Nasuni

The problem with Nora As the CIO of an unstructured data foundation company, this is uncomfortable for me to admit: There’s a problem with one of our agents. And it’s our own unstructured data that’s causing it. Her name is Nora, and she’s the AI assistant for our sales organization. Like any other member of the department, she has a job description, responsibilities, and a defined skillset.

Picture the Monday after the business finally greenlights its first real AI project. The model is ready. The team is ready. Then someone asks the simple question that stops the room cold: “Where does the data actually live, who can access it, and how do we get it to the model without creating another risky copy?” Most IT leaders aren’t lying awake over storage arrays. They’re lying awake over that question, and a few others like it. Understanding the real value of the data you’re paying for.

Six years. Six NorthFace ScoreBoard Awards in a row. I have rewritten the opening of this post more times than I want to admit, and every draft comes back to one word: grateful. The NorthFace ScoreBoard Award is not won with marketing or a single strong quarter. It is earned through the real voices of our customers, measured against one of the highest standards in our industry.

My wife thinks I’m having an affair. She overheard me on the phone with another woman and asked who I was talking to. Except that the other woman isn’t a woman at all. It’s Claude’s voice capability, which I use to capture thoughts and riff on ideas. But perhaps she’s right to be suspicious, because Claude and I have been spending a lot more time together lately. Opus 4.6 hit the market early in February.

Industry 4.0 is changing the way manufacturers design, build, and distribute products. Interconnected, intelligent production systems can accelerate product lifecycles and revenue streams. The problem? Operational data continually evolves, but your legacy NAS was designed for a static world. Integrating every file from design offices to factory floors generates an explosion of unstructured data. Traditional storage creates friction that can strip smart manufacturing of its potential.

I’ve never been a motorsports fan. Then, I discovered Drive to Survive on Netflix, and I have to admit—it’s good. It’s like real reality TV, but I do admit it’s dramatized. Yet, it has what every good story needs: drama, politics, character development, suspense (the whole bit with Grosjean and his crash!) all in a neatly wrapped, entertaining bundle. Before watching it, I didn’t fully appreciate just how technical Formula One racing is.

Cyberattacks are no longer just technical incidents—they are business events with immediate and measurable financial impact. A recent global attack made that reality clear when a single coordinated action wiped more than 200,000 devices across dozens of countries. There was no ransomware, no sophisticated malware, and no prolonged intrusion. Instead, attackers used legitimate administrative tools to execute the attack, halting operations, and disrupting a global enterprise almost overnight.

Enterprise leaders share how rising costs, unpredictability, and AI demands are forcing a rethink of storage infrastructure—and what comes next. For years, storage infrastructure followed a predictable pattern. Hardware refreshes every three to five years. Budget cycles aligned. Procurement timelines understood. It wasn’t perfect, but it worked. Today, that model is under pressure from every direction. Hardware costs are rising and supply chains are unpredictable.

As I’m writing this, I have CNBC and Bloomberg on in the background.

Something has been building in the industry press for months, and last week it crystallized. Chris Mellor at Blocks & Files, published an open letter from the CEO of Everpure to their customers. I encourage you to read it. It’s transparent, honest, and frankly, it takes courage to write. I respect it. But it also made me think hard about what we’re all really saying when we talk about this crisis.