News

posted on 30 July 2008 13:09

Storage area network (SAN) provider Compellent has landed IMG, the worldwide sports and entertainment company, as its customer number 1,000. Compellent's customer growth is accelerating.

IMG Sports & Entertainment’s businesses include: consulting services; event ownership and management; fashion events and models representation (e.g. Kate Moss, Carolyn Murphy); licensing; golf course design; and client representation in golf, tennis (Rafael Nadal), broadcasting, speakers, European football, rugby, cricket, motor sports, coaching, Olympic and action sports.

(Pictured left: IMG  model Carolyn Murphy on a Vogue magazine cover. Compellent seems to be pretty much in vogue too.)

It will replace existing storage systems with Compellent SANs in London; Bradenton, Florida; New York and Sydney and anticipates additional worldwide locations. IMG will use Compellent storage to support its global offices with IT services based on Windows Server 2008 and VMware virtualised servers.

Steve Purewall, global network manager at IMG, said: “Compellent’s ease-of-use and integration of must-have storage features like automated tiered storage, thin provisioning and thin replication set them apart from the other vendors we were evaluating.”

In addition to IMG, and in the UK, Compellent recently signed:-

- Moffat Communications, a managed service provider to the financial community and subsidiary of Grant Thornton UK LLP,
- Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust,
- London Borough of Hillingdon council.

Recent mainland European signings include Calyon, Harsch GmbH and IAV GmbH in Germany together with BLGG, Van Ameyde Group and Zeeman in The Netherlands. 

At the end of 2006 Compellent had around 380 customers. That increased to 740 at the end of 2007 and 829 by the end of March 2008, a customer acquisition run rate of around 30 per month. This run rate has accelerated since then to about 42 per month to reach the 1000 level by the end of this month, July 2008.

Steve Duplessie, founder and senior analyst of the Enterprise Strategy Group, said: “For a company to hit the 1,000th customer milestone this fast is almost unheard of."

^{[Martin Edwards, news writer.]}