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10 Questions

with Michal Fišer
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April 9th, 2008 issue

VLADIMÍR WEISS/THE PRAGUE POST
Michal Fišer, head of EMC's Czech division, talks about the unawareness of the need to buck up data and the EMC's push into services.
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THE FIŠER FILE



Job title: Manager, EMC Czech Republic
Age: 40
Nationality: Czech
Previous position: Technology sales director, Oracle Czech Republic
Education: M.S. in electrical engineering, Czech Technical University
If the Czech Republic is progressing toward an information economy, data of all kinds will increasingly become the coin of the realm. EMC, a U.S.-based IT firm specialized in archiving and protecting data for both consumers and businesses, is now positioning itself as a full-service data solutions provider. The head of EMC’s Czech division, Michal Fišer, talks to The Prague Post about the power demands of computer clusters and the variety of places modern consumers store data.
? EMC’s business, at its core, is about backing up and handling data. Is there much awareness of this as a need?
So many people in the Czech Republic do not back up their data at all. They only recognize this as a need after they lose their data. This isn’t just private customers — it’s companies, also. At the moment, banks and telecoms are taking care of their data because they have experience in the field. But, if you go down a level, to manufacturing, there are a lot of companies that are not properly backing up their data.
Many businesses don’t have a clear view of the data lifecycle: What kind of data should be backed up, when, how? An example is e-mail. When and how are you backing up your e-mail? Is it necessary to backup all your e-mail? If you look at the structure of data in e-mail archives, you’ll see that only 10 percent to 20 percent of the data you’ll need in the future. The rest you probably won’t need.
? We recently spoke about cloud computing, which is a process of storing and using data online. Are we near a point where EMC will be emphasizing its cloud capabilities?
For companies, cloud computing is going to be important. We’re living in a virtual world and people travel a lot. And they need access to their data and applications. And this is the place for cloud computing. But there are some issues. First, applications aren’t ready for this. If you look at the most known applications, like those from SAP or Oracle, most are not ready for this.
There is another issue: Do you have people ready to prepare infrastructure, to define the structure of the applications and solutions? I’m worried there aren’t people who can do that right now. It’s an important point and many people are thinking about it. In the next two or three years, a time will come when people are able to use and trust something like cloud computing. By then, the technology will be ready.
? With more people using data-intensive online applications like streaming video, are you concerned we could come to a bottleneck in Internet bandwidth?
It’s hard to say. The infrastructure of the Internet in the Czech Republic is not as good as in the United States or Germany, for example. My own experience with one of the biggest providers is that they promised something to me and, when I tested the capacity of the line, it had less than half of what was promised. That’s stopping me from using the Internet for videos and bandwidth-intensive applications like that.
Once again, the time for more streaming video, etc., will come. If you look at the services offered by Internet providers, there are some technical limitations at the moment, but they’re working on that.
? Security must be a concern when storing data online. Are there any examples of a system EMC has set up that required particular precaution?
We’re involved in some projects with the government to secure their online communication. But the law hasn’t been passed yet that will support Internet signatures as real signatures, for example. We have the technology that will give you this functionality, but not the ability to use it. The law isn’t ready and so, at the moment, you still need to go physically to the government to sign papers.
? The data centers operated by firms like EMC have been criticized for their high power demands. With electricity costs rising, what do you do to curb this thirst?
EMC really takes care of this. When customers ask us to prepare a comparison of our power consumption with our competitors, we’re always better. Doing better requires coming up with innovative ideas, so we developed new hard drives that use solid-state memory. They’re significantly reducing power consumption and they’re faster than normal hard drives, as well.
? In the most recent version of its operating system, Apple introduced an application called Time Machine, which simplifies the process of archiving data. Are you concerned making such software a standard part of operating systems will cut into your business?
We have a different view on this. Apple has a nice idea. But we’re a company that takes care of data and data doesn’t only sit on your computer. It’s everywhere. You have music players, photo devices, all these different sources. So we’ve started offering these small backup solutions that can connect to anything — computers, MP3 players, whatever else you want to plug in — and the software will back up the data.
? The European Union has aggressively sanctioned Microsoft for its monopoly tendencies. Some tech companies say such an aggressive stance can stifle innovation in Europe. Do you welcome the EU’s efforts?
It’s hard to comment on this. I know the EU is trying to defend users. What they did [against Microsoft] is the first shot across the bow, showing others to be careful. Anti-competitive practices will not be accepted in this market. It’s good for everyone to understand that competition and the information sharing are essential.
The future will show whether this will or won’t work. Imposing such limitations on companies developing products is questionable.
? Speaking of innovation, does EMC conduct any research and development in the Czech Republic?
No. For R&D, Sun Microsystems is doing some and also Red Hat. But R&D isn’t supported by the government. Our government is more focused on supporting automobile manufacturing, things like that. We don’t have any plans on this front.
? Several years ago EMC bought VMWare, which is used to run multiple “virtual” machines on each computer, optimizing hardware use in data centers. What prompted the deal?
We care about data, not only on hardware but in providing complex solutions for customers. Virtualization is important for all our customers, especially corporate enterprise customers. That’s why we acquired VMWare.
However, we don’t want this technology limited to us. We’re keeping this line of business separate, since IBM, HP and other competitors use it. We want to show them that there’s no risk in sharing business information with us while we compete in other areas, like storage.
? What’s the biggest challenge facing EMC here?
The biggest challenge facing EMC — and this why I was hired — is to change the understanding of EMC on the market. We’re recognized as the provider of large enterprise servers but not as a solutions provider. We’re not only a hardware provider. We want to get to a point where, when people think about what they want to do with their data, they’ll think of EMC.
Want your manager to answer our 10 Questions? Contact Paul Voosen at pvoosen@praguepost.com


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