New Journeys in Product Development with the Qantas Hackathon

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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It’s a form of open innovation that we’ve developed specifically to deliver new product opportunities rapidly and at scale. This approach takes a leaf out of the startup book (should I say the Startup Bible), Lean Startup by Eric Ries – focusing however, not on product-market fit but on market-product fit. That means that we help our corporate clients focus on the business challenges they face, coach them through a process of articulation, reverse pitching and presentation, and then open the challenges to startups, students and entrepreneurs.

Then, in a matter of days, we all collaboratively develop working prototypes – what is known as an MVP (a minimum viable product) – to the stated challenges. I call it “marketing-led innovation”.

The secret sauce of corporate hackathons

To the outside world, hackathons are like a cauldron of mystery. We throw in some ingredients, mix them up, and emerge some time later with a magic solution. Somewhere in the middle of the process, a secret sauce is added. But this is anything like Colonel Sanders’ secret recipe. You see, it’s all about process and people.

Over the last couple of years, we have been building out a process that reduces the risk of innovation. We use systems and design thinking approaches, add a dash of lean startup, good old fashioned project and event management and highly targeted coaching and mentoring. We consult with clients, manage stakeholder expectations and do so within what is a relatively controlled and safe environment.

And the results are stunning. New products. New collaborations. New businesses and startups. In many ways, it’s marketing in action. And we’ve got more planned. Get involved, you’ll be amazed at how tasty the secret sauce really is.

O.C. Tanner has software and wants to build more of it

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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Event report: I had the opportunity to attend O.C. Tanner’s first analyst summit held in Salt Lake City on August 26th 2016. For a first event, there was good attendance from the analyst and influencer community. 

So take a look at my musings on the event here: (if the video doesn’t show up, check here)

 

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No time to watch – here is the 1-2 slide condensation (if the slide doesn’t show up, check here):

 

Progress Report - O.C. Tanner has software and build more of it from Holger Mueller

 

 

Want to read on? Here you go: Always tough to pick the takeaways – but here are my Top 3:


Leader in traditional R&R - There can be little question that O.C. Tanner is one of the leaders in the traditional R&R (Rewards & Recognition) space – all the way to the origins of the enterprise, when founder Tanner created commemorative pins in the basement of his mother’s house. The vendor has optimized its delivery process, pushing the lean concept with great success – all the way from 20+ days to 20 minutes to produce an individualized commemorative reward item. Equally the vendor employs graphic and user experience designers and other creative capacities to advise enterprise on the implementation of a successful R&R strategy, from planning overall all the way to design of e.g. the Yearbook (see below more) and appreciation items. 

Branching out into technology R&R - O.C. Tanner is a pioneer in the R&R space starting with its SaaS based daily (Performance) recognition product launched over ten year ago followed by the Yearbook product launch approximately three years ago. The Yearbook is a tailored, individualized appreciation item for an employee with an anniversary. It is open for input from both inside of the enterprise sources, as well as friends and family. From customer and vendor presentations the Yearbook is very successful in enterprises to boost morale and show employee recognition. Along the same lines O.C. Tanner has made a foray into the corporate wellness market with its Welbe application. It is well built, with a good and modern user interface and some crowd based capabilities (e.g. start your own communities), a good start. 

Performance Management in O.C. Tanner Labs - The other new application we saw coming out of O.C. Tanner labs (more below) was focused in the area of Performance Management. This solution is still under non-disclosure so more to come in the near future. Given the sore state of Performance Management, the question is on the hand if O.C. Tanner is not getting into the Performance Management market. The O.C. Tanner labs initiative is certainly a starting point, we will see where the vendor (and customers and prospects) take it.
 

MyPOV

Always good for vendors reaching out to the analyst / influence community. When they make over 400M US$ revenue, they take a sizeable HR spend and HR leaders want to know what the vendors are up to from the analyst community, so kudos to O.C. Tanner to start these meetings. Equally impressive is that executives at O.C. Tanner have realized that the technology R&R products are likely not to come from the traditional organization, and have setup O.C. Tanner labs, both as an innovation incubator as well as a potential source for future growth in the technology enabled segments of the R&R market. Lastly it is good to see a vendor investing when times are good, O.C. Tanner has just extended / remodeled its HQ in a very impressive way, the result is an appealing place to work and to host customers as well as prospects.

On the concern side, the vendor has to bridge a traditional moat from traditional to technology based R&R products. It takes different skills and different market dynamics – remaining good at one and getting better at the other is not easy to achieve. One only has to look at the many IS consultants who have failed and still try to become software product providers. But you can’t fault O.C. Tanner for trying and the first steps are promising.

For existing customers and prospects these investments are good news. More capabilities and a more complete offering. Decision makers need to have a look on the cost side, but getting more from one vendor is usually music in the ears of HR decision makers who fear nothing more than integration costs and risks. To be fair they face galore of those, so having less potential headaches in the R&R space is good news. But with all R&R projects, they need to ‘work’ in regards of employee engagement and motivation. At this point we do not see the risk of O.C. Tanner resources getting distracted with two different strategic areas, but that’s always a risk to keep an eye on when a vendor is branching out.

Overall good to see a company entering the last decade before turning 100 to do well, invest and even not shy away from disrupting itself. We will be watching – stay tuned.

Want to learn more? Checkout the Storify collection below (if it doesn’t show up – check here).

Find more coverage on the Constellation Research website here and checkout my magazine on Flipboard and my YouTube channel here.

 

 

2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 & 2016 (C) Holger Mueller - All Rights Reserved

SAP Reportedly Buying Altiscale to Power Big Data Services

Doug Henschen

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,…...

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SAP needs to address big data, streaming and IoT apps. Altiscale would accelerate efforts to deliver high-scale and high-performance cloud data services.

SAP is acquiring Altiscale, VentureBeat reported on August 25. SAP neither confirmed nor denied the report, offering a statement that it “does not comment on market rumors or speculation.” If the acquisition is real, it would, in my view, make sense.

Altiscale is a four-year-old startup that specializes in cloud-based Hadoop and Spark services. As such it technically competes against mainstream Hadoop services, such as Amazon Elastic MapReduce, Microsoft HDInight and Google Cloud Dataproc. But Altiscale differentiates itself from these low-cost providers by combining high-performance Hadoop and Spark services with integrated ingestion, transformation, and analytical capabilities via its Altiscale Insight Cloud offering. A small niche player, the company also stresses high-touch support and professional services, which puts it in more direct competition with Qubole.

Altiscale combines Hadoop and Spark cloud services with integrated data ingest, prep
and analytics as well as supporting professional services.

By acquiring Altiscale, SAP would quickly gain capacity and deep expertise for delivering Hadoop, Spark and high-scale data services. All of the above would complement SAP’s cloud and IoT strategies while reducing the need for customers to work with third-party vendors.

SAP HANA continues to be the cornerstone of the company’s data-management strategy, but at SAPPHIRE 2015 the company announced that it will also rely on Hadoop and Spark to support its big data and IoT strategies. SAP subsequently announced, and in March made generally available, Hana Vora, which uses Spark to provide interactive analytics on high-scale data in Hadoop.

MyPOV: If this deal is real, I think it will be a boon to SAP. The company is, of course, partnered with all of the leading Hadoop software distributors and with Spark overseer Databricks, but to date the company has lacked its own Hadoop and Spark services. Altiscale would enable SAP to help customers with high-scale data capacity and data pipelines without relying on third-party vendors. What remains to be seen – again, if the deal is real – is how and whether Altiscale’s existing services would change in the wake of an acquisition. Altiscale could not be reached in time for comment.

Earlier this year I interviewed executives at Altiscale customer MarketShare for an in-depth case study, and they were quite happy with the company’s services. Although costs were higher for Altiscale than for Amazon EMR, the Hadoop service it previously used, MarketShare reported that its Hadoop jobs were completed in one-quarter to one-fifth the time and at 65 percent to 70 percent of the cost on Altiscale. It’s a compelling story, but one that’s hard for a small vendor to get out there when up against the biggest public cloud service providers in the industry.

IBM Alliances Insights - Deep Plans for Partnerships with Oracle, SAP, Microsoft

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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We had the opportunity to attend the yearly IBM Alliance Insights event, held August 23rd and 24th in New York. The analyst event was well attended with the usual colleagues covering services players, coming all the way from Europe. The focus was on three major partnerships of IBM, respectively with SAP, Oracle and Microsoft.
 

 

So take a look at my musings on the event below: (if the video doesn’t show up, check here)


 

No time to watch – here is the one slide condensation (if the slide doesn’t show up, check here):


 

Progress Report - IBM Alliances insights 2016 - Deep Plans - now it's time to execute from Holger Mueller

Want to read on? Here you go: Always tough to pick the takeaways – but here are my Top 3:

Deep Plans - IBM has substantial business with all three partners, so not surprisingly the plans with each are elaborate, carefully crafted and validated multiple times. The common leitmotiv for all three of them is that IBM is trying to push its two strong assets with Watson and IBM Cloud in all partnerships, while maintaining and expanding its substantial professional services business with all three vendors. The relationship is different with all three partners so let’s take a look:

• SAP - IBM goes the longest back across all three partners, and has a very strong professional services business. SAP was also the first ISV with which IBM partnered to position the IBM Cloud (read here), which has put IBM in a very strong position across the existing (and future) SAP IaaS partners. Similarly IBM and SAP are using Watson in talent acquisition scenarios as well as other scenarios. Both vendors are committed to the partnership (see more here).

 

• Oracle - The 2nd largest of the three partnerships, where IBM has a unique portfolio, not only offering services for Oracle’s current cloud products and its older e-Business Suite product family, but also for the acquired products Peoplesoft, JDE Edwards and Siebel. IBM has seen the high cloud priority for Oracle and has substantially invested into training, education and certification of the IBM professional resources, and this investment is starting to pay off in 2016. Positioning of Watson and IBM Cloud are a little trickier than with SAP, with Watson client lead and demanded offerings being on the way. With the older Oracle offerings like e.g. Siebel, JDE and Peoplesoft the cloud overlap does not exist and IBM Cloud is a key asset for the IBM teams.

​

• Microsoft - The youngest of all three partnership, that only recently has been promoted from a regional level (in Europe) to a global level. The overall product portfolio overlap between IBM and Microsoft is the biggest, giving less room for synergies. IBM and Microsoft started around CRM and Dynamics and both areas are doing well. IBM is copying working best practices and offerings of the IBM and Apple partnership to a Surface partnership with IBM which is off to a promising start, with IBM providing both service and financing products for Surface customers. In this partnership IBM is likely to require to invest more in common offerings around net new businesses, e.g. for the Microsoft Hololens and whatever Microsoft plans to productize on the LinkedIn side. 

Watson and Cloud are the pillars - We have written earlier and multiple times that both Cloud (via the SoftLayer acquisition) and Watson are the strong cards for IBM’s overall product portfolio (see e.g. here). It makes sense for IBM to use them in the above alliances, and it is good to see both product are well on the way to support partnerships. The Watson pivot to the expose APIs via BlueMix is successful and uniquely supportive of partner engagements both on a product and professional services side. And the relative low commercial entry point of IBM Cloud to establish data centers is a key attraction for joint customers as well as ISVs (see e.g. with Workday most recently here). But the competition does not sleep, SAP seems to apply past best practices to databases now to partnering on IaaS and Microsoft has its own Machine Learning ambitions.

Vertical and IP ambitions - Beyond the more horizontal capabilities of Watson and IBM Cloud, IBM clearly sees vertical offerings as a major opportunity across all three partnerships. This is a perennially valid perspective, as all product vendors in the league of the three partners think horizontal and then vertical – leaving room open for partners to fill the gap. Its back to IBM now to address with the often seen consulting offerings or taking this effort a step further and creating true products (with a version number, a roadmap, support and maintenance) for them. Definitively a different DNA required for this, but IBM has this DNA in house in the product divisions. Will be interesting to watch.

Finally IBM also has a data / data services maybe even DaaS play with these partners, as it is looking at offering both analytical insights as well as data services with the Weather Company, data access to the Twitter firehose and many more. But these are offerings that IBM needs to provide regardless of these three partners. It will be interesting to observe, if IBM will partner with these three for data exchange, benchmarking (e.g. with SAP for the Sybase 365 data, that recently SAP started to sell via SAP Digital (see here), Oracle’s elaborate DaaS offerings (see here) and Microsoft with Linkedin (see here).

Overall MyPOV

These are very large and strategic partnerships for IBM. Roughly every 6th IBMer is creating value in the ecosystem of these partners. That is larger than many service providers are stand alone. So no surprise IBM is planning, coordinating and crafting strategies with a lot of thought, substance and depth. No surprise.

On the concern side, IBM now needs to execute on these plans, without falling back to traditional ‘professional services’ roots and deliver the more IP based, productized offerings. IBM has the DNA, resources and people to do that, but they need to come together at the right time. The Rubicon that the services business has to cross is not to only leverage existing product commitments from a services perspective, but to create lasting IP or even product offerings that create a flywheel effect between its services and these new products.

For enterprises looking at IBM as a partners this is overall good news, as less time and labor based, not start from scratch projects, but fast to value approaches are what enterprises need in an ever faster evolving world. Like with all service providers we recommend enterprises to look for product naming, version numbers, roadmaps and dedicated support and maintenance strategies – across a growing customer base for these offerings.

Overall it is good to see the progress IBM has already made on some of the partnerships (e.g. with SAP where the renewed partnership was just launched in spring of this year). It won’t get boring in the near future, we will be watching, stay tuned.
 

 

More on IBM:
 

• News Analysis - Workday, IBM Form Strategic Partnership on the IBM Cloud - The IaaS vendor race for SaaS load is on - read here
• News Analysis - IBM Boosts Support to OpenStack's RefStack... first serious attempt to make OpenStack interoperability real - read here
• Event Report - IBM Interconnect - IBM innovates and partners into the hybrid cloud era - read here
• News Analysis - IBM and VMware announce partnership to accelerate enterprise hybrid cloud adoption >> Looking promising - read here
• Event Preview - IBM Interconnect 2016 - read here
• Site Visit - IBM Design Studio Austin - read here
• MarketMoves - IBM strikes 3x in Fall - Cleversafe, The Weather Company and Gravitant - read here
• News Analysis - IBM launches Industry's First Consulting Practice Dedicated to Cognitive Business - a good move it's early times - read more
• News Analysis - IBM plans to acquire Cleversafe to propel Object Storage into the Hybrid Cloud >> a good move. Read here
  Market Move - IBM acquires StrongLoop - nodejs comes to BlueMix - read here
• News Analysis - IBM and ARM Collaborate to Accelerate Delivery of Internet of Things - The IBM NextGenApps Stack emerges - read here
• Progress Report - IBM Cloud makes good progress - but needs to attract more load - read here
• Market Move - IBM gets into private cloud (services) with Blue Box acqusition - read here
• Event Report - IBM InterConnect - IBM makes bets for the hybrid cloud - read here
• First Take - IBM InterConnect Day #1 Keynote - BlueMix, SoftLayer and Watson - read here
• News Analysis - IBM had a very good year in the cloud - 2015 will be key - read here
• Event Report - IBM Insight 2014 - Is it all coming together for IBM in 2015? Or not? 
• First Take - Top 3 Takeaways from IBM Insight Day 1 Keynote - read here
• IBM and SAP partner for cloud - good move - read here
• Event Report - IBM Enterprise - A lot of value for existing customers, but can IBM attract net new customers? Read here
• Progress Report - The Mainframe is alive and kicking - but there is more in IBM STG - read here
• News Analysis - IBM and Intel partner to make the cloud more secure - read here
• Progress Report - IBM BigData an Analytics have a lot of potential - time to show it - read here
• Event Report - What a difference a year makes - and off to a good start - read here
• First Take - 3 Key Takeaways from IBM's Impact Conference - Day 1 Keynote - read here
• Another week and another Billion - this week it's a BlueMix Paas - read here
• First take - IBM makes Connection - introduces the TalentSuite at IBM Connect - read here
• IBM kicks of cloud data center race in 2014 - read here
• First Take - IBM Software Group's Analyst Insights - read here
• Are we witnessing one of the largest cloud moves - so far? Read here
• Why IBM acquired Softlayer - read here

Find more coverage on the Constellation Research website here and checkout my magazine on Flipboard and my YouTube channel here. 

2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 & 2016 (C) Holger Mueller - All Rights Reserved

Artificial Intelligence: Seven Factors For Precision Decisions

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…...

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Did Microsoft buy LinkedIn for the contacts?

Steve Wilson

Former Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Steve Wilson is former VP and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research, leading the business theme Digital Safety and Privacy. His coverage includes digital identity, data protection, data privacy, cryptography, and trust. His advisory services to CIOs, CISOs, CPOs and IT architects include identity product strategy, security practice benchmarking, Privacy by Design (PbD), privacy engineering and Privacy [or Data Protection] Impact Assessments (PIA, DPIA). Coverage Areas: -  Identity management, frameworks & governance-  Digital identity technologies-  Privacy by Design -  Big Data; “Big Privacy”-  Identity & privacy innovation Previous experience: Wilson has worked in ICT innovation, research, development and analysis for over 25 years. With double…...

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Microsoft turned heads in June when it announced its most expensive acquisition to date, the US$26 billion purchase of LinkedIn. Executives from both companies explained that the deal will lead to richer user experiences in Microsoft’s Office 365 and Dynamics products. Commentators framed the takeover interms of integrating LinkedIn's social graphs into the Microsoft product UX – for example, helping users better prepare for meetings by having Outlook display details of the people you're going to be meeting with.   

But that didn't make sense to me.  Would Microsoft really spend $26 billon to enhance meeting invitations?  And it's not like the privacy-conscious Microsoft is going to try and exploit the contact details, even subtly.  So I started to think about how the deep history of massed professionals' career growth could be valuable to a workplace automation leader.  

At first glance, LinkedIn is a huge library of career snapshots. For hundreds of millions of professionals around the world, LinkedIn hosts their living resumes, but it’s so much more.  For years now, members have curated their LinkedIn profiles, adding new positions, courses, publications and connections.  They have given and received endorsements, and shared news and views that matter to their jobs and careers, acting as friendly amateur coaches for each other. LinkedIn has traced all this information in time. Within this dataset are the detailed histories of professionals that do well and others that don’t. The data can reveal characteristics of individuals – their backgrounds, skills, geographies, and associations – which correlate with their career growth.  Over time, the graphs can reveal how professional activities, qualifications, and combinations of these affect career trajectories, not just of the individual but of the groups they belong to - their peers, college cohorts, teams, employers, professions and industries.  

Imagine being able to track, model and predict which ways of working will do better in the future. Imagine knowing which professional traits confer fitness to survive in different niches in the business ecosystem, and at the different levels of individual, groupm sectors, and regions.

In the old management joke, a worried CFO asks the CEO, What if we spend all this money on training our employees, and they leave? to which the CEO responds,  What if we don’t … and they stay? Human resources wisdom runs deep, but so little of it is actually tested. Microsoft can now start to rigorously answer perennial HR questions like:

- What experience and training correlates with sustainable company growth?  
- What is the optimum mix of breadth of experience and specialization? 
- How does workplace diversity affect business success? 
- Does diversity correlate with ideation and innovation?
- How important is proximity to resources, capital, personnel, universities? 
- What are the real differences between Gen X/Y/Z? 

It remains to be seen how Microsoft will monetize all this intelligence. 

A big idea is that LinkedIn can help Microsoft’s AI projects. One of the great challenges in AI is imbuing algorithms with human sensibilities. Conversation and assistive technologies are key to Microsoft's future, and they can benefit enormously from insights into what makes humans tick in the workplace. 

With my terrific Constellation Research colleagues Alan Lepofksy and Cindy Zhou, I've written a new report on the Microsoft-LinkedIn deal.  We explore the many benefits for the Microsoft product and service line, and what it means for the future or work.  

The report Microsoft Acquires LinkedIn, Shaping the Future of Work is available now. 

LinkedIn + Microsoft: Marketing and Sales Monetization Opportunities

Cindy Zhou

CMO
Level Access

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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Big news in the tech world back in June with Microsoft announcing they were acquiring LinkedIn for $26.2b. I remember watching CNBC Fast Money the day of the announcement and Melissa Lee asking the panel how would Microsoft monetize the acquisition?  No one on the panel seemed to have an answer and I sent out this tweet at the time:

• #FutureOfWork: The Combined Microsoft and LinkedIn Graphs #socbiz by Alan Lepofsky

• Did Microsoft buy LinkedIn for the contacts? by Steve Wilson

#FutureOfWork: The Combined Microsoft and LinkedIn Graphs #socbiz

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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On June 13, 2016 Microsoft announced their intention to acquire LinkedIn for $26B, Microsoft's most expensive takeover to date. Why is Microsoft willing to spend that money? What's in it for them, for customers and for partners? My Constellation Research colleagues Steve Wilson, Cindy Zhou and I examine what this combination means and how it impacts the future of work... from personal productivity and team collaboration, to changing the way career paths and hiring are managed, to the impact of marketing experiences.

To find more information see the complete report: Microsoft Acquires LinkedIn, Shaping the Future of Work. Also, please read Cindy and Steve's posts:

• Did Microsoft buy LinkedIn for the contacts? by Steve Wilson
• LinkedIn + Microsoft: Marketing and Sales Monetization Opportunities, by Cindy Zhou

Table Of Contents

• Executive Summary
• Microsoft’s Priciest Acquisition Reveals The Vision Of An Intelligent, Integrated Workplace
• Linking In To Microsoft’s Vision
• Linkedin Data Is Safe With Microsoft
• Looking Ahead : Upcoming Challenges
• What To Expect In Microsoft’s Future Of Work

FutureOfWork: Atlassian HipChat Adds Group Video Chat

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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Atlassian, best know for Jira (project management for software development teams) and Confluence (enterprise team collaboration), has released an update to HipChat, their group chat and video conferencing product. Prior to this release, HipChat could be used for group text conversations and 1:1 video chat, but now you can have group videos chats with up to 10 people. HipChat can be used as a standalone communication tool, but excels when combined with Jira and Confluence, enabling people that have conversations right within the context of the work they are doing. Atlassian acquired HipChat in 2012, and has continued to expand its functionality via additional acquisitions such as BlueJimp and Hall. 

MyPOV on Enterprise Video - Culture Needs to Catchup to Technology

Tools like Apple FaceTime, Facebook Messenger and Google's new 1:1 video application Duo make it easy for people to have real time video conversations with their friends and family. It's amazing to be able to say hello when on a business trip, share an experience while on vacation, or even ask for advice before making a purchase... but are employees ready to be on camera during meetings? Video lends itself to great product demos, but does that translate to real business scenarios? 

The ability to video conference has been around for decades in products like Lotus (now IBM) Sametime and Microsoft Lync (now Skype for Business) or via tele-presence solutions from Cisco, Avaya, Unify and others but ask yourself how often do you take advantage of them? With so many remote or home employees it's great to be able to see your colleagues, smile and share a story for a few minutes, but is the main reaction to video: "Oh no, now I need to shower, shave and get dressed before that meeting!" 

Don't get me wrong, consumer technologies such as email, chat and social networking have all become commonly used tools at work, and video certainly will as well. With laptops, mobile phones and tablets becoming entry points the meetings it's now simple for anyone from developers to doctors, architects to zookeepers to participate in a video chat. But In contrast to our personal lives where we ourselves are the content for the video, at work most often it's documents or applications that need to be shared. Finding the right mixture of "humans on screen" to "content on screen" is important, and tools like HipChat are helping make this a reality.

FutureOfWork: Salesforce Inbox Calendar Helps Provide Context

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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For the last year or so Salesforce has been on a rampage acquiring startups that utilize Artificial Intelligence (AI) to help employees (especially Sales professionals) see the right information at the right time. With the clock clicking down to Dreamforce 2016, Salesforce has starting dropping hints that AI will be the big theme this year... for example this week's announcement of SalesforceIQ Inbox Calendar.  (see image below)

SalesforceIQ Inbox was launched at Dreamforce 2015, and is the result of the acquisition of RelateIQ, an intelligent email client that helps Sales professionals manage their customer relationships right within their inbox.  This week's announcement adds calendar functionality, which comes from Tempo.AI, a smart calendar application Salesforce acquired last year.

The new SalesforceIQ Inbox Calendar examines meeting invitees and shows connections to Salesforce CRM records for the attendees and their organizations. By providing information in context of the meeting invite, people don't need to copy/paste and manually switch between multiple applications to access the information and actions they need.

As the number of tools people use to get their job done grows... for example: email, calendars, social media, tasks, file-sharing, CRM records, and on and on... it becomes increasingly difficult to link together all of the relevant people, content, and conversations. By providing a more seamless experience, Salesforce is taking the right steps to helping people become more efficient and perform more effectively. The integrated email, calendar, task and CRM experience is just the beginning of what Constellation Research expects to see from SalesforceIQ. The next steps involve leveraging AI to help people be more proactive and to automate many of the manual processes employees currently follow.