Chasing Passion

Business Add comments

Last week I met Chris Martin and Mick Dawson, who rowed from Japan to North America, setting a new world record, rowing 5,100 miles in 189 days, more than a month than their planned 150 days without giving up. Imagine spending six months rowing, day-in and day-out with only a single companion who is asleep much of the time you are awake — they took turns, one rowing while the other slept – out in the open ocean with no sight of land. This is an epic journey on a par with the greatest adventures of history.

On the way they overcame tremendous challenges – typhoons and tropical storms, and winds and currents that blew them off their planned course and cost them days at sea, thick fog that reduced visibility to a few yards for days. And perhaps the biggest challenge, dodging huge ocean-going freighters and tankers that they encountered in the commercial shipping lane they traveled. Small boats are very difficult to spot from the bridge of a large ship out in the open ocean, and large ships are notoriously difficult to maneuver quickly if the boat is spotted.

While listening to them talk about their experiences, what amazed me was their determination, precise planning, belief in themselves and the tightly knit team effort. It got me thinking how their experience was in some ways similar to Solix journey. I am often asked how tiny Solix can compete and continue to win against industry giants like IBM and HP. Like Martin and Dawson, we are a small boat competing with some of the biggest in the industry, but just like the two yachtsmen, we have key advantages:

  • Innovation – Like their shipping lane, our market provides room to maneuver out of the way and keep ahead of the supertankers – in our case through continuous innovation. The rapid data growth being faced by datacenters and the challenges it imposes, gives us a huge opportunity to innovate and develop better answers to customer challenges.
  • Passion – Our passion is to delight customers. That is the cornerstone of our foundation.
  • Belief – We believe we are the best and we can continue to deliver excellence – the best technology to solve the customer problems and at the least cost.
  • Focus – We maintain a tight focus on our market and the needs of our customers. Keeping our eye on our goal is vital to our continued success.
  • Determination – We are determined to succeed. We are driven by our passion to meet and exceed customer needs and expectations and offer them advantages the competition cannot, regardless of the amount of effort required.

Martin and Dawson faced an incredible challenge. No one had ever rowed across the North Pacific before; many would say it was foolhardy to try. But they proved it could be done. Like them, Solix is facing the challenge not just of surviving in a challenging market beset with financial storms, but of excelling. And we are meeting that challenge with innovation, passion, belief, focus and determination. Few of our customers we signed recently, have indeed migrated from our competition that alone proves the point.

Happy Holidays !!

Comments are closed.


© Solix Technologies, Inc.
Entries RSS