Alexa steals the show at CES, provides missing link in consumer IoT

Vice President and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research
Constellation Research

Role: Vice President and Principal Analyst focusing on the IOT of Customer Experience and how the cloud is driving more flexible, agile, and robust customer service and customer experiences. In-app or in device customer service is the future. Coverage Areas: Next Generation Customer, Digital Marketing Transformation Bio: As a Vice President and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research, Inc, Petouhoff works with Fortune 100 and 500’s Senior Leadership teams to create strategic customer experience (marketing, sales and service) solutions which engage customers, build brands and grow businesses. Combining her experience as a former Forrester software analyst, PWC systems integrator and change management consultant, Petouhoff leads executive workshops to discuss to not only…...

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Alexa Voice Service (AVS) is the software that allows owners to control compatible devices with their voice. From the various  reports it was estimated there were 700–1,100 Alexa-controllable products at CES. And the Amazon / Alexa logo was everywhere at CES.

Is the Age of George Jetson here? In a smart home, everything from the the HVAC to the TV to window shades can be controlled. However it’s not easy to really have a whole house of Artificial Intelligence (AI) controlled devices. Why? Many of the IoT-enabled devices don’t talk to other devices if they are made by different manufacturers. Opps! The IoT world awaits THE killer app, like Apple Homekit or Google Home. We are still waiting for them to provide all encompassing, unified smart “home.”

The Amazon Echo is a hands-free speaker controlled with your voice. It connects to the Alexa Voice Service to provide information, news, play music, report on sports scores, deliver weather reports… The uses for AVS and Alexa are limited only by your imagination.

When something is connected to Alexa, the device instantly becomes pseudo-interoperable. Interoperable technology is not an evolutionarily stable strategy for most IoT manufacturers. Interoperability is the ability of different information technology systems and software applications to communicate, exchange data, and use the information that has been exchanged to do something.

What CES showed us is that voice control seems to be the unifying app for IoT. And Alexa is the biggest name in voice control. Smart devices are generally controlled with apps. If there is an app to control the smart device, the app allows AVS to directly control the smart device. So you could say, “Alexa, tell Crestron I’d like to turn the lights on in the bedroom” (for your Crestron) or “Alexa, I would like to turn the heat on the downstairs thermostat to 70 degrees” (for your Iris Smart Home System). It’s easy to see the value of voice control in so many ordinary situations. What’s interesting about AVS is that even though Crestron and Iris have nothing to do with one another, you can control them both with your voice.

Alexa has finely tuned automatic speech recognition (ASR) and natural language understanding (NLU) engines that recognize and respond to voice requests instantly. Alexa is always getting smarter with new capabilities and services through machine learning, regular API updates, feature launches, and custom skills from the Alexa Skills Kit (ASK.) The AVS API  is a programming language agnostic service that makes it easy to integrate Alexa into your devices, services, and applications. And it’s free.

Create meaningful user experiences for an endless variety of use cases with Alexa Voice Service (AVS), Amazon’s intelligent voice recognition and natural language understanding service. AVS includes a full range of features, including smart home control, streaming music content, news, timers, and more, and can be added to any connected device that has a microphone and speaker.

But while Alexa has a head start, Google Home, an Echo competitor, is very likely to quickly catch up. Google Home though, works with a completely different set of protocols and has different “awake” words. Command words that make it pay attention and carry out the request. It seems that we may need to learn to speak to different systems in different ways – perhaps we’ll need lessons in Alexa speak and Google speak as well as and Siri and Cortana speak!

So is the Age of George Jetson here yet? Sort of. What will be interesting is to see if there is a start-up that will pull all of this together so that us regular humans are needing to become AI experts to use the technology and / or connect it!

Dr. Natalie Petouhoff, VP and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research

Covering customer-facing applications

SAP Introduces Jump-Start Enablement Program for SAP Leonardo IoT Portfolio

Holger Mueller

Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Holger Mueller is VP and Principal Analyst for Constellation Research for the fundamental enablers of the cloud, IaaS, PaaS and next generation Applications, with forays up the tech stack into BigData and Analytics, HR Tech, and sometimes SaaS. Holger provides strategy and counsel to key clients, including Chief Information Officers, Chief Technology Officers, Chief Product Officers, Chief HR Officers, investment analysts, venture capitalists, sell-side firms, and technology buyers.  Coverage Areas: Future of Work Tech Optimization & Innovation  Background: Before joining Constellation Research, Mueller was VP of Products for NorthgateArinso, a KKR company. There, he led the transformation of products to the cloud and laid the foundation for new Business Process as a…...

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SAP bundled its IoT offerings under the umbrella name of Leonardo – combined with programs and tools to make it easier for enterprise to uptake its IoT portfolio.

 

 

Definitively news worth dissecting in our customary style – the press release can be found here:

WALLDORF — SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) today announced a jump-start enablement program for its Internet of Things (IoT) innovation portfolio. The program is intended to help customers connect the emerging world of intelligent devices with people and processes to achieve tangible business outcomes.

MyPOV – States well what the news is about. IoT is probably the most complex next generation application scenario we are tracking, given data volume, costs, connectivity and sheer number of things.
 

Following through on SAP’s recently announced commitment to invest €2 billion in IoT over five years, the IoT portfolio combines adaptive applications, Big Data applications and connectivity in packaged solutions across line-of-business and industry use cases ranging from connected products, assets and infrastructure to vehicle fleets, markets and people.

MyPOV - Good reminder on the 2B Euro investment commitment (announced back at the IoT event in Naples / Rome – see here). Good to encompass the integration aspect into the SAP enterprise applications.

 

Named SAP Leonardo, SAP’s IoT portfolio takes its name from a figure known for ushering in a groundbreaking era of science and discovery. For more on the SAP Leonardo brand, please see here.

 

MyPOV – Good to see a ‘timeless’ and neutral portfolio branding name. Leonard (da Vinci) is certainly a good name giver. At the link, we can see the encompassing marketecture of Leonardo:
 

SAP Leonardo Marketecture

 

“Moving from things to outcomes is about new business processes such as Industry 4.0, new business models and new ways for people to live and work,” said Dr. Tanja Rueckert, executive vice president, Digital Assets and IoT, SAP. “With SAP Leonardo, we connect ‘things’ with business processes that are instantaneous and proactive, and with people who can manage more effectively with augmented intelligence and autonomous systems. Our SAP Leonardo IoT portfolio delivers on SAP’s commitment to produce superior business value through enterprise IoT innovation.”

MyPOV – Good quote by Rueckert – emphasizing the bottom line for enterprise application vendors like SAP – connecting the Things with the People. Not to forget that the IoT applications by themselves must be at least good enough to get enterprises to adopt them.

 

Easier IoT Adoption: Jump-Start Pilot Program and Introductory Pricing
SAP is introducing a jump-start program to help organizations identify and validate IoT pilots and use cases. A consultative service staffed by SAP line-of-business and industry experts, the jump-start program is a multiphase engagement featuring design thinking to match IoT innovations with customer strategies and objectives in achievable pilots with a clear path to business value. Available worldwide, the jump-start program is intended to ease the first steps of the IoT journey, producing pilots that define business cases for full-scale IoT strategies and further deployment.

MyPOV – Always good to see when vendors help enterprises adopt new technology. Design Thinking has proven itself as a powerful methodology to have enterprises create the new best practices needed in IoT deployment scenarios. It speaks of SAP’s scale that it has a worldwide focus from the get go. And as with all break through innovations that effect business best practices – it is important to conclude this phase with working, minimum viable pilots – so enterprises and CxOs can see the impact, applicability and feasibility of the follow up projects.

 

SAP is also introducing promotional pricing for the IoT jump-start program featuring a simple, fixed cost for software and services to cover the pilot and first year of usage for SAP Leonardo IoT solutions including SAP Connected Goods, SAP Vehicle Insights, SAP Predictive Maintenance and Service and SAP Asset Intelligence Network. By setting a defined price for services and key solutions in the SAP Leonardo IoT portfolio, the introductory offer provides transparency and eliminates budget uncertainty, enabling customers to establish IoT pilots with clear scope, length and pricing. More information on the jump-start program and pricing offer can be found here.

MyPOV – Good to see SAP bringing together the sprawling IoT portfolio with Leonardo. Cross IoT solutions integration needs will be expected to be addressed – so this is an area to watch. And well done by SAP to reduce the commercial uncertainty of early versions and pilots.

 

A Unique Ability to Connect People, Things and Businesses
SAP Leonardo reaffirms an innovative value proposition, extending from SAP’s enterprise core into automation and intelligence at the edges where IoT data is created. With SAP HANA Cloud Platform, SAP Leonardo offers intelligent IoT applications, business services for development, technical services for processing high-velocity data and an intelligent edge to process information at the device level. SAP Leonardo combines SAP’s unique strengths, including 45 years of business process knowledge across 25 industries and leadership in Big Data management, in end-to-end offerings addressing the following areas:

MyPOV – Good to see SAP mentioning the integration scenario, which matters for most existing customers. Ultimately IoT automation affects humans, needs to be serviced and sold by humans, it is the interface between the things and humans which are a substantial use case for IoT that SAP is addressing here.

 

Connected products for new insights into lifecycle management, sourcing, response and supply, and digital supply networks; and the design, manufacturing and delivery of smart, connected products across all industries
Connected assets to track, monitor and analyze fixed assets, including manufacturing and maintenance business processes, to reduce costs and increase equipment uptime
Connected fleet to enable businesses and public service organizations owning moving assets (such as vehicles, robots, fork lifts and autonomous vehicles) to improve services and safety, visibility to logistics and service quality
Connected infrastructure for new digital operational intelligence from physical-infrastructure systems, construction and energy grids enabling improved service, efficient operations and compliance and risk mitigation
Connected markets to enable new production, and business models of local relevance and at the right timing for customer and marketing insights, digital agribusiness, smart ports and smart cities
Connected people for more insightful, collaborative work roles, health management and smart home environments connecting people and communities and providing better, more personalized lifestyle experiences

MyPOV – Good to see SAP offering the ‘Connected’ product / services family to integrate IoT solutions with its enterprise applications. This business area alone will be substantial business for SAP and significant piece of mind for SAP customers… assuming SAP build, prices and delivers these offerings successfully. 

 

SAP Leonardo Event
SAP also announced plans for its first global SAP Leonardo event. Bringing together SAP customers, partners and IoT experts, the event will showcase the latest in IoT innovations and effective business strategies. The event will take place from July 11–12, 2017, in Frankfurt, Germany, at the KAP EUROPA. More information about the event, including the agenda and registration details, will be disclosed in the coming weeks.

MyPOV – New products need new events, good to see for SAP to have a separate event for IoT, still spaced away enough from Sapphire, in the heartland of most IoT interest, in Germany. Picking KAP EUROPA, the first congress center to be awarded the platinum certificate by the German Sustainable Building Council, makes appetite for a great event. SAP has big shoes to fill as it had a great, smaller scale IoT launch event in fall 2016 in Italy together with Vehicle Management customer Treni Italia (read here).

 

Overall MyPOV

Good to see SAP packaging up its IoT products and offerings under an umbrella brand, Leonardo seems to be a good choice. More importantly helping customers to come to terms with IoT with the help of Design Thinking lead workshops is key to help enterprises get up to speed and live with IoT projects. Equally good to see SAP thinking about the pricing challenges that are important to address commercial viability of IoT projects… as well as the connectivity between the existing enterprise applications and IoT projects. And lastly it is positive to see SAP announcing a dedicated IoT event – at a IoT rich location with KAP EUROPA in Frankfurt.

On the concern side, SAP needs to find ways to scale and grow its IoT portfolio which has done well in 2016 and now needs to be taken to the next level. SAP’s salesforce is kicking off the sales year as you read this, and we expect SAP to spend ample room on pushing SAP IoT. It is crucial to get create additional value from the traditional SAP manufacturing install base, often around the Industrie 4.0 moniker. To be fair SAP has positioned the IoT offering well, last but not least with this announcement, now it must execute in 2017.

What’s your take on SAP IoT? Please share, we will be watching.

 

Check out my colleagues Chris Canarakus and Andy Mulholland here.

Seven Universal Factors Why Technology Firms Fail

R "Ray" Wang

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…...

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Happy 10th Birthday iPhone - What Apple Did Right and Challenges for the Next 10 Years

Holger Mueller

Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Holger Mueller is VP and Principal Analyst for Constellation Research for the fundamental enablers of the cloud, IaaS, PaaS and next generation Applications, with forays up the tech stack into BigData and Analytics, HR Tech, and sometimes SaaS. Holger provides strategy and counsel to key clients, including Chief Information Officers, Chief Technology Officers, Chief Product Officers, Chief HR Officers, investment analysts, venture capitalists, sell-side firms, and technology buyers.  Coverage Areas: Future of Work Tech Optimization & Innovation  Background: Before joining Constellation Research, Mueller was VP of Products for NorthgateArinso, a KKR company. There, he led the transformation of products to the cloud and laid the foundation for new Business Process as a…...

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The iPhone just turned 10 years, time for a musing on a piece of hardware that has probably transformed the way we work the most since … the PC. Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone at MacWorld 2007 as (notice the sequence) a “wide screen iPod with touch controls, as a revolutionary mobile phone and a breakthrough internet communications device”.
 

So, let’s look what the iPhone ‘parents’ got right, and what concerns me for its next decade:

What Apple Got Right

Smartphones are Status Symbols – If there was one thing Steve Jobs got right, it was realizing that smartphones had the potential to be status symbols. For most of the life of the iPhone – first having an iPhone and then having the latest versions was a huge status symbol. Transferring the mobile phone / smartphone from a work utility (that was the then dominant Blackberry) to a status symbol that was new and innovative – is still fueling the Apple iPhone business today.

People wanted a full browser – Remember the ‘mobile web sites’? People never like them and another thing that Jobs got right was to realize that users wanted to have a full-fledged browser, with the same user experience like on a PC. Didn’t matter that the Telcos did not allow for that, Jobs and Apple managed to ‘break the rules’ with Cingular. And users did not mind the slow speed of Edge originally. They still flocked to the full website, preferring those to the mobile optimized ones.

Touch beat the keyboard – Jobs also bet on touch and allowing a larger screen, better form factor than the keyboard based competition of the time. And while it certainly provided a very appealing design – it cratered productivity. Doing email – once a key driver for a smartphone, took a back seat. Even on the Apple 10 year press release, Apple SVP of Worldwide Marketing cites 11 capabilities … before email (and then mentions 8 more) (see here). Millions of “Crackberry” users with a “Blackberry thumb” became “lurkers” on their email (glance on mobile device, answer later PC), creating a texting boom as an informal outlet for previously working email communication.

Almost a PC replacement – And the iPhone almost became the PC replacement. Many users stating that the iPhone is the new PC. Apple tried to address form fact concerns with the iPad. But only ‘almost’ – as the Microsoft Surface has shown – most people still need a keyboard to function at work and at home – even if their smartphone / iPhone doesn’t have one.

It’s a camera, a media player, a game console ... and then a phone – Apple got (and probably still gets) the camera right, pushing resolution and capabilities of the camera. It never hurt the iPhone that for the longest time it could not take pictures in the dark. The form factor also makes for a great display for consuming video and playing games… basic phone functions taking a back seat. But that was the key secret about the iPhone – it is / was so much more than a mobile phone.

Innovation & Convenience are a powerful combo – The final gamble that Apple and Jobs took was that while being very innovative in the first half of the iPhone’s life – it needed a convenience factor, effectively creating the walled garden. And for the most of it, users have been happy. But it is easier to be happy when your smartphone is the object of envy with your friends and colleagues, then when it lacks behind in regards of what we think today are critical capabilities (e.g. speech). To some iPhone users the walled garden looks now less than a garden, but a closed encampment, if not worse. But creating the stickiness will keep iPhone users on the platform longer. Longer than e.g. Blackberry had the luxury to keep users because of e.g. media stickiness. 

 

10 years of iPhones (from here)

Concerns for the next 10 years

Here is what worries me for the next decade of the iPhone, looking at what the parent (Apple) can or cannot do for the next 10 years.

Voice is the new UI – As much as Jobs / Apple got it right that users will take a keyboard free phone, as much they missed the trend to voice. And to a certain point it is tragic – as Apple lead the space of voice recognition with Siri. But then Siri lost out to pretty much all other players, lacking extensibility (released last) and most importantly, neural network power to understand users. Probably closes related to the next worry.

The parent has no cloud – It is possible that Apple will go down in the history books as the most profitable, most cash rich firm that missed the all transforming trend of cloud infrastructure. It equals to a parent in real life that severely limits the further development of the child at age 10. Reckless abandonment comes to mind. Buying cloud capacity (as we learnt this year) from AWS and GCP is not a solution. But a modern, efficient cloud infrastructure is needed to run several modern services efficiently – e.g. voice recognition, AI etc.

The parent is behind on AI – Along the same lines as cloud, Google is behind in AI. Yes, a first paper has been published – but compare that to e.g. IBM and Google and you know the iPhone is in trouble because the parents missed an important, maybe game changing moment. No surprise – you need a cloud infrastructure to really run this efficiently. Apple makes the point that it can do things locally – but that has a direct cost and will be subpar to a cloud based AI offer.

The parent is behind on AR / VR – It’s like a parent who doesn’t have Internet at home but wants their kid to do well in school… not sure how Apple missed the trend, given the strength in display, owning the whole stack from the CPU upwards … should have been a home run. And the space is important as next are holographic interfaces, that make the small smartphone screen a shared experience. Content / platforms build today by ‘parents’ in the industry put their ‘kids’ on a spot for … high school and college.

The parent struggles with the enterprise – If the iPhone would not have seen success in the enterprise, it is doubtful it would have had the impact that it had. Consumerization of IT became a trend that is real in many other areas of IT. But today it looks like the one time shot that Apple had in the enterprise. iPads started strong but have since then started to fizzle. MacBooks never appealed to most enterprises. So, for the parent to remain relevant – it needs another enterprise success.

Unlimited plans change the handset spec – The rise of unlimited data plans, with all you can eat video, have changed the way what amounts of data can be consumed on mobile devices. Video calling, messaging, real time broadcasting all are setup for faster and continuous connectivity. All areas that a high price handset may not be required for, assuming improvements in compression algorithms. But probably the lowest concern for the iPhone parents at the moment.

The parent has run out of ideas – This one is the biggest concern. The Watch has underdelivered. Rumors of new goggles have spread – but others have tired (and so far, failed), I don’t’ see what Apple may do radically different. As a daily glasses wearer, I see the value add must be substantial for a non-glasses wearer (most of us) to adopt glasses. The bar can’t be much higher than sun glasses. For a 10 year, old that is … the parents have tried to get the kid motivated – but to no luck, and the world around them thinks they have given up.

Software beats beautiful hardware design – Andreesen said it – Software eats the world. When other vendor’s software gets too superior (think voice, AI, AR / VR etc.) a beautiful designed iPhone may no longer make the cut. Software trumps hardware design. Apple must ramp up its software skills and delivery results, as well as it quality efforts. Think for a historic perspective the Apple Maps false start, for recent the defect in Safari uncovered by the Consumer Reports (which basically is sloppy QA).

 

MyPOV

The iPhone is one of the most fundamental pieces of hardware and software that we have seen in our lifetime. Most readers won’t remember the time before PCs. The iPhone has made the smartphone as we know it popular – with great resolution, great camera, good media play, but bad battery life and mostly worse phone qualities than its predecessors.

The forces that worked for the rise of the iPhone are not as powerful as they used to be. Disruptors lurk, e.g. with voice. Apple’s stand on privacy is heroic, but I cannot help that it’s also a position out of weakness: That Apple has not been able to create its own cloud infrastructure. This may hurt Apple not only for AI, AR & VR, Cars and speech – but even more beyond.

The kid had a great 10 years, but the next 10 years don’t look so promising. Time for the grandparents (the Apple Board), the god parent (friends of Apple) to take the parents on the side, who are certainly trying hard to make the 10-year-old future look good, but don’t have a good track record for the last few years. And for now – from what we know – don’t seem to have an inspirational plan for the next 10 years. Let’s start with the next 2-3 years. Rome wasn’t built in one day either, and only what has not happened, can still happen. We will be watching.

Sleeping Giants Take on Fake News and Brands – Is Your Brand Ready?

Gavin Heaton

Founder
Disruptors Co

Gavin is the Founder of Disruptors Co, one of Australia’s leading independent strategy and innovation companies. Gavin advises firms on strategy, marketing, product development and innovation. He is also a member of the Orbits program, the influencer network of award winning analyst and advisory firm, Constellation Research. Gavin advises boards and leadership on innovation strategy, marketing, data-driven product development and corporate venturing. Gavin is on the board of Vibewire, a youth-led social enterprise based in Sydney, Australia and on the Technology Advisory Group for Good2Give – the workplace giving platform. ...

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We have all heard about the vast network of fake news sites that spread disinformation during the recent US Presidential Campaign. These sites use the same clickbait strategies that propelled sites like Upworthy to the top of the digital media scrapheap – inflammatory headlines, sensationalist stories and catchy hooks that tempt you to click just once more.
What Upworthy’s content strategy revealed was a unique combination of skilled teams, data and insights would help the organisation create content that was “viral ready”. As Joseph Lichterman explained in this Nieman Lab article:

Using the user data it’s collected, Upworthy found that elements like humor and a story structure that built in suspense would draw in readers and keep them on the page and better engaged.

This meant that even to tell a story with real information and verifiable facts, the goal for Upworthy was to grab and own the attention of readers as a priority, delivering news and information as a lower priority. As Amy O’Leary, Upworthy’s Editorial Director explained, “If I were to tell you, ‘Hey, I’ve got a 5,000-word piece on fast-food workers’ wages,’ very few people would be excited about that”. Instead the story would focus on building rapport with the audience, engaging through an imaginative framework of shared experience and emotionally engaging writing and opening up into the ethical challenges that come with enjoying something you eat while knowing the background and facts of its production. As O’Leary suggests, “I think we’re reaching deeper into people, because the approach is one of openness and not judgment”.

It’s worth reading more of the article to learn how Upworthy used data to drive its curation process – but what is fascinating (and concerning) is the way that this model has been co-opted by the fake news movement. By ignoring facts as the basis of news, these fake news sites have effectively defined a whole new genre of content catering to our own sense of digital isolation and disconnectedness. If we have learned anything from the last decade in this Age of Conversation, it is that when we (as consumers) come face-to-face with the vast anonymity of the internet, we rapidly seek our tribe – and we do so through the media at our fingertips – visuals, text, keywords. We seek the connection via keyword and conversation – and naturally enough find ourselves in an echo chamber.

Those of us who work with digital technology and audience strategy have – to be honest – been taking advantage of this approach for years. I often say that both love and hate Facebook and its targeting for I know how useful and powerful it is as a marketer, but equally how invasive and manipulative it is as a consumer. So much so that I consciously manage my engagement and sharing on Facebook and limit what I click on etc. But I also know that even my limited engagement there – and on every other digital channel – leaves enough breadcrumbs to be valuable to the brands and businesses seeking my attention. These days my choice to click comes down to context and location.

Because I know that every click rewards not only the brand but the advertiser too.

With the massive rise in programmatic advertising over the last two or three years, most advertisers and planners are unlikely to even know where their branded advertising will appear. It could appear on alt-right websites (the term used to mask white supremicist oriented websites), pornographic websites or even across the dark web. The powerful retargeting tools now in the hands of marketers and their trained algorithms means that ads that you first see on a mainstream website will follow you wherever you may go online. And while the web has some amazing resources, it also has some deep and nasty crevices.

So what do you do when your brand starts advertising in this murky digital world?
Imagine, for example, that you visited a fake news site with outrageous headlines and you did so out of curiosity. What kind of advertiser, you wonder, would support a platform that knowingly creates fake news and information that demonises your own audiences (the people who are your customers and supporters). This NY Times article explains such a situation:

One day in late November, an earth and environmental science professor named Nathan Phillips visited Breitbart News for the first time. Mr. Phillips had heard about the hateful headlines on the site — like “Birth Control Makes Women Unattractive and Crazy” — and wondered what kind of companies would support such messages with their ad dollars. When he clicked on the site, he was shocked to discover ads for universities, including one for the graduate school where he’d received his own degree — Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment. “That was a punch in the stomach,” he said.

Rather than to let this slide, the professor sent a tweet to his Duke questioning its affiliation with a “sexist and racist” site. Eventually this was sorted, as the NY Times revealed.
But in the background, a movement known as “Sleeping Giants” was arising to combat this kind of fake news. This shared Twitter account and network of followers are using a similar approach – naming and shaming the brands that support these fake news networks. The Sleeping Giants publish a list of brands who have discontinued their support for fake news sites – starting with the Breitbart network. But we can expect more of this kind of activity in the coming months and years. The question for brands in all this – do you know where and who your ad dollars go to? And how will you respond when you find your brand in places you don’t expect or want?

#Socbiz and #GTD News: Atlassian Acquires Trello

Alan Lepofsky

Vice President & Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Alan Lepofsky - VP and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research. With almost two decades of experience in the collaboration software industry, Lepofsky helps organizations improve the way their employees work together to get their jobs done. Lepofsky’s primary research area The Future of Work, focuses on: integrating collaboration and business processes (Purposeful Collaboration), structuring work via Social Task Management, leveraging analytics and digital assistants to work more productively, the strategic impact of mobile computing on business transformation, and measuring workforce culture based on Digital Proficiency instead of age. Twitter: @alanlepoLinkedIn: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/alanlepo     , Title: Big IdeasIntelligent Collaboration: The Intersection of…...

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As organizations become "more social" and employees create and share information more openly, it's easy for people to get overwhelmed not only with the amount of information, but also the number of sources. To help alleviate some of this chaos, many organizations are using Social Task Management tools which help people organize tasks around projects and events. Recognizing this trend, Atlassian announced on Monday that they are acquiring Trello, a Social Task Management tool currently used by 19M people, for $425M. Both companies blogged about the new on their respective sites: Trello and Atlassian.

I first wrote about this market in 2012 in the Constellation Research report: Getting Work Done With Social Task Management. More recently we've published two Constellation ShortLists™  Social Task Management: Enterprise Suites With Project Features and Social Task Management: Stand-alone vendors that highlight the key vendors in this space.

Atlassian is not the first collaboration vendor to add Social Task Management to their portfolio via acquisition, as Jive Software acquired Producteev in November 2012, and Microsoft aquired Wunderlist in June 2015. Microsoft also developed their a new application called Planner, which they released in June 2016.

I shared my initial thoughts on the acquisition in this video on Twitter:

Big news in the #socbiz #gtd world... @Atlassian acquires @trello. #futureofwork MyPOV: a lot more to happen in this space in 2017 pic.twitter.com/sKo82VNHw5

— Alan Lepofsky (@alanlepo) 9 January 2017

Dr Natalie Petouhoff looks at the some of the business aspects of the deal in her blog post: Atlassian Acquires Trello for $425M: Will It Remain Free?

So what does this mean for your company?  

Chris Kanaracus and I discuss this in the CRInsights article: Atlassian Buys Trello for Collaboration Tools: What It Means

"As organizations try and shift some of their communication away from email to more social tools, they can quickly find that information overload increases rather than improves," he says. "The abundance of information shared in social networks and chat clients can be overwhelming. Social task management tools can help reduce some of the strain, by providing structure to the content, enabling people to organize, prioritize and act on tasks in a more manageable and repeatable way.  Constellation recommends organizations invest in collaboration platforms that either have native task management capabilities, or support very seamless integration with dedicated task management tools."

Are you using a Social Task Management tool to help you get your work done? If so, which one and how do you like it? If not, let us know how we can help you with your vendor selection process.

News Articles About the Acquisition

• Wall Street Journal: Atlassian to Buy Trello for $425 Million
• Australian Financial Review: Atlassian's Mike Cannon-Brookes talks up Trello buy
• CMSWire: Atlassian to Acquire Trello in $425M Enterprise Collaboration Deal
• IT Business Canada: Trello likely to stay free under Atlassian despite concerns, experts say

Atlassian Acquires Trello for $425M: Will It Remain Free?

Vice President and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research
Constellation Research

Role: Vice President and Principal Analyst focusing on the IOT of Customer Experience and how the cloud is driving more flexible, agile, and robust customer service and customer experiences. In-app or in device customer service is the future. Coverage Areas: Next Generation Customer, Digital Marketing Transformation Bio: As a Vice President and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research, Inc, Petouhoff works with Fortune 100 and 500’s Senior Leadership teams to create strategic customer experience (marketing, sales and service) solutions which engage customers, build brands and grow businesses. Combining her experience as a former Forrester software analyst, PWC systems integrator and change management consultant, Petouhoff leads executive workshops to discuss to not only…...

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As most acquisitions start out with the “ideal” that the product will remain pristine and nothing will change – it will be interesting to see if the acquisition of Trello by Atlassian will be the norm or the exception. From a business point of view Atlassian paid $425M, so they will want their investment to pay off.

What’s interesting in today’s world is that instead of putting a bunch of developers in a room to develop new software, companies like Atlassian, instead buy a company. This is truly an emerging strategy in product development and one that makes sense with respect to acquiring best of breed. We hope that Atlassian will keep its word and Trello will remain free. Proof is always in the pudding.

Often the story during the press release phase is that “The original folks are going to run it, not the new company!” “Things will stay the same.”

WhatsApp and Waze are both pretty good examples of high profile acquisitions. It’s generally unlikely that it will be the executive team from any start-up that ends up sticking around past whatever agreement they signed with buyer. There’s generally some “golden seatbelt” that requires the start-ups executives to stay for a particular period of time. And once that time is up, its not unpredictable that they leave that because they are “start-up” personalities – meaning they like the start-up phase and not so much the growth and maintenance or innovation phase of a company because their jobs will change and hence their interest.

It really takes four types of entrepreneurs/management to make a start-up successful. First the the start-up folks who like the beginning, ideas flowing, do a lot with a little, the adrenal of “can we do this?”

Second, to have a company grow, it takes people who are really good at R&D and growth strategies, which different often greatly from start-up strategies and tactics.

And third, there are the maintenance executives who are really good a making a company run like a well oiled machine; again very different type of personality traits are required for this.

The fourth stage is now required (it had not been as much a part of management theory in the past. But with technology changing so rapidly, innovation to stay relevant and on top requires people to look outside their comfort zone and understand what’s coming next and how can they innovate and transform their company.) Otherwise the company becomes a dinosaur and dies. We’ve seen plenty of that happening to the likes of Tower Records, Circuit City, etc..

We all have our beloved start-ups. And many of us have been part of start-ups. What’s true is that we all hope nothing will change. What is also true is that it takes a lot of effort to go beyond the start-up phase into the growth, maintenance and innovation phases. People get tired; they want their initial investment to pay off; and they truly like doing what they do best. And it may not be the other phases of what a company goes through. It’s not fair to ask people, however idealistic it is, to do things they don’t enjoy or are not good at.

Will Trello stay the same? Or will it change as many other acquisitions have, as they got bought or swollen up, and give into the reality of the phases of what it takes for an initial idea to grow into a company? Only time will tell.

@DrNatalie, VP and Principal Analyst, www.ConstellationResearch.com

Covering customer-facing applications and innovation

Culture as a Differentiator in Corporate and Employer Branding - Learnings from Salesforce

Cindy Zhou

CMO
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Cindy Zhou is a practicing CMO.  Prviously, she was Vice President and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research covering Digital Marketing Transformation and Sales Effectiveness. With over 18 years of practitioner experience in corporate marketing, product marketing, product management, and sales operations, Zhou has spearheaded marketing transformation at multiple technology companies. She advised Constellation’s clients on strategies to light-up demand generation, prove revenue contribution, and maximize sales productivity. Prior to joining Constellation, Zhou was Global Senior Vice President of Marketing and Sales Operations at BackOffice Associates, a global provider of data quality and information governance solutions to the Fortune 1000 and SAP SolEx partner. Before…...

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