Here’s something I don’t understand and perhaps someone can clarify it for me. George Crump, analyst for Storage Switzerland and prolific blogger for Network Computing and InformationWeek, recently authored an article on the Storage Switzerland Web site entitled, “Backups: Band-Aids or Solutions.” He remains fairly neutral throughout the piece only mentioning Iron Mountain, the sponsor of the article, a few times.

Now – how exactly did that work? If Iron Mountain paid for the article, did they draft it with their messaging and hand it to George to publish? Does George truly believe what’s written in the article, or is the Storage Switzerland Web site a forum for Iron Mountain to publish their messaging with an analyst’s name attached?

PLEASE NOTE: This post is not a criticism, but a curiosity. I’m a fan of both Iron Mountain and George Crump. Iron Mountain is a well-run company, and we have awesome relationships with a bunch of guys over there. George Crump is a good guy, very down-to-earth. Seven10 briefed George a couple months ago and we had a great conversation.

As for the actual article itself, it’s as if it were ripped straight out of a Seven10 brochure. I don’t mean that George plagiarized us; I mean that we agree 100% with the article’s messaging.

I would bullet out some key takeaways that we agree with, but what I should really do is simply copy and paste the whole article. Don’t worry George; we won’t do that.

If you want to know Seven10’s opinion on back-up, dedupe, and archiving, all you need to do is click here. How easy is that?

For all Seven10-related questions, please see:         

(Only because it’s scary how humor can be lost on people, please don’t badger George with Seven10 questions. You can ask us directly.)