This list celebrates changemakers creating meaningful impact through leadership, innovation, fresh perspectives, transformative mindsets, and lessons that resonate far beyond the workplace.
Principal Analyst and Founder
Constellation Research
R “Ray” Wang is the CEO of Silicon Valley-based Constellation Research Inc. He co-hosts DisrupTV, a weekly enterprise tech and leadership webcast that averages 50,000 views per episode and blogs at www.raywang.org. His ground-breaking best-selling book on digital transformation, Disrupting Digital Business, was published by Harvard Business Review Press in 2015. Ray's new book about Digital Giants and the future of business, titled, Everybody Wants to Rule The World was released in July 2021. Wang is well-quoted and frequently interviewed by media outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, Fox Business, CNBC, Yahoo Finance, Cheddar, and Bloomberg.
Short Bio
R “Ray” Wang (pronounced WAHNG) is the Founder, Chairman, and Principal Analyst of Silicon Valley-based Constellation Research Inc. He…...
ServiceNow's business process reengineering: "We exist to clean up the mess."
Constellation Research founder R "Ray" Wang catches up with ServiceNow Chief Strategy and Corporate Affairs Officer Nick Tzitzon during #Knowledge2024 to discuss ServiceNow's latest advancements, efficiencies, and opportunities as a platform company.
📌 Topics include use cases, margin compression, the adoption of #AI in business, and gateways to growth in the industry.
Former Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research
Doug Henschen is former Vice President and Principal Analyst where he focused on data-driven decision making. Henschen’s Data-to-Decisions research examines how organizations employ data analysis to reimagine their business models and gain a deeper understanding of their customers. Henschen's research acknowledges the fact that innovative applications of data analysis requires a multi-disciplinary approach starting with information and orchestration technologies, continuing through business intelligence, data-visualization, and analytics, and moving into NoSQL and big-data analysis, third-party data enrichment, and decision-management technologies.
Insight-driven business models are of interest to the entire C-suite, but most particularly chief executive officers, chief digital officers,…...
Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights
Constellation Research
Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights at Constellation Research, where he leads editorial coverage focused on enterprise technology, digital transformation, and emerging trends shaping the future of business. He oversees research-driven news, analysis, interviews, and event coverage designed to help technology buyers and vendors navigate complex markets with clarity and context. ...
Welcome to ConstellationTV episode 81! 🎉 Hear co-hosts Doug Henschen and Larry Dignan analyze the latest enterprise #technology news (#AI servers, Snowflake's new CEO, #earnings).
Then watch interviews about AI's impact in different spheres of business - Liz Miller with Tara DeZao of Pegasystems about the convergence of #marketing strategy and AI, then Larry sits down with Sustainability 50 executive Sandeep Chandna of Tech Mahindra to learn about #AI transforming #ESG initiatives.
0:00 - Introduction: Meet the hosts
1:42 - Enterprise technology news coverage
10:27 - CR #CX Convos: When Marketing Strategy Meets AI
20:49 - Sustainability 50 Interview with Sandeep Chandna
31:08 - Bloopers!
ConstellationTV is a bi-weekly Web series hosted by Constellation analysts, tune in live at 9:00 a.m. PT/ 12:00 p.m. ET every other Wednesday!
Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights
Constellation Research
Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights at Constellation Research, where he leads editorial coverage focused on enterprise technology, digital transformation, and emerging trends shaping the future of business. He oversees research-driven news, analysis, interviews, and event coverage designed to help technology buyers and vendors navigate complex markets with clarity and context. ...
Cisco at its Cisco Live conference outlined a partnership with Nvidia to launch Nexus HyperFabric AI Clusters, a data center networking architecture for generative AI deployments.
In a release, Cisco billed HyperFabric as a breakthrough. The combination includes Cisco networking with Nvidia GPUs and AI software. The effort is aimed at enterprises looking to deploy generative AI on premises.
On the surface, this Cisco-Nvidia partnership sounds swell, but I don't expect it to end all that well. Cisco and Nvidia look like classic frenemies to me.
"Strong networking year-on-year growth was driven by InfiniBand. We experienced a modest sequential decline, which was largely due to the timing of supply, with demand well ahead of what we were able to ship. We expect networking to return to sequential growth in Q2. In the first quarter, we started shipping our new Spectrum-X Ethernet networking solution optimized for AI from the ground up.
It includes our Spectrum-4 switch, BlueField-3 DPU, and new software technologies to overcome the challenges of AI on Ethernet to deliver 1.6x higher networking performance for AI processing compared with traditional Ethernet.
Spectrum-X is ramping up in volume with multiple customers, including a massive 100,000 GPU cluster. Spectrum-X opens a brand-new market to NVIDIA networking and enables Ethernet only data centers to accommodate large-scale AI. We expect Spectrum-X to jump to a multibillion-dollar product line within a year."
In short, Nvidia is InfiniBand today and Ethernet tomorrow. Cisco and Nvidia's HyperFabric effort, which is expected to be available in early 2025, includes the following:
Cisco cloud management software.
Cisco 6000 series switches.
Cisco Optics family of modules.
Nvidia AI Enterprise and Nvidia NIM inference microservices.
Nvidia GPUs, BlueField-3 SuperNIC and Nvidia reference designs.
VAST Data Platform.
On Cisco's May third quarter earnings conference call, CEO Chuck Robbins said the company had confidence that it would book $1 billion in AI revenue for fiscal 2025. "We believe we are well-positioned to be the key beneficiary of AI enterprise application proliferation with the breadth of our portfolio and the vast amounts of data we see," said Robbins.
Here's a look at Nvidia's three-year roadmap, which features a lot of switches.
In a Computex press release, Nvidia noted: "NVIDIA Spectrum-X, the first Ethernet fabric built for AI, enhances network performance by 1.6x more than traditional Ethernet fabrics. It accelerates the processing, analysis and execution of AI workloads and, in turn, the development and deployment of AI solutions."
Nvidia is selling Spectrum-X to cloud providers today, but rest assured the enterprise will be a target too. For now, Nvidia needs Cisco's sales channel. Tomorrow it may not and Nvidia's networking efforts as well as partnerships with Cisco rivals all could wind up a threat.
It's also worth noting that Cisco and Nvidia are targeting on-prem deployments for generative AI. Speaking at an investor conference, Cisco CFO Scott Herren said the two parties can both grab a nice chunk of the AI pie.
Herren said:
"If you're an enterprise and you're looking for inferencing or low-level training, this (HyperFabric) is what you need, AI in a box for you.
Nvidia came to us for a couple of reasons. One is our expertise in managing enterprise networks and the significant footprint we have. But also due to the enterprise reach that we have from a sales standpoint."
Today, the Cisco-Nvidia efforts are nascent. How this partnership develops over time will be fascinating to watch.
Constellation Research's take
Constellation Research analyst Holger Mueller said:
"Cisco and Nvidia are betting that AI will run on premises and are constructing a joint offer to allow enterprises to run AI in their corporate data centers. Nvidia has control of that market, as when it makes available GPUs, this will be an option. At the moment all GPUs go to cloud vendors who pay top dollar for them. Likely when AMD and Intel offerings will hit the road - Nvidia will make GPUs for on prem available. A setup where training is in the cloud and runtime in on premise / or localized on premises learning is also likely. At the same time the partnership puts pressure on Nvidia future foes AMD and Intel on the networking side. But Cisco will not be afraid to partner with Nvidia rivale neither - no partnerships are exclusive these days. That competition is great for enterprises as it increases choice."
Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights
Constellation Research
Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights at Constellation Research, where he leads editorial coverage focused on enterprise technology, digital transformation, and emerging trends shaping the future of business. He oversees research-driven news, analysis, interviews, and event coverage designed to help technology buyers and vendors navigate complex markets with clarity and context. ...
Zoho outlined a more collaborative vision of customer relationship management, launched a series of AI-driven enhancements across its platform, upped its developer game and created a cybersecurity stack.
The barrage of announcements at the company's Zoholics 2024 conference in Austin is uniquely Zoho. The company is pushing the status quo in enterprise software and aiming to democratize various workflows and processes with its affordable stack.
Here's a look at the announcements from Zoholics 2024.
Zoho CRM for Everyone
Zoho previewed Zoho CRM for Everyone, which is aimed at bringing CRM to all teams involved in customer operations.
Although sales teams are the custodian of customer relationships, Zoho CRM for Everyone is aimed at coordinating all the other teams involved in delivering customer value.
These teams include solutions engineering, contract management, sales enablement, customer onboarding and advocacy. The coordination and communication of the various customer teams can improve customer journeys and mitigate risks.
Constellation Research analyst Liz Miller said Zoho CRM for Everyone recognizes that an entire enterprise is involved with driving revenue. "This is a solution that meets the modern sales and engagement strategy, reaching beyond the stagnant notion that CRM is a record or a database…it puts CRM at the center of the project called Revenue," said Miller.
Mani Vembu, Zoho Chief Operating Officer, said CRM access has historically been rationed and that has created silos that hamper customer experiences.
The components of CRM for Everyone aimed at breaking down the silos include:
Team Modules: Business teams can create team level data modules by themselves with IT governance. Fields, permissions and workflow automation can be customized by teams. The modules are held in a dedicated team space with customer context and processes.
Requester Profile: When a team needs a deliverable from a different team they can place a request, track status and collaborate.
A new user experience: Zoho revamped its Zoho CRM interface for better usability across roles and functions. Users can switch between models and use no-code and low-code experiences to manage workflows.
Zoho CRM for Everyone is available for customers requesting early access. New capabilities will be added over the next several weeks.
Constellation Research analyst Doug Henschen said:
"CRM for Everyone is clearly the big announcement here. There have been many attempts to reimagine CRM over the years. Zoho is providing blank-slate support to customize for cross-functional teams and processes across all who touch customers, starting with marketing. Despite Zoho's always-value-leading pricing, I'm sure it won't necessarily be easy or a quick win to convince companies to extend CRM far beyond sales. But Zoho is disciplined and always plays the long game. They'll stick with the "For Everyone" push, iterating and tweaking to show customers the value in supporting cross-team communication and collaboration around customer interactions."
Collaboration enhancements with AI, workflow automation, industries
Zoho updated its collaboration portfolio to focus on unified project management, asynchronous collaboration across global enterprises, partners and industries. These updates have been added to Zoho Project, Zoho Notebook, Zoho WorkDrive and Zoho Sign.
Raju Vegesna, Zoho's Chief Evangelist, noted that collaboration across multiple time zones, devices and networks are an enterprise pain point. He added that Zoho has created platform services for AI, unified search and process automation to fuel collaboration.
Here's a look at the new collaboration additions that are generally available in Zoho Projects, Zoho WorkDrive, Zoho Sign and Zoho Notebook:
Zoho Projects now has natural language processing capabilities from Zia, Zoho's AI engine. Zia can summarize charts and dashboards to generate task recommendations.
Zoho Notebook uses Zia for notetaking, summarization, task management and tagging of topics among other things. Zoho Notebook is integrated into Zoho Projects and WorkDrive.
Blueprint, a visual workflow automation tool, is now available in Zoho Projects, WorkDrive and Sign. Blueprint provides materials and context as processes are created.
Zoho WorkDrive now includes workflow automation to automate content procedures across departments and teams.
Zoho Sign now offers the ability to create reusable templates for orders, sales orders and various documents.
While collaboration enhancements went broad across Zoho's platform, the company also went deep with workflows developed for industries. Here's a look:
Construction: Zoho Projects can troubleshoot issues remotely with Zoho Lens integration. Zoho Lens is an augmented reality remote assistance tool.
Healthcare: Zoho WorkDrive gets new Data Loss Prevention (DLP) security controls that can be used to flag and classify sensitive data.
Manufacturing: Blueprint in Zoho Projects can be used to chart and manage process pipelines and automate steps.
Other industries including Aviation can also build out custom tools.
Zoho ups developer game with Catalyst by Zoho, Zoho Apptics
At Zoholics 2024, the company also overhauled its developer tools with new pro-code services and native app analytics.
With the enhancements, Zoho is targeting application teams and professional developers looking to create custom tools. Zoho has also tightly integrated Catalyst and Apptics, which is focused on privacy.
Catalyst, which integrates with the Zoho ecosystem and third-party applications, has been upgraded with the following tools:
Signals, which routes events from Zoho services, third parties and custom apps to handlers using publishers and subscription rules.
NoSQL Database for storing structured, semi-structured and unstructured data across data types.
Slate, a managed front ends so developers can build customized interfaces.
CI/CD Pipeline, which automates tests and builds continuous delivery pipelines.
Zoho Apptics, which is generally available, consolidates analytics across app usage, performance, engagement and growth in one console. The unified view is designed for everyone involved in application development and management.
Other tools in Zoho Apptics includes:
Ability to prompt Android and iOS users for ratings and updates.
Tools that prioritize data privacy and security.
Analytics support across multiple platforms with web analytics coming soon.
Catalyst has a free tier and pay-as-you-go or subscription-based plans. Apptics has a free plan and pro plan starting at $62 a month if billed annually.
Zoho integrates its security offerings into one stack
Zoho launched a security tech stack that includes its secure browser Ulaa, Zoho Directory, Zoho OneAuth, and Zoho Vault.
As Zoho combined its security tools, it also upgraded key features including:
Ulaa now features machine learning powered phishing detection as well as crypto mining detection in addition to user privacy tools.
Zoho Directory has been upgraded with conditional access and routing policies. Users can also upload their own encryption keys using Bring Your Own Key. Enterprises can also authenticate enterprise Wi-Fi and VPNs with Zoho Directory Cloud RADIUS.
OneAuth now offers Smart Sign-in with a secure QR code. Additional tools make it easier to enforce multi-factor authentication (MFA) across organizations. Admins can also kill unauthorized sessions.
Zoho Vault can detect breached passwords, create compliance reports and store confidential data. Vault also offers browser extensions, mobile apps and desktop apps.
Constellation Research analyst Chirag Mehta said:
"With the rise of sophisticated cyberattacks, organizations are actively seeking solutions to enhance their proactive information security measures. Zoho's new security stack is a significant advancement in meeting these critical needs by offering robust protection against tracking, breaches, and attacks, ensuring both security and productivity for businesses. By integrating multi-factor authentication, secure password management, a privacy-first browser, and workforce identity and access management, Zoho aims to provide a comprehensive security approach. This holistic strategy helps safeguard sensitive data, build customer trust, and ultimately protect the organization's bottom line."
Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights
Constellation Research
Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights at Constellation Research, where he leads editorial coverage focused on enterprise technology, digital transformation, and emerging trends shaping the future of business. He oversees research-driven news, analysis, interviews, and event coverage designed to help technology buyers and vendors navigate complex markets with clarity and context. ...
SAP said it will acquire WalkMe in a deal valued at $1.5 billion in a move that could make implementations easier and complement its process and workflow automation efforts.
Announced at SAP Sapphire, SAP's purchase of WalkMe gives it a "Digital Adoption Platform," which aims to give employees and customers the ability to navigate applications, websites and apps to accomplish tasks and processes. These autonomous experiences from WalkMe can come in handy as SAP rolls out Joule copilots throughout its stack.
SAP said that it will pay $14 per share in cash to WalkMe shareholders, which will get a 45% premium.
According to SAP, the plan is to meld WalkMe's technology into SAP's Business Transformation Management portfolio, which includes process mining and automation tools in SAP Signavio and SAP LeanIX. With better process automation, SAP can boost engagement and make its customer implementations smoother.
Christian Klein, CEO of SAP, said "we are doubling down on the support we provide our end users, helping them to quickly adopt new solutions and features to get the maximum value out of their IT investments."
WalkMe CEO Dan Adika said his company can leverage SAP's ecosystem to drive more value. WalkMe will continue to support non-SAP applications. WalkMe launched WalkMeX, a copilot that would bring context and automation to any workflow. That copilot would be integrated with Joule.
The deal is expected to close in the third quarter and be immaterial to SAP's earnings results. WalkMe reported its first quarter revenue of $68.6 million and had 42 customers with $1 million in ARR.
Adika said on WalkMe's first quarter earnings call:
"I'm very proud to introduce WalkMeX. WalkMe’s new Gen AI contextual copilot. It's a completely new experience for the employee in the enterprise. WalkMeX allowed them to use Gen AI capabilities in the flow of work on top of any workflows. We combine the power of general purpose LLMs with our proprietary DPY technology that understand visual interface like a human does, and we created a new kind of copilot, and always on copilot that offers proactive AI assistant contextually in the flow of work. We're basically making AI real for everyone."
WalkMe Chief Revenue Officer Scott Little had noted that the company was seeing strong attach rates with systems integrators that were using the company's technology for change management. Little said:
"Remember, we are attached to their change management, business. That's where we get, that's where we get involved. They come in and do a big change program in support of an SAP, HANA update or an update for Oracle, an update for Workday, then, it's that group that comes in and brings us to the table. So, the more we see those coming down, the more we see those involving an opportunity for us to include WalkMeX. It's just going to accelerate for us."
One CIO asked the group for opinions on SAP's RISE program and being forced from on-premises to the cloud. The goal was to have a strategy for SAP in place by the end of the year.
CXOs weren't thrilled about SAP RISE and items like licensing credits for legacy environments. A CIO wondered what would prevent a customer from moving away from SAP--especially since the enterprise operates in a space that doesn't garner investment from the enterprise software giant.
SAP's RISE program is viewed as an exercise in financial engineering more than something that benefits customers.
Overall, the WalkMe purchase has a good risk-reward profile for SAP. For starters, the price for WalkMe is a pittance to SAP, which is looking to make it as easy as possible for customers to move to the cloud and S/4HANA. WalkMe also complements SAP's process excellence portfolio.
It's also a safe bet that WalkMe's digital adoption platform could get a big boost from SAP's ecosystem even if all it does is focus on in-house applications. However, WalkMe will continue to support non-SAP applications. The jury is out on how that support will evolve over time.
Nevertheless, it only takes a few slides from WalkMe's investor presentations to see the rationale for SAP's acquisition.
Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights
Constellation Research
Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights at Constellation Research, where he leads editorial coverage focused on enterprise technology, digital transformation, and emerging trends shaping the future of business. He oversees research-driven news, analysis, interviews, and event coverage designed to help technology buyers and vendors navigate complex markets with clarity and context. ...
CrowdStrike delivered strong first quarter earnings with revenue growth of 33%.
The cybersecurity giant reported first quarter net income of $42.8 million, or 17 cents, on revenue of $921 million. Non-GAAP earnings were 93 cents a share.
Wall Street was looking for non-GAAP earnings of 89 cents a share on revenue of $905 million.
Palo Alto Networks has made a big push to entice customers to consolidate vendors on its platform. Palo Alto Networks earlier this year set off the debate with a plan to bet that it could be the leading cybersecurity platform. Although the company said it has seen strong interest from customers, it's far too early to say the debate is settled.
George Kurtz, CEO of CrowdStrike, said about the company's Falcon platform:
"The Falcon platform’s differentiated architecture creates a wide competitive moat and uniquely enables CrowdStrike to solve the industry’s biggest cybersecurity, IT and data problems. Customers of all sizes are standardizing on the Falcon platform to achieve better security outcomes and lower their TCO."
For the second quarter, CrowdStrike projected revenue of $958.3 million to $961.2 million with non-GAAP earnings of 98 cents a share to 99 cents a share. For fiscal 2025, CrowdStrike projected revenue of $3.976 billion to $4.01 billion with non-GAAP earnings of $3.93 a share to $4.03 a share.
Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights
Constellation Research
Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights at Constellation Research, where he leads editorial coverage focused on enterprise technology, digital transformation, and emerging trends shaping the future of business. He oversees research-driven news, analysis, interviews, and event coverage designed to help technology buyers and vendors navigate complex markets with clarity and context. ...
Hewlett Packard Enterprise delivered stronger-than-expected fiscal second quarter earnings and appears to be joining the AI server sales parade.
Last quarter, HPE took its lumps over supply chain issues that hampered its AI server sales. In the second quarter, AI systems revenue more than doubled sequentially.
The company reported second-quarter earnings of 24 cents a share on revenue of $7.2 billion, up 3% from a year ago. Non-GAAP earnings in the quarter were 42 cents a share.
Wall Street was expecting HPE to report fiscal second quarter earnings of 39 cents a share on revenue of $6.83 billion.
HPE CEO Antonio Neri said:
"AI systems revenue more than doubled from the prior quarter, driven by our strong order book and better conversion from our supply chain. Our deep expertise in designing, manufacturing, and running AI systems at scale fueled growth of cumulative AI systems orders to $4.6 billion, with enterprise AI orders representing more than 15%."
CFO Marie Myers said AI systems order conversion along with cost discipline enabled HPE to raise its outlook.
Going into the earnings results, HPE was seen as a bit of an AI-server also ran given Dell Technologies momentum. However, Dell's most recent quarter indicated expectations were overheated. HPE's results along with comments from Dell, Supermicro and Lenovo indicate that the AI server market.
Neri said on a conference call:
"The demand for HPE AI systems is accelerating at a faster pace in our solid execution enable us to more than double our AI systems revenue sequentially to over $900 million held by supply chain conversion through improved GPU availability. Our lead time to deliver NVIDIA H100 solutions is now between six and 12 weeks, depending on all the size and complexity. We expect this will provide a lift to our revenues in the second half of the year. Enterprise customer interest in AI is rapidly growing, and our sellers have seen a higher level of engagement. Enterprise orders now comprise more than 50% of our cumulative AI systems orders with a number of enterprise AI customers nearly tripling year over year. As these engagements continue to progress from exploration and discovery phase. We anticipate additional acceleration in enterprise AI systems. orders through the end of the fiscal year."
Neri added that HPE's experience in liquid cooling via its supercomputing business is also helping seal AI infrastructure deals.
"Building direct liquid cooling systems is complex and requires manufacturing expertise and infrastructure, including power, cooling and water with more than 300 HPE patents in direct liquid cooling. HPE is well positioned to help customers meet the power demands for current and future accelerated compute silicon designs."
Neri added that HPE will launch a series of AI systems at its Discover conference in Las Vegas.
Server revenue was HPE's strongest area this quarter. Server revenue in the second quarter was $3.9 billion, up 18% from a year ago. Intelligent edge revenue (Aruba) was $1.1 billion, down 19%. Hybrid cloud revenue was $1.3 billion, down 8%.
As for the outlook, HPE said third quarter revenue will be between $7.4 billion to $7.8 billion with non-GAAP earnings of 43 cents a share to 48 cents a share. For fiscal 2024, revenue is expected to grow between 1% to 3% with non-GAAP earnings of $1.85 a share to $1.95 a share.
Constellation Research analyst Holger Mueller said:
"Who would have though 12 months ago that HPE would feature AI as the growth driver (and no longer hybrid cloud)? CEO Neri and CFO Myers said AI 7x in their prepared statements – and cloud just one time. HPE's DNA in high performance computing plays well in the AI era since systems need high performance hardware. Favorably for HPE is also that the company has the history, track record and image of knowing HPC. The concern is that intelligent edge revenue and hybrid cloud revenue are down YoY, which were the previously designated growth engines. Neri and team took also $600 million of cost out of HPE and now the question is can AI help the company grow again overall."
Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights
Constellation Research
Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights at Constellation Research, where he leads editorial coverage focused on enterprise technology, digital transformation, and emerging trends shaping the future of business. He oversees research-driven news, analysis, interviews, and event coverage designed to help technology buyers and vendors navigate complex markets with clarity and context. ...
Databricks said it has acquired Tabular, a data management company founded by the original creators of Apache Iceberg. The companies said they're aiming to combine their open-source cred to build interoperable data formats.
The race to support Iceberg and make data formats and tables interoperable is underway. Snowflake has pushed into supporting Iceberg and said it will open source its Polaris Catalog. Snowflake also claims its Arctic large language model is more open than Databricks DBRX.
In a blog post, Databricks said "this acquisition brings the original creators of Apache Iceberg and those of Linux Foundation Delta Lake, the two leading open source lakehouse formats, together."
"The timing of this deal is obviously intended to grab some of the Snowflake Summit limelight, but also to outdo its competitor on openness messaging with the suggestion that it will have huge influence over the future of the Iceberg standard as well as Delta Lake," said Constellation Research analyst Doug Henschen. Indeed, Snowflake execs noted that a competitor is now on the Iceberg bandwagon.
Databricks and Tabular said they plan to combine forces to improve data compatibility, so enterprises aren't limited by the lakehouse format.
Terms of the deal weren't disclosed, but the transaction is expected to close in the second fiscal quarter.
Databricks kicked off the lakehouse architecture in 2020 with the aim of integrating data warehousing and AI workloads on one platform. Databricks then worked with the Linux Foundation to create the Delta Lake project. At about the same time, Ryan Blue and Daniel Weeks, two founders of Tabular, developed Iceberg at Netflix and donated it to the Apache Software Foundation.
Delta Lake and Iceberg became the two open-source standards for lakehouse formats but became incompatible. Databricks launched Delta Lake UniForm to bring the two formats together. The project will expand its ambitions with Tabular in the fold.
"Databricks and Tabular will work with the open-source community to bring the two formats closer to each other over time, increasing openness, and reducing silos and friction for customers," said Ali Ghodsi, Co-founder and CEO at Databricks.
Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights
Constellation Research
Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights at Constellation Research, where he leads editorial coverage focused on enterprise technology, digital transformation, and emerging trends shaping the future of business. He oversees research-driven news, analysis, interviews, and event coverage designed to help technology buyers and vendors navigate complex markets with clarity and context. ...
SAP said it is infusing its Joule generative AI assistant throughout its platform and applications as it made the case that the company is using AI to drive business value.
Speaking at SAP Sapphire in Orlando, CEO Christian Klein had a few missions. First, Klein had to convince customers that its Business AI innovations were worth the upgrades and more than hype. Second, Klein wanted to ensure that SAP wasn't just doing AI because everyone else is. And third, Klein had to get its customer base more excited about programs like RISE with SAP and upgrading to S4/HANA and cloud.
"The Business AI innovations we're announcing will redefine the way businesses run," said Klein, who emphasized partnerships with AWS, Google Cloud, Meta and Microsoft. He added:
"You can see that we are not developing AI just for the sake of AI. Our vision at SAP is to leverage our holistic portfolio to deliver agility at scale, increase productivity of every user and achieve more across the value chain by connecting the material, the financial and the logistic workflows across the industries."
The general theme behind SAP Sapphire is that AI will be embedded throughout enterprise applications and matter to multiple CXOs role. Klein's keynote was segmented by the appeal to CIOs, CFOs, COOs and HR leaders and the theme was that SAP would deliver insights without surfacing what's underneath--like various large language models and technology like Microsoft's Copilot. SAP's Joule would be the front end that would give data context and insights while automating processes.
SAP's plan is to enable Business AI to leverage multiple models. For instance, SAP and Google Cloud will integrate Joule and SAP Integrated Business Planning for Supply Chain with Google Cloud Gemini Models. SAP will use Meta Llama 3 to generate scripts in SAP Analytics Cloud. SAP will also integrate with Amazon Bedrock and add Mistral AI models. SAP's Klein also touted partnerships with Nvidia as well as Apple.
Here's a look at what was announced at SAP Sapphire:
SAP's Joule copilot has been integrated into SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition, SAP Customer Data Platform, SAP BTP Cockpit, SAP Build, SAP Build Code and SAP Integration Suite.
SAP Ariba, SAP Analytics Cloud and multiple supply chain packages will get Joule in the second half of 2024.
Joule will be integrated in ERP and Finance apps to close books faster, process documents and provide visualizations and insights.
SAP SuccessFactors will get Joule to answer questions about policies and documents.
The company said that Joule will roll out to SAP's process mining and automation tools. Joule copilot will be integrated with SAP Build Process Automation, Signavio and SAP Integration Suite to make it easier to automate processes and workflows.
SAP is rolling out ABAP Developer capabilities in Joule to generate, complete and test ABAP code. SAP said it is fine tuning models on its proprietary ABAP code.
Supply chain applications will get Joule analysis of supply chain planning runs, logistics and transportation management.
SAP Intelligent Product Recommendation will get generative AI tools that estimate parameters for products. Plant managers in manufacturing industries will also interact with a digital twin to choose the proper products.
Sales and marketing applications will get a suite of AI tools to enhance customer experiences. A generative AI tool builder will be available in SAP Commerce Cloud, SAP Sales Cloud and SAP Service Cloud.
SAP will use genAI to improve implementations
SAP said that it will leverage Joule for consulting functions leveraging insights from SAP product documentation, community posts and training materials.
According to the company: "This capability is especially critical for supporting customers transitioning to SAP S/4HANA Cloud as part of the RISE with SAP program, helping to accelerate implementation projects and save money."
The consulting copilot, available in the second half of 2024, leverages Nvidia's NeMo Retriever microservices to generate insights.
SAP noted that Joule's consulting capabilities have been tested via SAP certification exams. PwC and Deloitte plan to deploy Joule as a consultant.
Partnerships with Accenture, McKinsey and Boston Consulting Group to use SAP Signavio and LeanIX round out the consulting theme.
In addition, SAP said it has expanded its SAP Business Transformation Center to offer a new way for customers to migrate from SAP ECC to SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition.
The new capability gives customers a system to choose a "lean selective data transition" and eliminate legacy data to build a clean foundation. This scenario is included in SAP cloud subscriptions and RISE with SAP.
Constellation Research's take
Constellation Research analyst Holger Mueller said:
"SAP is making progress with its AI strategy. Like fellow multi-cloud vendor Workday, SAP is at a speed disadvantage when it comes to AI as it first needs to create an abstraction layer to be able to run AI on all key cloud partners (AWS, Azure & Google Cloud). Microsoft and Oracle have their own clouds for applications. What is still missing is a lakehouse or similar architecture to create a data foundation for AI, and again SAP needs to provide multi-cloud support. Partner support and attention is at a maximum, which is good for SAP customers – with AWS and Microsoft Azure announcing 32TB memory systems to run S/4HANA. It was disappointing that the only keynote customer reference was a SAP customer that was spun out from a larger company. SAP needs to do better to present a North American references for S/4 HANA in the cloud."
Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights
Constellation Research
Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights at Constellation Research, where he leads editorial coverage focused on enterprise technology, digital transformation, and emerging trends shaping the future of business. He oversees research-driven news, analysis, interviews, and event coverage designed to help technology buyers and vendors navigate complex markets with clarity and context. ...
AMD outlined its AI GPU roadmap and moved to an annual cadence as it aims to compete with Nvidia.
A day after Nvidia outlined its GPU roadmap at Computex, AMD CEO Lisa Su outlined an annual cadence. The company also outlined new EPYC CPUs along with processors for AI PCs.
Su said the new AMD Instinct MI325X accelerator will be available in the fourth quarter with up to 288GB of HBM3E memory and 6 terabytes per second of memory bandwidth with new AMD Instinct MI350 accelerators based on AMD's CDNA 4 architecture available in 2025.
According to AMD, the AMD Instinct MI325X accelerator will bring a 35x increase in AI inference performance compared to the AMD Instinct MI300.
In 2026, the AMD Instinct MI400 series will be based on AMD CDNA "Next" architecture.
AMD's Instinct MI300X accelerators are being rolled out by Microsoft Azure, Meta and major server makers such as Dell Technologies, HPE and Lenovo.
Su also touted AMD's software ecosystem, which is playing catchup to Nvidia. AMD said its AMD ROCm 6 open software stack is developing its connections to popular AI frameworks.
Other AMD items of note at Computex include:
AMD previewed 5th Gen AMD EPYC server processors to launch in the second half of 2024. These processors, codenamed Turin, are designed to continue AMD's server momentum with CPUs.
AMD outlined the AMD Ryzen AI 300 series, the third generation of AMD AI-enabled mobile processors. These chips will be used in AI PCs and Copilot+ PCs, which are now powered by Qualcomm.
AMD highlighted its AMD Ryzen 9000 Series processors for laptops and desktops.
The company also highlighted its next-gen Zen 5 CPU core and AMD XDNA 2 NPU core.
AMD also announced the AMD Radeon PRO W7900 Dual Slot workstation graphics card.
Speaking at SAP Sapphire in Orlando, CEO Christian Klein had a few missions. First, Klein had to convince customers that its Business AI innovations were worth the upgrades and more than hype. Second, Klein wanted to ensure that SAP wasn't just doing AI because everyone else is. And third, Klein had to get its customer base more excited about programs like RISE with SAP and upgrading to S4/HANA and cloud.
