Delphix hires anti-PR bloke Silicon Valley Watcher as head of PR

Gearing up for an IPO, copy data virtualizer startup Delphix has hired veteran blogger Tom Foremski as its communications editor, a CFO and corporate comms head.

Delphix categorises its software as providing data-as-a-service (DaaS) and it makes production data available to test and dev', as well as other purposes without the need to create physical copies of the data.

Delphix DaaS v4.2 added support for Amazon GovCloud, OpenStack, and KVM hypervisor environments to enable migration to private and public clouds.

Foremski was a pioneer blogger, starting up his Silicon Valley Watcher ten years ago, having left the FT to do so. He is known for pushing the idea that every company is a media company and also for a notable diatribe against press releases, gloriously titled ”Die! Press release! Die! Die! Die!”.

One follow-on from that is the notion that businesses' media content should use best journalistic practices and not come straight from the public relations copy creation wordsmiths. Foremski becomes Delphix's editorial communications manager. Will he now have a role in gussying up the company's press releases^*?

He says not; his job "is not PR. My title is plain and accurate: Editorial Communications Manager. Editorial content is not PR, and it is not content marketing."

It is some other undefined thing.

Foremski says: "Blogging has became dull and looks the same as the old media it was supposed to disrupt. ... Corporate media has to include a whole set of new media formats such as producing editorial content that is comparable in quality to that written by independent journalists. This is not corporate PR it is something entirely different.^**"

"Corporate media can produce editorial content that is the equal — and increasingly these days because of the loss of experienced media professionals — it can be better than that produced by independent media companies," reckons Hei.

Nick Fuentes has been hired by Delphix to head up corporate communications, coming from being PR boss at VCE and, before that, VMware where he ran comms during VMware's IPO.

Delphix has also hired Stewart Grierson as its CFO. He was involved in the IPOs of ArcSight and ONI Systems. Delphix's founder and CEO Jedidiah Yueh said: “We’re focused on scaling operations across international theatres as we prepare for an IPO.”

This message was, of course, reinforced by Grierson: "Delphix has all the ingredients it takes to be a large, successful public company: breakthrough technology validated by blue-chip customers, a multi-billion market opportunity, and a strong management team.”

You can almost see the flood of stock options gushing into new hires' pockets as the Delphix IPO publicity machine starts cranking up its output, helped by the wild card that is Foremski. ®

Bootnotes

*Live! Press release! Live! Live! Live!

** El Reg thinks if it quacks like a duck, paddles like a duck, and flies like a duck then it's effectively a ... public relations operative.