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The Intersection of Technology and Reality

Define The Cloud

The Intersection of Technology and Reality

Recent Conversation with the Founder of Tolly Group

Joe Onisick (@JoeOnisick), June 16, 2010June 16, 2010

This morning I had a brief and interesting exchange with the founder of the Tolly Group Kevin Tolly.  Because Kevin sent this exchange to my blogging email account my assumption was that he intended it to be added to the blog.  Kevin was responding to the tweets posted below above the email exchange, he was even kind enough to correct my spelling which was quite convenient, I’ll be sure to send my future emails to him first for editing.  I’ve reordered the emails top to bottom in chronological order following the tweets that prompted the exchange.

Original tweets:

RT @********: New post summarizing a new Tolly Group report http://bit.ly/d1EFaJ < enough with the @TollyGroup #failures Seriously

@jonisick Let me know what specifically you have issues with in this http://bit.ly/d1EFaJ – #analystsprofiling #failure

@******** I haven’t even looked yet but thanks to @tollygroups open bias total technical inaccuracy and HP funding I don’t have to. #bs

@******** HP makes some great products, go have them tested by a real non-biased analyst. @tollyGroup is an absolute #joke 

The person I was conversing with is extremely technically savvy and I was also not questioning the product.  Instead I’m questioning the value of anything published by Tolly after seeing the recent reports they’ve released on UCS which have been shredded repeatedly by engineers, bloggers, and vendors.  Remember these are my opinions and posted on my personal blog as such.

The exchange with Tolly’s founder:

Dear Sir,

It has come to my attention that you have certain unspecified issues with our recently-published report on HP’s X3820 offering. Would you be so kind as to advise me on the specific issues you have with this report?  http://www.tolly.com/DocDetail.aspx?DocNumber=210122

Cordially,

Kevin Tolly

Founder

___________________________________________________________

Kevin,

I have not looked at the specific report yet, and most likely will not. Tolly has proven through a series of recent reports to be extremely biased and technically innacurate. HP is spending quite a bit of money with Tolly to test specific equipment in specific ways to show their strengths and others weaknesses.

After digging through the HP funded UCS reports from Tolly it’s obvious that Tolly is willing to be as innacurate as the paying customer would like and test equipment that they have not thoroughly taken the time to understand.

Tests like your recent set completely tarnish any idea of independant accurate testing from Tolly, and because of that I only read the reports when I need to speak to the innacuracies.

Joe

___________________________________________________________

Dear Mr Onisick,

I repeat my request. You have made public comments about a specific report. If you believe there to be inaccurate information in that report, I would be pleased to review your concerns.

Otherwise, I would think it prudent to refrain from criticizing a report that you admit that you have not read. Please also be aware that public comments such as yours can be viewed as libelous.

Cordially,

Kevin Tolly

P.S. Please spell check: independent and inaccurate are spelled inaccurately in your message.

___________________________________________________________

Kevin,

I greatly appreciate the threat, thanks. Please take a look back at my comments and you’ll notice I made no specific comments about that particular report. I’m sure both your time and your lawyers time can be best spent elsewhere.

Joe

Summary:

People need to find better things to do with their time.  If you’d like a great overview of what vendor funded independent testing is actually worth take a look at Dave Alexander’s blog on the subject: http://www.unifiedcomputingblog.com/?p=161.

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  1. My Recent Guest Spot on The Cloudcast (.NET) Podcast
  2. Objectivity
  3. Where Are You?
  4. Technology Passion
  5. An End User’s Cloud Security Question
Quick Thoughts Independant TestingTolly Group

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Comments (2)

  1. Steve Chambers says:
    June 18, 2010 at 1:42 am

    Awesome… the folly of tolly…

    Reply
  2. Pingback: Network Consumer Reports | The Networking Nerd

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