Time for the secret to be out of the bag. I’m currently working on contract with the awesome company of AppFog in the Fort of Awesome. Let me tell you, it is indeed awesome too! You might ask why I am working with them? How do I align with them? What is it they do?

Well you’re in luck, I’ll tell you all about it.

A few months ago, I started really digging into PaaS more. Not that I needed a reason, because I’m one of those “PaaS is the future” guys. I see this as a huge shift, kind of like when the developer world moved on from Assembly and punch cards to C & C++. It’s a big deal, and it is shifting the way companies build apps, the way they stay competitive, and stand out and above the herd with better process, better capabilities, and more efficient operations. PaaS, is the path to tomorrow.

What is AppFog building? Currently if you’re fortunate enough to have beta access, you may be able to play with the amazing PaaS offering that they’re putting together, and I’ve stepped forward to help put even more awesome into it with their kick ass team! So what will AppFog be aiming for? Well, it is an impressive list, check it out!

Help us out, take the poll and get your favorite technology added to the list! There’s a whole list of other things that will be coming too, this is just the basic big hitters list.  :)

In other news, Node PDX has just finished the list of speakers, we’re finalizing the rest of the sponsors and related things, and just waiting (ok, we’re really busting our butts over here running around to make sure this is a cool event for all you node coders!)

Some of the cool things you’ll be able to look forward to is…

…and awesome Saturday “open drinks” party w/ New Relic! So be sure to be there for that…

We’ve aimed to get everyone a Node PDX t-shirt…

…and more. So go get RSVPed already, time is running out.

(Cross-posted @ Composite Code)

One of the key issues for organizations moving to Google for office productivity applications is the ability to enforce policy on end users around sharing outside of the organization. This issue is a good example of the tension that exists between keeping an offering as simple as possible, and ensuring all the bells and whistles that enterprises require are ticked off. In the early days of Google Apps it was easy to categorize Google as the “light is right” offering while Microsoft Office/Sharepoint was the “fully featured but cumbersome” beast. That polarization has changed as Google builds out demanded features.

One way that Google has maintained simplicity while not missing the features that larger organizations need is by the use of third party tools offering specific functionality. Perhaps best known of these is Cloud Sherpas who have had great success with a bunch of administration functionality for Google Apps in their SherpaTools product. Next up to he plate is BetterCloud who are today launching DomainWatch, a security offering for Google Apps users. Based in New York, BetterCloud is run by David Politis, who previously ran the SMB group for Cloud Sherpas.

The idea of DomainWatch is to give IT the ability to monitor, control and secure end-user access specifically to Google Docs, Sites and Calendars. So what does DmainWatch offer? Specific components that this $8/user/year toolkit offers include;

• Policy Editor and Compliance Analytics: Policy Editor allows admins to specify what’s permitted or not permitted to be shared outside of their domain. DomainWatch monitors domains per admin created policies and flags non-compliant sharing as a violation

• Dashboard: The dashboard provides a single view of how admins share Docs, Sites and Calendars with people both outside and inside of their domain

• Asset Search, Filter, Discover: All domain assets can be searched and filtered along nine dimensions, giving admins a comprehensive view into Docs, Sites and Calendars

• Domain Trends: An automated analysis of all Docs, Sites and Calendars in a domain gives users a complete asset inventory. Multiple domain management allows admins to report and filter by the entire domain or by any sub-domain

• Security Detective: Search for users or groups with whom documents are shared.  For example, admins can discover which Docs, Sites and Calendars are shared with contractors, so admins may remove access at the completion of a project

• Take Immediate Action: Remove a specific sharing mode from a Google Site, remove access to Calendars from an external user, or change ownership of a Docs collection.

• Policy Editor and Compliance Analytics: Unique to DomainWatch, Policy Editor allows admins to specify what’s permitted or not permitted to be shared outside of their domain. DomainWatch monitors domains per admin created policies and flags non-compliant sharing as a violation.

• Easy-to-Use Dashboard: The dashboard provides a single view of how admins share Docs, Sites and Calendars with people both outside and inside of their domain.

• Asset Search, Filter, Discover: All domain assets can be searched and filtered along nine dimensions, giving admins a flexible, comprehensive view into Docs, Sites and Calendars.

• Domain Trends: An automated analysis of all Docs, Sites and Calendars in a domain gives users a complete asset inventory. Multiple domain management allows admins to report and filter by the entire domain or by any sub-domain.

• Security Detective: Search for users or groups with whom documents are shared.  For example, it’s perfect for discovering which Docs, Sites and Calendars are shared with contractors, so admins may remove access at the completion of a project.

• Take Immediate Action: Remove a specific sharing mode from a Google Site, remove access to Calendars from an external user, or change ownership of a Docs collection.

There is always tensions between partners building features onto a core product, and what the core product itself will introduce. Much of what Google Apps has offered via third party add ons in the past has since been rolled into the core offering and this is something that BetterCloud needs to be wary of. That said, their proposition is a sound one, and as long as they keep innovating there is a big opportunity for them.

(Cross-posted @ The Diversity Blog - SaaS, Cloud & Business Strategy)

More organizations are starting to deploy new collaborative tools and strategies as a core part of their business evolution to connect and engage employees.  It’s becoming increasingly difficult (especially at large companies) to oversee these initiatives as typically there isn’t a role devoted to collaboration.  Usually collaboration falls on the shoulders of employees with an existing full plate of things that need to get done (such as the CIO). So is it about time for organizations to create the role of the CCO (chief collaboration officer)?

In 2010 Morten Hansen and Scott Tapp wrote an article for HBR (Harvard Business Review) which suggested that the role of the CCO should fall on another executive (just not the CEO) such as the CIO, CFO, or COO.  Hansen and Tapp state that the CEO doesn’t have enough time to devote this but I don’t believe that any of these other executive have that time either.

It’s an interesting question to try to answer and I’m hard pressed to say “yes” or “no.”  I think it’s important to explore both sides of this which is what I want to devote the rest of this post to.

I should start by saying that I have seen collaboration initiatives succeed on many levels.  Some companies have SVP’s of collaboration that oversee small teams, other companies have small task forces that report to an executive leader and some companies have someone such as the CIO lead this initiative.  I’ve seen all of these (and other) models work so I think it’s a bit presumptuous of people to assume that there is a “right” or “best” way to make this work.

• Unisys saw their CEO Ed Coleman start this initiative which was then led by their knowledge solutions team with directors from the office of the CTO and CIO.
• At the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS foundation the COO was engaging in discussions with the IT department on how to make collaboration work, this led to the development of a special task force.
• At FSG this initiative came from several members of the executive team which led to the development of a new role.
• At a mid-size medical association this started with the IT department
• At Penn State Outreach this came from a VP who was upset that employee felt they weren’t being listened to
• And the list of enterprise collaboration case studies goes on (also check out this list of 50+ enterprise 2.0 case studies and examples)

I think there is a best approach for each company but it’s not the same best approach for all companies.

I am seeing are increased complexities as organizations continue down the road of collaboration.  More and more challenges, questions, and issues continue to arise (and will keep doing so) such as how to pick the right tools, how to role them out, how to deal with upgrades, what happens with rogue deployments, where do organizations start, and a host of over things.  For many it is getting to the point where it becomes overwhelming for employees with existing job functions to oversee collaboration.  This has the potential to stagnate the initiative and causes tension within the company.

It could be helpful to have a chief collaboration officer at an organization whose role from an executive level is to make sure that the proper tools and strategies are being deployed across the organization. However, this role can’t be a “let’s put everything on the CCO” type or role.  Instead this person needs to work closely with the rest of the executive team (and even closer with the CIO) to make sure that things are moving in the right direction (just like any other executive).

I imagine that prior to deployment this person would be in charge of things such as developing use cases, evaluating vendors, developing a strategy and roadmap, evaluating risks, and building a team (not having the CCO do this on his own).  After deployment this person would be focusing on thing such integration, training programs, adoption strategies and the like.  The long term role of this person would be scaling the program, fostering a collaborative culture, continuous evaluation and adoption, and integrating collaboration within the overall business strategy of the company.  If you ask anyone from a large (or even mid-size) company that has been spending their time on collaboration they will tell you that it’s a full time job with new challenges and tasks just like any other.  Again the CCO needs to be someone that understands collaboration from not just a technology standpoint but from a business and people standpoint.

What about the CIO?

Many advocate the approach of the CIO overseeing collaboration, after all, this person is in charge of the information architecture.  This may work but lets keep in mind that the CIO is already working full time (probably well over that) with his/her existing responsibilities so simply throwing collaboration to them just because it might be convenient isn’t the best approach.  Also, just because someone is the CIO doesn’t mean that they understand collaboration.  Now again, I have seen some CIOs who run a collaboration team work successfully but I have also seen many companies struggle with this resulting in botched deployments or abandoned platforms.

If organizations want to make collaboration work then it needs to be done right.

Another approach has been do distribute the roles and responsibilities of a CCO among a team of individuals led by an already existing executive (CIO, CEO, or other).  Challenges in this type of environment are around consensus and timing to make decisions as more people tend to take more time to make things happen.  There are many models that organizations use and I’m sure you can think of several yourself.  However, let’s get back to the point at hand which is, do organizations need a CCO?

The best way to approach this is by looking at the existing environment of your company to decide how to proceed.

When a CCO might be a good idea

• If collaboration becomes too much of a responsibility to add to an existing team or individual
• If the organization wishes to move at a more rapid pace
• There isn’t anyone in their current role that really understands collaboration from a business and technology standpoint
• The long-term strategy is to have a key team and person that can handle anything around collaboration (everything from training to strategy development)
• If the organization is having trouble looking at collaboration from a holistic big picture of how it impacts everyone
• If collaboration is going to be led and supported from the senior executive level
• If budget exists for such a role
• If the organization has decided that this is indeed a strategic and permanent investment (as opposed to a short term pilot)

When a CCO might not be a good idea

• If another executive is able and willing to take on the task to oversee collaboration
• If a distributed responsibility model has worked in the past for other roles and functions
• If budgeting for such a role becomes too extravagant
• If the strategy is to have a task force developed for a short period of time to launch this initiative and then disband
• If the organization is still having trouble understanding the value of collaboration and is still in the pilot or test phase

Again keep in mind that there is a best approach for your company but it doesn’t mean it’s the best approach for all companies.  Be careful of automatically assuming that a CCO is or is not the best solution.  Ultimately the decision comes down to looking at your existing environment and structure.  As you can see above every company has its own way of doing things and so will yours.  I certainly see scenarios where a CCO can be beneficial but there are just as many scenarios where having a CCO is not the best idea.  The point of this post isn’t to say what is right or wrong but to get you to think about the answer to this question so that you can make a decision that is best for your company.

(Cross-posted @ Social Business Advisor: Social CRM and Enterprise 2.0)

First let me make it clear that Open Cloud Initiative (OCI) is not dead and it is going to stay for a long time advocating openness. Also, I will fight all I can to keep it going. Having said that I am writing this post to re-emphasize something which I have been saying all along. I am also going to use this post as a reference whenever a myth is promoted in the social media circles on this topic. Unlike the cathedrals of proprietary vendors, all the debates about open source and other open topics occur in the open (pun intended). In the typical open source spirit, I will vent my thoughts (once again) on this topic here. For beginners, I have already written about this in my introductory post on OCI.

On the other hand, I am neutral because open source is included as an afterthought in the requirements. There are two schools of thoughts among those who advocate openness in the cloud world. One school, spearheaded by Tim O’Reilly, emphasizes on open protocols, open formats, open architecture, etc. as the necessary conditions for openness. They claim that licensing is irrelevant in the cloud services world. The other school, slightly old fashioned and in minority, claim that open source is equally important in ensuring the openness in the cloud based world. I belong to the second group and I have argued in favor of the importance of open source in the cloud world here and in other fora. For me, open source becomes a requirement because it is the only way we can have a more federated interoperable cloud ecosystem. In the absence of open source, the barriers for participation becomes very high and we may face the prospect of monopoly of cloud providers offering services.

I also highlighted the same thing in a talk at a Cloud Bootcamp at Santa Clara in the sidelines of Cloud Expo and my slides from the talk can be found here.

Argument: When you move from software to services, open source doesn’t matter and only open standards matter

My counterargument: I do agree that open standards (open protocols, open formats, etc.) are the key to eliminate cloud lock-in. The biggest concern against large scale cloud adoption is the risk of getting locked into proprietary clouds. Open standards are key to avoid such a lock-in. There is no doubt about it and it is extremely important that we raise the awareness about open standards so that cloud users are protected. However, dismissing open source as irrelevant is shortsighted at the best. Yes, open standards might help users from getting locked into a single vendor but, in the absence of open source, they will be locked into handful of vendors. We saw what happened when only a handful of players meet the needs of an entire country with US wireless industry. They stymied innovation for a long term because they were hell bent upon protecting their existing cash cow than really letting their services to be used for further innovation. Open Source doesn’t guarantee innovation in the technology field but it lowers the barriers so much that it opens up opportunity for others to get into the market, innovate and, more importantly, ensure that the end users are not taken for a ride. Imagine if we would have seen the cloud as AWS introduced to the world in the absence of open source licenses? Do you think Microsoft would have been flexible with their licenses to let Amazon develop a service that will eventually come back to bite them? Open source is critical for cloud computing and it is now helping, in the form of OpenStack, CloudFoundry and others, to ensure that there are not handful of cloud providers who could eventually grow their market power to stymie innovation like the US wireless companies. I strongly believe in demanding open standards but it is quite possible to work around its absence if there is open source, a fact once again highlighted by this brilliant post by Brad Hedlund. No, I am nowhere close to claiming that we don’t need to focus on open standards but I am only arguing that ignoring open source and focussing only on open standards is s h o r t s i g h t e d. Period.

Argument: Why would a consumer of a service need its source code?

My counterargument: The biggest problem with opponents and some proponents of open source is that they really don’t get it. Open source is not about consumption but about its power of enablement. Whether it is the case of software or service, it is the same. Even in the software world, every single user of open source software didn’t take the source code and look at it. Only a small percentage of users who wanted to modify the source code to scratch their itch really used the code. It is clearly the case of enablement than consumption in the software world and it is going to be the same in the services world. Consumers of services are going to give a damn about source code much like the consumers of software but the availability of code is going to enable many providers to scratch the itch and offer services to meet the more diverse needs not addressed by the original set of service providers. My point is: it doesn’t matter what we are talking is software or service, open source is an enabler of openness (and innovation) and, therefore, it is equally critical as open standards.

Open standards is about not getting your data locked in but open source is needed if you want to enable the users to run their workloads after that. What is the point in having my data out of a provider if I don’t have the resources available (at a cost affordable to me) to have applications that can act on that data? A truly open cloud should allow me to not just take my data out but also give me opportunities to use the data elsewhere without being held hostage by any group (of providers). If the definition of open cloud doesn’t give me this opportunity, then it is meaningless as far as I am concerned.

Argument: But, hey, we demand that at least one implementation should be open source

My counterargument: This afterthought addition of open source in the open cloud definition is what frustrates me the most. I really really couldn’t get this argument. Why would a proprietary cloud vendor spend critical resources (including tons of money) implementing an open source implementation just to get certified as open cloud by OCI? If market pressures forced the vendor to support open protocols, they will just enable that and satisfy the needs of their market. If the market pressure doesn’t exist, they would not give a damn to open source or open standards anyhow. Microsoft is a good example of market pressures forcing them to open up than some certification agency. Instead if OCI puts open source at the center, along with open standards, for the very definition of open clouds, it will at least motivate the large open source cloud ecosystem (it is growing by leaps and bounds every day) to get certified by OCI. Believe me, I have spoken to at least 5 service providers and platform vendors on this open source cloud ecosystem and they just don’t care about OCI for the very reasons I have highlighted above. They feel that they need not get OCI certified to be seen as a player embracing openness. I am pretty sure this is the thinking with many others in that ecosystem.

Argument: What OCI has is the middle ground that will help bring proprietary cloud vendors on board

My counterargument: As I told above, what is the incentive for them to come to OCI? If a company believes in the proprietary approach (believe me, it is not a wrong approach at all and what matters is that customers should have choices and proprietary software is one such choice), why would they even worry about openness unless there is market pressure? When there is market pressure they will anyhow adopt open standards and meet the needs. They really don’t give a damn about embracing openness mantra through OCI certification. However, this approach of OCI is a big put off for companies which have openness at the heart and have open source at the core of their clouds. In today’s world, it is a big part of the cloud ecosystem and they feel OCI is not needed to showcase their openness because they have open source in their DNA. OCI can create the market pressure needed to force proprietary cloud vendors to embrace open standards ONLY if they could convince these open source cloud vendors to come on board in large numbers. Why am I not hearing any excitement about OCI in the OpenStack community? The only group that will really benefit from this “middle ground” are those proprietary vendors who are lagging behind in the marketplace but want to use openness mantra to catch up. Yes, the biggest benefactors will be those who want to open wash.

If OCI’s intention is to put pressure on proprietary cloud providers to open up, they are doing it all wrong because whatever they are doing with this so called “middle approach” is not going to add the necessary market pressure. Rather, it has the danger of making OCI irrelevant as more and more open source providers jump in and create the market pressure on their own. I really want OCI to succeed but my efforts to make them see the larger picture is not making any dent. This blog post is my attempt to get the larger community put pressure on OCI to really open up.

Tear down that wall Mr. Johnston!!

News today (admittedly for the umpteenth time in the last few years) that Google looks likely to finally roll out its cloud storage product, G Drive. According to the WSJ;

Drive allows people to store photos, documents and videos on Google’s servers so that they could be accessible from any Web-connected device and allows them to easily share the files with others, these people said. If a person wants to email a video shot from a smartphone, for instance, he can upload it to the Web through the Drive mobile app and email people a link to the video rather than a bulky file.

WSJ’s Drew Dowell has details of Google’s planned cloud storage service, intended to compete with Dropbox. Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

The Google service, which is expected to launch in the coming weeks or months, will be free for most consumers and businesses. Google will charge a fee to those who want to store a large amount of files, the people familiar with the matter said.

After the announcement, I tweeted a simple enough question, asking the community if this was an indication that DropBox (and other similar filesharing services) will be disrupted by Google. The tweet garnered a bunch of responses, some of which I include below;

Would have to offer more storage for less money and be easier to use. Not an easy task.

I think you over estimate Google’s power.

Depends on Googles policies – if they read/server ads against your stored data may not go over well

i will take the bet. dropbox is going to fuck up other people’s shit, not the other way around.

Dropbox integration ease and ecosystem play is REALLY powerful..

Since so much heat was generated, I though I’d spell out my thoughts, in particular as they relate to DropBox. I’ve posted before about what I see as DropBox’s corporate immaturity, in the face of a real competitor, and one that has a massive existing userbase through its own Application suite, DropBox will have to be smart to maintain momentum.

Some respondents likened GDrive to Google+, the over-hyped and seriously on-the-backfoot social network that Google recently introduced. One commenter took the perspective that since DropBox is primarily used for sharing of files and folders, that the Google+ analogy is the best one to use to predict success. I don’t really buy that, Google apps already offers a social overlay, inasmuch as it needs to in order to enable file and folder sharing – Google Apps has been doing so for years now and is equally easy to use as DropBox in my opinion.

Alex Williams was even more forceful, saying that;

Dropbox is a gem w/ incredible depth. a new kind of technolgy that , Ben, you are very much underestimating.

Alex is an awesome guy, and much of the time I’m happy to defer to his analysis, but I’ve been using DropBox (and competitors SugarSync, Syncplicity, Google Docs etc) for years and I really fail to see this depth that Alex intuits, as for DropBox being a new kind of technology, I don’t see that. It’s an effective front end to cloud storage that has done a great job of making a friendly UI. I don’t see anything really revolutionary in the technology there.

But my bottom line sits outside of the technology. DropBox, over a number of years, has shown itself to be poor at being a disciplined and effective business. They’ve grown amazingly well because of the viral nature of their product and largely because they had first move advantage. Google has the ability to be cheaper, more ubiquitous and has an existing client base that should readily convert to GDrive.

That’s my analysis – watch this space I guess.

(Cross-posted @ The Diversity Blog - SaaS, Cloud & Business Strategy)

As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. Well, I am not sure, but this is what happens when I don’t have time to write:-)  If you are in Enterprise Software, you know what’s coming at you … resistance is futile.

Now, for the real news on Oracle’s acquisition of Taleo, I refer you to fellow Enterprise Irregular Larry Dignan’s piece @ ZDNet.

Related articles

• Oracle buys Taleo for $1.9 billion; SaaS consolidation ramps (zdnet.com)
• Oracle to Buy Taleo for $1.9 Billion (dealbook.nytimes.com)
• Oracle Agrees To Buy Taleo for $46/Share; $1.9 Billion (forbes.com)
• Oracle buying Taleo for $1.9 billion in direct hit at SAP (infoworld.com)
• Oracle to pay $1.9B for personnel software co. (sfgate.com)

Yesterday, VMware announced the release of vCloud Integration Manager, a missing piece in their quest to create a service provider ecosystem running VMware’s cloud infrastructure platform. Essentially, it is an orchestration and automation piece needed for service providers to provision resources requested by their customers using a REST API or a web GUI. Many other cloud platforms already have this service provider focussed solution available and VMware is catching up in the game. Interestingly, this VMware announcement also points to their renewed push on the service provider side. In a segment traditionally filled with reseller channels, vCloud Integration Manager lets service providers set up reseller accounts along with the provisioning and de-provisioning of customers. If you want an analogy from the traditional hosting world, this is akin to Web Hosting Manager from cPanel (not an exact comparison but it should give you an idea of what this product is).

VMware’s Cloud Push

Even though many think I am an open source wonk, I have always argued in this blog and elsewhere that open source is more about choice than about source code availability (an argument many others in the cloud industry seems to have picked up in the recent days). I have always argued that the users should be presented with wide variety of choices including proprietary and open source solutions. In fact, this thinking is one of the reasons I have used the heterogeneity argument in my definition of federated cloud ecosystems. I see heterogeneity in cloud infrastructure platforms as an antidote to any monopoly that could develop in the market.

Another important characteristic is the presence of heterogeneous platforms in the ecosystem. A federated cloud ecosystem can be realized just with one cloud platform as long as the platform supports federation but it will just shift the monopoly from the service providers to the platform. Monopoly at any layer is bad for the users and this characteristic ensures that we avoid monopoly at the platform layer. I don’t support monopoly even if the underlying platform is open source. The idea of heterogeneity not only helps avoid any monopoly, it is critical to handle the needs of long tail users. More importantly, as I will explain in a future post or research report, it will help cloud customers avoid the so called cascading failures (Cloud is a complex adaptive system and heterogeneity is critical to avoid cascading failures in such systems) in IT.

In this context, vCloud is an important player in the federated cloud ecosystem I aspire to see in the infrastructure market eventually.

After the perceived failure of vCloud Express, VMware switched gears and started pushing hard with vCloud Director. Initially, their push on the service providers side appeared to be anaemic but they seems to have picked up pace in the last year. According to VMware, there are now 94 clouds in 19 countries that are powered by vCloud and their service provider business grew by 200% in 2001. Though not great compared to their virtualization marketshare, these are decent numbers taking into account cloud hosting market is still at its infancy with enough room for growth. A solution like vCloud Integration Manager is critical for further push in this market.

In fact, I want to see more cloud infrastructure providers than less (in some form of consolidation). I feel that more choices will empower the customers and also cater to the diverse needs (both in the technological and regulatory sense) of users from different parts of the world. This is one of the reasons why I am advocating the idea of federated clouds in this forum and elsewhere. If you hear pundits claiming consolidation and handful of cloud players offering compute services like what is happening on the electricity side, feel free to ignore them because they are just being shortsighted. It isn’t going to happen anytime. We are going to see a surge in the cloud infrastructure providers in the coming two years and vCloud is going to be one of the serious contenders in the space.

But

A year or so back, I had a chance to talk to CEOs of two of the service providers who are transitioning from the traditional hosting to cloud hosting. At that time, they were relying on VMware’s vCloud initiative to offer their cloud offerings. When I pressed them about the economic viability of using VMware technology to compete with the commodity cloud providers like Amazon and Rackspace, they both agreed that it is going to be tough. There is no way they can compete with service providers using open source infrastructure platforms on commodity servers when they shell out huge licensing fees to VMware. Eventually, they have moved into offering tiered cloud services with open source technologies driving their commodity cloud offering and VMware technology staying beneath their enterprise offerings. Now, with OpenStack marching ahead in full force, we are going to see more and more service providers adopting OpenStack to offer cloud services at commodity prices.

Some pundits right away dismiss the idea of enterprise cloud as DOA but I disagree with them. I do agree that we will see modern applications being built for cloud architecture (with design for failure and built in performance optimizations (to perform better on commodity hardware)) in the future. However, it doesn’t mean that there are no role for enterprise clouds, at least for the next 5 years or so. First, organizations are not going to shelve their legacy applications but more and more of them are going to push these applications to run on public clouds. However, these applications are not suited for commodity clouds like Amazon EC2. Enterprise clouds will have a role in catering to the needs of such applications. Though legacy applications may become historical footnote sometime in the future, it is not going away anytime soon. Second, not every organization want or need modern applications running on commodity clouds. Some of them may stick with legacy architecture for business or legal reasons. Remember, we still have organizations running mainframe after so many decades. Enterprise grade clouds will cater to these use cases as well. Third, some organizations might build their modern applications on “premium clouds” just because they can (much like how some people want to drive Hummers when they can as well do the commute using public transport or a low end car). Enterprise clouds will come handy for these kind of use cases too. In all the above mentioned use cases, VMware will be a strong contender.

However, it is my opinion that VMware’s cloud platform will be catering to a niche user base in the long run while commodity clouds based on open source software and cheaper hardware, will be powering most of the infrastructure needs of the world. In the long term, it is going to be tough for VMware to sustain their dominance in the infrastructure market. If CloudFoundry (previous CloudAve coverage) takes off as expected, VMware can tap into it to stay relevant in the future infrastructure market. How successful they will be in taking advantage of CloudFoundry to sustain their infrastructure side of the business is difficult to predict at this stage. It is going to be an interesting five years for VMware’s infrastructure division.

Related articles

• VMware makes it easier to wholesale clouds (infoworld.com)
• VMware debuts cloud integration manager for service providers (zdnet.com)
• VMware crafts mega-controller for public clouds (go.theregister.com)

Evidently at least one of the engineers at Google Voice woke up and came up with a new feature…Offline Texting.

It was announced with the following blog post:

Sometimes the times that we’re offline can be our most productive times. However, whether on a plane or out of range of coverage, it’d still be nice to be able to draft text messages. With this new app, you can now compose new messages (single recipients for now) while offline and the app will automatically queue them and send them out when you’re connected again.

We hope you enjoy this new feature.

Posted by Yong Hoon Choi, Software Engineer

This is a tremendous revolutionary feature (in 2009). In 2012, the question is What else you got? When I receive a message will it say “You have mail!” ? Anything new in fax or Telex integration?

The new app has an Ice Cream Sandwich Look – of course few people know that look as few devices exist with it.

(Cross-posted @ TalkingPointz)

The Samsung Note is a smartphone tablet thing. It is either the largest smartphone or smallest tablet depending on your point of view. I saw it at CES, and it was advertised on national television during the Superbowl. The ad poked fun at the hipsters waiting in line at (presumably) the Apple Store to buy the iDujour – at least until they spot someone with a Samsung Note. But the reaction noticed on Twitter wasn’t the praise Samsung expected – many people felt there is no way that the next big thing could have a stylus – too 90s.

I disagree. It’s the way technology works – and once again everything old becomes new again. Just like the web is turning our desktops into thin terminals again and evidently Amazon is considering opening physical stores.

I’ve had my share of stylus pens. I can clearly remember the Palm Pilot and my Windows XP tablet computer – I don’t miss either of those devices. The capacitive touchscreen Apple introduced on the iPhone was clearly a breakthrough. But if we wanted to write with our fingers, we would have fingertip pens and pencils instead of actual pens and pencils. Fingers are just too thick to be used as a decent writing instrument. That’s why smartphones have soft keyboards – which are a pain to use.

As miraculous the smartphone is, data entry is still a pain in the rear. Voice recognition is rapidly improving toward usability – and soft keyboards are getting better. But why not have a stylus? Sometimes I just want to jot something down – like my airport parking spot. Keyboards take concentration and focus. In some apps – the stylus could also be used to hit iconic softkeys that are too small for a finger. To this day, drawing a picture – or a map with a keyboard (or finger) is not a suitable option.

I am not suggesting the end of touch screens – that’s silly – but combining the touchscreen technology with a stylus could offer the best of both worlds.

I find the Note to be a very interesting concept. I tend to look at it as a big phone rather than a small tablet – and I like the idea. It will be hard to pocket, but I’m not as mobile as I used to be- it could work. I think I am more frustrated today with a small screen then I would be frustrated with having to carry around a small tablet.

On a separate, but related note – I have been using the Livescribe pen – a stylus of sorts. It works like normal pen and paper, but captures everything written and uploads to a computer in PDF format (I posted a review here).  I like the general concept of this device – I can take notes with a pen faster than I can a keyboard and it is handy when I need to capture a graphic or slide. My complaint is that I can’t enhance my notes on uploaded to the software via the computer keyboard. They have the opposite extreme reaction.

The Livescribe software has OCR (if you write neat) so you can search for a keyword on the computer. But I don’t have neat writing. Or perhaps it is a picture that I am searching for. I think being able to add tags via the keyboard makes a  lot of sense, but they see that as retro.

As none of these human/computer interfaces are perfect, why limit people to one interface? A keyboard (soft or hard), a touch screen, a stylus, voice commands – bring it on. I don’t think you can have too many options.

(Cross-posted @ TalkingPointz)

I commented ranted on an SDN post yesterday. Submitting it failed, and I lost the +/- 500 words. A bit more miffed after that, I wrote the comment anew in Notepad, and copy/pasted that – it worked.
I got a few reactions, some of which inviting me to post on the topic on SDN via a blog post in stead of just a (lengthy) comment. While I appreciate the invite, I’ll just do it here for now

Let me explain about Integration first. I’ll keep it short, but if you like the long version, there’s my free eBook on Enterprise Integration

Enterprise Application Integration is about getting information from one container into another, across frontiers of time and space. As Star-Treky as this may sound, it is much simpler and involves a lot less Tech, if any – but the journey is equally exciting. I have been practising Integration for over 15 years now and call me a bore but I would love to do it for yet another 15 years, and then some

The starship Enterprise has as a mission “to boldly go where no man has gone before” – and that is exactly the goal to have in mind. Integration is a necessary evil, and a means at best: certainly not a goal

The starship Enterprise (Enterprise from now on, not to be confused with my usual word for fat-bottomed multinationals, thank you) is a vessel, which can carry people, packages, other spaceships, fighters, humans and droids or androids alike: it can encompass pretty much everything.
In Integration terms, the Enterprise is the envelope that can carry messages and their cargo. All kinds of messages: old-fashioned, current, brand-new, and even unknown. EDIFACT, X12, SWIFT, SEPA, HL7, XML, JSON, CSV, flat file – some of these are related, similar or even identical; but the Envelope can carry them all.
This Envelope makes everything transparent for headquarters: they just deal with the many starships there are, and address them in a uniform way, because they are uniform. This way, the universal diversity that lies underneath is hidden to the business. Headquarters simply exchanges business information between itself and the starships, and that’s the end to that

The Enterprise can also transport all these messages in various ways: of course it can transport itself in its entirety, at various speeds: regular speed, light-speed, warp 1 through 10, you name it.
Next to that, it can deploy messages by the hundreds, dozen, or even per person: it can use other carriers for that, beam people and cargo up and down, and even separate itself from its core.
In Integration terms, the Enterprise can support high-volume to low-volume, and high-speed to low speed. It is capable of batch and event-driven alike, regardless of transport protocols.
There are certain limits to each means of transportation, of course – but there’s a best approach and one or more alternatives to any of them

The Enterprise has the bridge, or central command, that logs and monitors each and every movement: nothing goes unnoticed or untraced. All information comes together here, and is handled as uniform events, no matter what they are. Decisions can be made that will trigger other events, and if we conveniently ignore the fact that all the tough decisions that make an episode exciting are 100% exceptions, there is a mega “iceberg” below the bridge that handles all the rules.
In Integration terms, the Enterprise can support Business Process Management (done below the bridge out of sight) as well as Complex Event Processing (done on the bridge). All in all, it’s an Event Driven Architecture that allows for both branches

So, there we have it: the uniform business-envelope supports all messages, all transport protocols, and central monitoring and logging. By doing so, it allows for handling rules (BPM) as well as exceptions (CEP) and errors

This is what Integration is all about: getting information from A to B across frontiers of time and space. Everything else isn’t about Integration:

• XML? Limiting the Enterprise to only carry humans, or droids, or cargo – you’d have to build three separate Enterprises to allow for only these three types of passengers
• SOAP? Limiting the Enterprise to only beam up and down, in between planets that support it
• REST? Forcing the Enterprise to beam down to places that support it, and beam up from other ones that only support beaming up
• Web services? UDDI? xBPELx? Guess what…

What has SAP’s integration strategy been so far? Not building an Enterprise, that’s for sure.
Netweaver facilitated building carriers and fighters at best. XI was a carrier, but couldn’t carry cargo, only lifeforms: it had no support for the most widely used B2B standards, it supported XML or flat file at best. PI was a little bit better, or should I say less bad, but converts life-forms to cargo and vice-versa under the hood (it’s entirely XML-based)

Is this future-proof? Hell no – it’s not even present-proof, or past-proof for that matter. Any-to-any is the base requirement: support of any message kind, any transportation means, and transformation of any message to any other message, respectively transportation means.
Like I said in my comment: apparently there hasn’t been a need for SAP to develop such an Enterprise scale platform. However, if you look at how SAP’s revenue and profit has evolved over the last 7 years, you’ll see that revenue per employee hasn’t grown, whereas profit has taken a 20% nose-dive

This next decade (and these past few years have already shown a few signs) will give SaaS an increasing piece of the enterprise software pie. Social will come in sideways, taking another bite. Mobile will continue to create applications at the speed of light, and real-time time-to-market will finally become business as usual – if IT can keep up. What does that mean? An end to adopt, and a beginning of adapt. Survival comes to those who can adapt, business opportunities will be harvested by those who can manage them.
All different types and kinds of humanoids, cargo, carriers and teleportations will come to life. And it will all happen at warp 11+

Is it time for a cunning plan for SAP? I most certainly think so. Would e.g. TIBCO-like Integration capabilities enable them to take on this decade and next? Oh yeah, definitely. Does that mean they should they buy TIBCO? Most definitely not – that will merely repeat the Oracle-BEA scenario.

(Cross-posted @ Business or Pleasure? - why not both)

Image via Wikipedia

Openness is undeniably cool right now, at least if you move in the slightly odd circles that I do. Openly available scientific papers are disrupting the world of scholarly publishing (which may not be all good, but that’s a post for another day). Openly available university courses are finally beginning to work out how to offer meaningful accreditation to students. Openly accessible data from government agencies around the world bulks out almost every data marketplace, and anchors many an analysis. Openly available code for cloud infrastructure or networking is challenging the hold of the tech world’s giants. Everywhere you look, ‘incumbents’ are apparently being ‘challenged’ and ‘disrupted’ by the power of open.

The truth, of course, is a little more complex and a lot more nuanced, as business models shift and evolve just like they always have. In sustainable systems, some people still need to be rewarded (often through being paid) for their effort. And in sustainable systems, paying someone can often be a pretty straightforward means of ensuring that you have a throat to choke if something breaks; big companies adopting open source often seek a proper financial relationship with someone who installs and maintains the ‘free’ software or hardware they’re depending upon.

One area of openness that I’ve been involved with for about ten years is that of open licensing for both creative works and data. And it’s come a very long way.

Here in Europe, for example, the (badly flawed) 2003 Public Sector Information Directive is under review, and there’s every likelihood that the replacement will make a number of sensible moves toward greater openness, transparency, and reusability for publicly funded data. As the EPSI Platform site notes today, Andrés Nin proposes going a step further than the European Commission is currently contemplating, by instituting a common open license across Europe;

“The creation of a single public information re-use space in Europe requires much more, it requires a common European OpenData license applicable to all data generated by European public administrations.”

I would certainly welcome a model license that European member states might be enabled to use. I’d also welcome — and support — vigorous efforts to dissuade individual member states or ministries from their usual practice of tweaking and otherwise modifying perfectly good documents in order to demonstrate how ‘special’ or ‘different’ their circumstances apparently are. When will they all realise that they are neither as special nor as different as they like to think?

But — and it’s a big but — it seems unwise, premature, and unhelpful to even begin to suggest that such a license might be mandated across Europe. It isn’t required, and attempts to develop a single document that everyone could accept would be an unhelpful distraction that would result in something so bureaucratic, so ringed in opt-outs and prevarications, as to be utterly worthless. It would also, in all likelihood, be one of those exercises in which the process very quickly subsumed the point. A prime candidate for, in the words of an old boss, being too busy to be effective.

Related articles

• Branding academic publishers ‘enemies of science’ is offensive and wrong (guardian.co.uk)
• Open Data: Europe Starts to Get It (opendotdotdot.blogspot.com)
• Open Data in Europe gets a huge boost from new EU rules (thenextweb.com)

(Cross-posted @ Paul Miller - The Cloud of Data)

Picture Credit: commonspace.wordpress.com

On Saturday, Robert Scoble made a blog post declaring the death of open web. In the post Robert argued that the open web as we know now is dying and no one can save it from the walled gardens of Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc..

John, where were you? At least Dave has been consistently trying to keep us putting content on blogs and on RSS, which ARE the open common web. It’s just that it’s too late. We’re firmly locked back in the trunk and the day for blowing open the trunk has come and gone. Now, excuse me while I check into Foursquare, message my friends about the parties at SXSW on Facebook, find a cool meal to have tonight with my wife on Foodspotting, and go back to posting on Google+.

First, I want to applaud Robert for putting efforts to highlight the dangers behind the walled gardens of Facebook, Google+, Twitter, etc.. However, talks about death of open web is premature and shortsighted. Let me try to put my own arguments about why it is the case.

• First, and foremost, I want to highlight the fact that Wall Street not just screwed up people’s wealth, it has completely stunted the views of people into quarter by quarter thinking. Pundits who are declaring the death of open web are not seeing the big picture but rather seeing the snapshot of what is happening in the web. While making such comments about death of something, it is important to be a historian than a wall street analyst. When AOL ruled the ISP world and held web content hostage through their walled garden approach, I heard similar predictions about how AOL approach is here to rule and distributed nature of open web cannot take off. Let us now wear the historian’s hat and see what has happened. Open web didn’t die in the hands of AOL’s (and others) walled garden approach.
• Another thing most pundits are missing in their proclamation of Facebook as the greatest innovation since wheel is the fact that social is just a layer on the web. It is a layer wrapped around open web to offer some of the features that was previously not available. Open web is the underlying plumbing and a layer cannot completely kill off the underlying plumbing, just like how a paint on the walls of the house doesn’t make the underlying foundation irrelevant. In fact, this is one of the reasons why I was betting on Google (before they got obsessed with Google+) than Facebook in terms of long standing innovation. What eventually defines web is the underlying plumbing which will stay open forever (otherwise, the very idea of the web will get defeated taking down the likes of walled gardens which Robert is pointing out in his post).
• The problem is not about walled gardens established by the Facebooks and Twitters of the world. The problem is the lack of realization on the part of users about the ownership of their data, a fact I highlighted immediately after Robert Scoble’s Plaxo fiasco. The issue of data ownership is the most critical aspect in not just the walled gardens of social networks but cloud computing, in general. Unless users realize that they (and not the vendors hosting them) own their data, they are going to get screwed. Users don’t realize their rights when they are busy playing with shiny new toys. It takes time, and certain disasters, before they become conscious of their rights. Once that happens, the demand for data ownership and portability will be in full throttle, market pressures will force the same Facebooks of the world to open up completely. We have seen it many times in the past and it will happen again. It is premature to write off open web when kids are playing with the tiny new toys.
• Another mistake Robert is making in his arguments is he expects older generation tools to disrupt walled gardens built using newer set of tools. That is like looking backwards to disrupt the current day innovation. An example will be relying on mainframes to disrupt cloud computing (no, I am not pointing to any vendors here ). If I want to disrupt the walled gardens of Facebook, I will be looking forward to a new generation of open tools to spring up, commoditize the existing services and, finally, completely disrupt the existing ones by removing the barriers for newer generation of innovators. This can only happen with newer set of open tools and old generation tools like RSS may not be of big impact. To understand how the dynamics of disruption through innovation works, I strongly urge you to refer to Simon Wardley’s work.

Finally, the idea of openness is far more prevalent among today’s users than anytime in the past. Such walled garden approach might work in short term but it cannot sustain in the long term as attacks on them by the forces of commoditization (read open tools) continue to develop. I would rather take a long term historical view on what is happening than short term wall street approach. Before calling the death of open web, it is important to find out why AOL is buying Huffington Posts and TechCrunches of the open web world. Just my (big) 2 cents.

Picture Credit: Picupper.com

For most of the pundits out there in valley, OpenSocial is dead and meaningless. However, at Lotusphere 2012 last month, IBM was highlighting how they have used OpenSocial in their image makeover towards Social Business. They have relied on OpenSocial for activity streams and gadgets. When I was speaking to Suzanne Livingston from IBM if she anticipates OpenSocial to be resurrected inside the enterprises (which I personally think is going to be the case), she sounded affirmative. I thought I will do a brief post highlighting this view and get the feedback from other pundits.

Remind me, what is OpenSocial?

Simply put, OpenSocial is a set of APIs (containers) that helps add social component to web services/applications (for example, activity streams are a good example of this) and also in integrating different web pages by using OpenSocial Gadgets. For “interactions” that are not done using the browser, it also offers a REST API. Google threw OpenSocial as an alternative to a walled garden like approach taken by Facebook few years ago. Then Google didn’t have a social DNA and this move was seen as a hail mary pass to stop Facebook from getting a run away lead in social. However, it didn’t get enough traction in the consumer side and Facebook did run away with the kind of lead which Google feared at that time.

However, as the so called consumerization of enterprise started to happen and enterprise applications started getting socially aware (a core attribute as I have pointed out in this position paper), OpenSocial looked like a great opportunity for enterprise software companies. From Atlassian to Jive to IBM to SAP, many companies were embracing OpenSocial for injecting social DNA into their software. OpenSocial did start to gain traction in the enterprise.

Even though Lotusphere was all about IBM’s Social agenda, I didn’t fail to notice how effectively they have used OpenSocial to make their applications socially aware. In short, IBM has bet heavily on OpenSocial and I don’t expect them to go back from this moment onwards. They have tied their social future so closely with the future of OpenSocial.

But will it accelerate?

However, things are changing on the consumer side. Facebook has a strong runaway lead and Google is trying to catch up with their own approach to Social, Google+. This time they are doing few things right and Google+ seems to be gaining traction. Google+, even though it doesn’t have a good set of APIs at this moment, is built on top of OpenSocial and the relative success of Google+ is going to keep them heavily engaged in the OpenSocial community even as Larry Page keeps pruning their own services. Also, Google wants to take Google+ to enterprises and their approach with Google Apps offers some insight into where they are heading. If they want to really get some traction for Google+ on the enterprise side, they have to make Google+ the “social messaging bus” for enterprise application. It implies that they need to invest more on OpenSocial efforts. When you have companies like IBM and Google focussing their energies on OpenSocial, there is a very high likelihood that it will gain further traction and get further adoption. I am always in favor of open standards and I am realistically optimistic about the chances for OpenSocial in the enterprise. What do you think?

disclosure: IBM took care of my travel and stay for Lotusphere

Richard Wallis left Talis (my former employer) last month, and has set up as a consultant at DataLiberate. In this short podcast, Richard shares some of his thoughts on data, semantics, and ‘the power of the link.’

Our conversation is also an excuse for an experiment. I have been producing audio-only podcasts here and elsewhere for a number of years, but have always tended to avoid producing video. It’s more effort, it requires more bandwidth at both ends of the conversation, and I’ve never really been convinced that it adds very much to a conversation between two people. Anecdotal evidence would also suggest that my current podcasts are consumed in environments where video would not work; washing dishes, walking dogs, and sitting on buses.

However, rather than just continue to presume that my biases are correct, I’ve decided to give video a try. Richard kindly agreed to participate, and the result is available on YouTube and embedded here.

An audio-only version is also available for download if you prefer. The introductory remarks in this version are slightly different to those on the video, as they come straight from the original conversation.

It’s perhaps unfair to draw too many conclusions from this first attempt, but a few things are immediately apparent. The whole process takes an awful lot longer. The files are larger, so processing and uploading times increase 2-3 fold. Uploading a separate audio file also takes a bit of time. Simply dumping the Skype recording into iMovie worked just fine… but I’ve (so far) not managed to find any way to balance the audio levels. Garageband lets me do this with my audio-only podcasts, but iMovie doesn’t seem to, so Richard’s side of the conversation comes across as quite a bit louder than mine.

Having done one, I’m still not convinced that the video adds anything to the conversation. But what do you think? If you’ve listened to any of my podcasts, please take a moment to complete the short survey over at SurveyMonkey. Your responses will help me to decide where to go next.

Many thanks.

(Cross-posted @ Paul Miller - The Cloud of Data)

Living  on the other side of the world from the bay area, it’s sometimes  little frustrating just how inward looking Silicon Valley can be. Sometimes it feels like some technology vendors discount the 5 billion or so people who don’t live in that tiny West Coast sliver.

Apart from being an arrogant attitude it’s also a seriously bad business strategy – the bulk of technology consumers live outside of the US, the bulk of consumers do not speak English as a first language and the bulk of the really exciting emerging markets (meaning the BRIC nations) to a one converse in languages other than English.

So given his personal peeve of mine I as stoked to hear from Ryan Nichols from Podio (more on them here) that this small start up has already moved to offer their application in seven languages (Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish, German, French, Italian, Danish and English).

They’ve also rolled out all these languages not only on their web application, but on their mobile (iOS and Android) apps too. Podio is a living breathing international company – they have employees from 14 different countries spread cross their two offices (in Denmark and the US), and they boast of users in 170 countries – given that fact, multi lingual is a no-brainer.

Awesome to see a little company innovating fast and seeing the world as borderless. Now to get those big vendors to do likewise…

(Cross-posted @ The Diversity Blog - SaaS, Cloud & Business Strategy)

Image via CrunchBase

Two days back IBM announced their plans to acquire Worklight, the Israel based mobile development platform, to beef up their enterprise mobile strategy. IBM realizes that in this era of BYOD/Consumerization of IT, they need to had a strong mobile strategy supporting various platforms. In fact, at the recent Lotusphere 2012 conference, IBM showcased their mobile strategy. They have built mobile apps that offer seamless feature set across different mobile platforms, a core attribute I highlighted in my position paper on enterprise software. IBM understands the need to have a development platform that will help enterprises and ISVs implement this core attribute in their applications.

With the Worklight acquisition, they can now offer a mobile development platform that will let enterprise IT or ISVs write hybrid apps that can work seamlessly with IBM’s enterprise offerings. Worklight platform is pretty powerful and versatile offering wide range of features including

• an easy way to develop HTML5, Hybrid and Native apps.
• allows for code reuse, pretty important in enterprise development
• an easy and secure way to deliver these applications
• an integrated feature to manage mobile and infrastructure

It will be interesting to see how it plays out and I hope I get to see some numbers on how this development platform is used by the enterprises and other ecosystem partners.

Related articles

• IBM to Acquire Mobility Vendor Worklight – An Analysis (web2.sys-con.com)
• IBM Acquires Worklight To Advance Enterprise Mobile Solutions Portfolio (thetechnologycafe.com)
• IBM Acquires Mobile Specialist Worklight (informationweek.com)
• IBM acquires Worklight, eyes mobile device management (zdnet.com)
• IBM Buys HTML5 App Development Company WorkLight To Expand Mobile Enterprise Services (techcrunch.com)
• IBM Buys Worklight for Mobile Software Platform (pcworld.com)
• IBM Buys Worklight (forbes.com)

Can someone tell Capitol Records that the music has stopped?

If you haven’t been following events, Capitol Records (EMI) has sued Boston-based Redigi (a used digital music marketplace) for what amounts to copyright infringement.

Today, Google decided to enter the fray as a third party, and filed an amicus curiae brief (friend of the court) to ask the court to allow their participation in some key disputes.  In Google’s estimation, Capitol Records is attempting to blur the established fair use, copyright legal lines.

Here is what Google is trying to protect:

1. The ability to allow people, at their own discretion, to move or copy their legally owned digital files.

2. That the service provider cannot be held liable for a users action with regards to #1

3. The fair use doctrine where users can copy their legally owned, digital files to other devices or cloud services controlled by the user.

4.  That ReDigi is infringing on Capitol’s exclusive right to “distribute copies or phonorecords,” despite Capitol’s admission that no material objects are distributed.  And that Google, “urges the Court to reject an internally inconsistent argument that would weaken the statutory restrictions on the distribution right.”

Capitol is fighting for the old status quo and is willing to sacrifice anyone that gets in their way.  Their filing against Redigi is an attempt to rewrite and revise established law to suit their pre-digital interests.

Why? As Google states, they are fighting over a 41 billion marketplace. A marketplace slowing slipping out of their control.  Instead of embracing the future, they’re endeavoring to fight it.

They may also be concerned about the conversations swirling around regarding some deep pocket investments and/or the potential acquisition of Redigi by some major players.  If that happens, the music industry will need a new strategy in its attempt to avoid irrelevancy.

The Music Industry Needs a New Strategy

It’s as if the Capitol Records legal team is litigating for litigation sake.  Cranking up the last bit of fees in an attempt to milk the last bit of cash from the last bit of control Capitol has on the industry.

As Google warns: “The Court can and should deny the motion for preliminary injunction without reaching the complex and profound legal issues outlined above because any decision should be informed.”

One has to wonder if Capitol has been informed that we’ve entered the digital age. Because their decision to fight, not embrace and profit from the new, digital era will only expedite their departure from it.

(Cross-posted @ Seek Omega)

 In a recent post examining the future of retail, I used the jobs-to-be-done approach to break down the industry. And I’ve been using it more in other ways. It’s quite useful as a basis for innovation.

The premise of the jobs-to-be-done approach is that it provides a much better basis for innovation. The focus is on unmet needs of customers. Compare this to asking wide open, pie-in-the-sky types of questions.

I thought about this when I saw this question posted on Quora:

What currently nonexistent websites would you want to be created?

Wow. Talk about an open ended question. I don’t know about you, but that question doesn’t help me. I get brain freeze. I need a prompt to come up with something. Wide open questions like that are somewhat divorced from what people actually need. And will generate a lot of ideas off the mark, or none because it’s too divorced from what people are thinking about (although one guy has an idea there).

Now I’ll describe a different situation. For Spigit, I often find myself needing to come up with a new idea to show off the system functionality. If I used that question from Quora, I’d find myself straining to generate ideas that pass the smell test.

So instead, I’ve been using the jobs-to-be-done framework. I think of my own jobs-to-be-done. Here’s one I actually used to come up with an idea for a client demo:

When I’m traveling with my family on vacation, I want to keep the kids entertained happily the entire trip.

From this job-to-be-done, I came up with an idea for a long haul family SUV (or could be a minivan). It’d have storage for games, and a flat surface for playing them. A refrigeration unit on board to keep beverages and food fresh. Multimedia for videos, music and games. It would take some design genius to develop. But it’s a vehicle I’d actually take a good look at.

And that’s the point. The jobs-to-be-done approach is incredibly useful for generating ideas that are relevant and actually have potential. You’re plumbing the depths of what people really feel and what they actually want to accomplish. A powerful head start on innovating.

OK, let’s take this one out with a little Holiday Road.

(Cross-posted @ I'm Not Actually a Geek)

Exciting news today from Xero ahead of their user conference tomorrow that spans two important announcements. I’ll cover them individually.

$20M Raised from Existing Shareholders

Existing shareholders have reinvested to the aggregate tune of $20M. Sam Morgan, Sam Knowles, Craig Winkler and Peter Thiel’s fund Valar Ventures have all taken part in the round. This is interesting as I was picking a major investment from a US based fund. While admittedly Valar is US based, I am a little surprised at the modest quantum and the Australasian focus of this round. CEO Rod Drury has spent some time recently talking with VC funds in the US and I would have expected a much larger round from an assortment of US funds. I see two possibilities – first that this $20M is an interim step to fund growth in US prior to a major round for a mass US attack. Secondly there is the possibility that Xero has made a strategic decision to keep a modest pace to their US operations (growing, but not seeking meteoric growth), if this is the case the $20M will see them able to deliver this growth.

At the same time Xero is offering a shareholder purchase plan to existing Xero shareholders under the same terms as the new round – namely $2.75 per share (a slight discount on what they are trading at currently). This will appease any existing shareholders concerns around dilution and shareholder equality.

Acquisition of WorkFlowMax Completed

18 months ago Xero made a strategic investment in what was then project management vendor WorkFlowMax. This investment was in my assessment a reaction to the announcement of a tight partnership between Xero competitor Saasu and former Xero partner Acclipse (the deal came less than a month after the Saasu/Acclipse hookup was announced). Xero has long told the story of the modern practice which sees client side and practice side operations occurring over a common ledger. In order to delvier on this vision, Xero needed a strong practice management offering and with Acclipse having gone elsewhere, Xero had to run fast to find this. While WorkFlowMax wasn’t primarily about practice management per se, they have since built out sufficient functionality to deliver upon this single ledge vision.

Xero made the decision that since the single ledger is central to their strategy, full ownership of WorkFlowMax was critical and hence has acquired the company for $2M in cash and $4M in shares.

I’m surprised that Xero has made the full acquisition, my earlier view was that the strategic investment gave them enough control over WorkFlowMax to achieve their aims, obviously having a separate entity didn’t sit comfortably with the Xero board and the benefits of bringing it in house with total control were worth the cost of acquisition.

It’s fair to say that, in Australasia at least, accounting practices are in a state of flux, unwilling to pay for a practice management solution that is growing ever less functional (when compared with modern approaches). Xero aren’t alone in trying to capture this latent demand, Acclipse is also doing well with its iFirm product – it’ll be interesting to see how the two of them grow.

Disclosure – I am involved in an initiative, LiveMigrate, that aids end users and practices moving from varying accoutning solutions. Our initial product being launched at Xerocon is an MYOB to Xero conversion service.

(Cross-posted @ The Diversity Blog - SaaS, Cloud & Business Strategy)

I was at Integration World Europe 2012 today, organised by Pervasive at the Cumberland hotel in London.
A nice environment and a party of a hundred plus, today’s topics were Big Data, Data Integration, Cloud and Strategic Business Solutions.
Clear divisions were made on Cloud: IaaS, PaaS and SaaS, and public, private, community and hybrid

Shawn Rogers from Enterprise Management Associates showed an extensive amount of tips and tricks on how to make sure you get the Cloud solution you need, being honest about the small print. The 50-page report he squeezed into one presentation showed many insights, and I’ll certainly study it

In their journey to the Cloud, Pervasive swapped almost all their internal (largely .Net-based) applications by various external providers, mostly Cloud-based. Some of those really solved business and compliancy problems, others just saved a lot of money, and some where an alternative over a big upgrade or an entire product replacement.
Of course, integrating all that is not an issue for Pervasive. There is only one issue, and that is user management and single sign-on (read: synchronised password expiration) across all those different solutions. Great session by Steve Padgett

The biggest issue that lies at the root of all problems is master data. Hot almost 10 years ago already, it seemed to somehow have been conveniently ignored – at least in my world it didn’t reach the hype it promised to be.
Geoji George presented a rapid approach to one version of the truth: data quality leads the way there. Pervasive uses a good range of products here: Data Integrate to extract, custom industry-based libraries to cleanse a first round, MatchMerge to apply filtering and cleaning rules, and then Data Integrate again to load. MatchMerge has a good set of capabilities including fuzzy logic, and the combination of it all seems like a strong combination to improve data quality so it can end up in a database to serve MDM purposes. Pervasive doesn’t really mind which database that is, they support more than a few.
Pervasive doesn’t offer MDM as a product or solution themselves, but the hardest part of getting there from scratch is supported very well

Finally, Pervasive’s Mike Hoskins, CTO, showed Pervasive’s Big Data products and solutions for Extreme Computing. This will be released / revealed in the coming months, and unfortunately the future session was under NDA so I can’t tell you more – I wish I could

I couldn’t attend all sessions of course. Pervasive Data Integrator 10 I would have liked to see for sure. It’s offered on-premise, off-premise, whatever suits your needs. It just so happened all my sessions were presented by Pervasive people, yet I’d liked to have heard from customers and only half of the sessions were given by Pervasive people so I made a somewhat unlucky choice there – although I have no regrets.
I managed to finish attending the panel session which was okay but only got very interesting towards the end, but then had to run and catch my flight which I managed to do with only half an hour to spare – next time I’ll change my flight strategy for sure: I missed a very valuable part of the day

My takeaway from this day: the market for Integration is growing faster than ever, and the notion that it’s not about either-or is slowly getting through. If the last decades in IT have taught us anything, it’s that there is no next new thing that will take all our problems away.
Our problems persist, because we seek new business opportunities every day.
Our problems persist, because we find new business opportunities every day.
Our problems persist, because these new business opportunities pose different challenges to us every day.
Forget about building a house on rock versus sand: you will be building right over a vault line no matter where you do so – evolution will simply go on no matter what

Did you think things were settling down? Cloud will tear up your IT solution whether you like it or not, and Big Data, which isn’t a problem now, or in the next few years, certainly proposes a lot of business opportunities right now.
The last decade and then some has shown a convergence from batch-oriented processing and thus execution towards real-time and in some cases even event-driven operation. While the amount of information has increased within enterprises, the time to keep it has done so as well due to regulations and compliancy, among others.
To be able to crunch that, and metaphysical data which becomes available in abundance, you and your competitors all take weeks, which is fine, because you all do it, right? Now what if that were just days, or even minutes? What if you could decide, e.g. in retail, to sell an item at half-price for like an hour? Before the competition knows it, your run is done and you’ve made a quick buck, just because you could act much sooner on information available – because it was you who turned data into information.

Turn it around: what if you can analyze today’s data on the spot and thus spot trends that no one else can – yet? It’ll feel like you’re trading stock based on real-time information while the others have day-old information. Analysing quickly and swiftly gives you the ability to trend and look into the future – or at least gives you the audacity to do so

What matters, is being adaptive. Adopting new solutions and thus waiting for them to become available (for the whole market at the same time too) is just plain silly and only pleasing the typical vendors and system integrators. Has client-server solved anything? We’re back to dummy terminals now with Cloud. Has ERP or CRM solved anything? It gave us more customization than bespoke could ever dream of, while at the same time threatening us with a major update every other year.
Has ERP solved the integration problem? No, we now just have SAP- and Oracle silos that are still bespoke on a functional and technical level.
Integration? It’s still on the agenda, and if we focus on replacing SOAP by REST, and Connectors by API’s, it will still be on the agenda 10 years from now – in a useless way.
If we keep on talking about Cloud, that will also be on the agenda 10 years from now, unless we address SaaS, PaaS and IaaS, how we get to the various flavours via private, hybrid, community and public cloud and explore how we can keep all that together with on-premise or other off-premise where it needs to be.
When it comes together, we need to realise that the average dictionary is so big because it pleases everyone: in the next few years we’ll find out that it’s a truth that also applies to the enterprise, when we jot all our increasingly becoming disparate stuff together.
My vision for the future is clear: diversity is here to stay, because time-to-market and real-time decision making will dictate so. Out go the dinosaurs (although they’ll manage to squeeze out another few updates on an increasing discount), in come the packs of velociraptors. That means slowly converge from on-premise to off-premise where that will ROI, and do something else or stick to proven solutions where it doesn’t

What I especially like about Pervasive is the fact that they’re hype-free. They tell it like it is, and show that being sincere and open can lead to great success. They know what they talk about, and can relate that message to any audience. Their great promise is DataRush, which you should be watching closely. I know I will.

(Cross-posted @ Business or Pleasure? - why not both)