle black before pointing the “VTax” finger. Many of our customers and prospects have a similar refrain for the “NuTax,” after all. Nutanix is the market leader, they command a market leader price, and we are happy for their success - but the hyperconverged market is a robust one and there is room for many strong players. Our contention is that Nutanix customers are paying a “NuTax” in order to finance the huge market cap Nutanix is supporting.
Scale Computing is a mid-sized software company based in Indianapolis, with engineering in San Francisco and offices in Europe. We focus on edge computing and hyperconverged solutions. Our growing customer base is found across almost every sector - manufacturing, health care, retail, financial services, legal, government, and education - and our customers pay almost half of what Nutanix customers pay.
Are our customers satisfied? Our TrustRadius and TechValidate scores are higher than most and that’s because Scale Computing Platform is extremely easy to install and use, and the Scale Computing support team is committed to always helping every customer achieve success. Some recent stats our support team shared are an average support call hold time of nine seconds. Because SC//Platform is so easy to use, the average support call only lasts 13 minutes, often because the software has automatically corrected the error on its own. Are our customers satisfied after these calls? We average a NPS score of 92 following our support calls - a remarkably high number for a technology company.
If you're tired of paying the “VTax” and are equally startled by the “NuTax,” we encourage you to talk to us. Hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) is quickly replacing traditional server + SAN + hypervisor infrastructure everywhere. There are a variety of HCI solutions to choose from, ranging from innovators to impostors, and it is important to carefully consider the costs, benefits, limitations, and gotchas of each HCI solution to find the fit for your business. Some of the most important considerations are ease-of-use, ease-of-implementation, scalability, efficient hardware utilization, and total cost of ownership. At Scale Computing, we have the expertise to answer your questions and help you rest easy in deciding on the solution that will work best for you, so you can work your best for your business.
Let us understand your needs and walk you through a short total cost of ownership exercise, free of charge. In the meantime, please take a look at what our customers think about working with Scale Computing in their reviews on Gartner Peer Insights, Spiceworks, Techvalidate, and TrustRadius.
We look forward to talking to you. Many thanks to Nutanix for restarting the conversation.
-Jason Collier, Co-founder and Chief Evangelist.