Microsoft News July 2016 Enhancing Office and Outlook

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…...

In the video below I review several recent annoucements from Microsoft around Office and Outlook.

Future of Work

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Break down the barrier - Stop measuring Marketing vs Sales generated leads

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…...

I was asked recently on a briefing call how to effectively track Marketing versus Sales generated leads. My response - stop separating them! The key is facilitating buyer engagement, and not create division over who gets “credit" for the lead. To manage this effectively, companies need to first understand the differences between lead source and contact source.

Lead Source - The action or activity taken by the customer or prospect that results in the qualification of the lead and subsequent engagement in an opportunity. It has multiple touch points and attributed as such. Example, registering for a webinar, downloading an ebook, etc.
Contact Source - How the buyer contact information was obtained. Example, a sales rep's list of contacts, partner referrals, a purchased list, etc.

Many companies use the term “lead source” as a catchall for both, and measure it as a Key Performance Indicator (KPI) to determine Marketing or Sales effectiveness. Unfortunately, this method often leads to more confusion around what specific program/tactic actually resulted in the qualification and unproductive credit claims on “who" provided the contact information. With the digital era, buyers don’t become interested or qualified through how their information was obtained, so why measure that way?

Throughout my career working with sales and marketing teams, I've recommended separating contact source from lead source. What has become more important, and how companies should measure program ROI, is looking at the quality and quantity of buyer engagement. Whether that was an article that captured their interest, attended a webinar after receiving an invite, or an inside sales follow-up phone call after a booth visit (see my prior article on the importance of follow-up). Effective engagement requires marketing and sales to partner to create an experience along every point of the buyer’s interaction. The contact source simply doesn’t provide the insight needed to truly determine interest level. It’s at this point that I’ll usually get the question from sales, “Why should I give up my personal contact list if I don’t get any credit for it?” Of course the sales rep should. Create a separate field to track contact source as your company could tie other incentives like rewards or contests for adding the most contacts, the most amount of buyer engagement, etc.

If your company leverages Marketing Automation or CRM systems, this process is simple to implement:

Create a new field separate from Lead Source titled “Contact Source”.
If the lead is from a sales rep's contact database, sync to this new field with a list title of “ Contacts”.
Setup reports or dashboards in CRM for your sales rep to include this field to track contact engagement.

Turn your sales team into partners by giving them visibility into their contact engagement and progress. The benefit to sales is by knowing the areas of interest, they can discuss the relevant solutions with the buyers and keep them engaged.

Begin the Marketing and Sales alignment dialog by looking at engagement and not creating division with lead credit claims. Look at buyer action together and re-direct the conversation on how marketing can help sales with better data on buyer engagement to qualify and progress leads. Alignment of Marketing and Sales is a sensitive topic at many companies, but starting small with ideas like separating lead and contact sources can help kick-start the broader conversation. Consistent, ongoing dialog between the two departments is a critical success factor for implementing Account Based Marketing (ABM) and targeted selling approaches. I’ll have more on those topics in the future.

Marketing Transformation Chief Marketing Officer

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Salesforce Acquires Quip: Document Collaboration and Team Chat

Alan Lepofsky

Vice President & Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Today Salesforce announced they are acquiring document collaboration and group chat vendor Quip for $582M USD.

In the video below I discuss why this is a great move for Salesforce, as it will add richer content creation to Chatter and Communities, leverage Salesforce business objects, embed Salesforce Files, and provide Salesforce customers with persistent chat.

Summary:

Future of Work Chief Digital Officer

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5 Ways Brexit Is Accelerating AWS And Public Cloud Adoption

Deutsche Bank estimates AWS derives about 15% of its total revenue mix or has attained a $1.5B revenue run rate in Europe.
AWS is now approximately 6x the size of Microsoft Azure globally according to Deutsche Bank.

These and other insights are from the research note published earlier this month by Deutsche Bank Markets Research titled AWS/Cloud Adoption in Europe and the Brexit Impact written by Karl Keirstead, Alex Tout, Ross Sandler, Taylor McGinnis and Jobin Mathew. The research note is based on discussions the research team had with 20 Amazon Web Services (AWS) customers and partners at the recent AWS user conference held in London earlier this month, combined with their accumulated research on public cloud adoption globally.

These are the five ways Brexit will accelerate AWS and public cloud adoption:

The proliferation of European-based data centers is bringing public cloud stability to regions experiencing political instability. AWS currently has active regions in Dublin and Frankfurt, with the former often being used by AWS’ European customers due to the broader base of services offered there. An AWS Region is a physical geographic location where there is a cluster of data centers. Each region is made up of isolated locations known as availability zones. AWS is adding a third European Union (EU) region in the UK with a go-live date of late 2016 or early 2017. Microsoft has 2 of its 26 global regions in Europe, with two more planned in the UK. Google’s Cloud Platform (GCP) has just one region active in Europe. The following Data Center Map provides an overview of data centers AWS, Microsoft Azure and GCP have in Europe today and planned for the future.

Brexit is making data sovereignty king. European-based enterprises have long been cautious about using cloud platforms to store their many forms of data. Brexit is accelerating the needs European enterprises have for greater control over their data, especially those based in the UK. Amazon’s planned third EU region based in London scheduled to go live in late 2016 or early 2017 is well-timed to capitalize on this trend.

Up-front costs of utilizing AWS are much lower and increasingly trusted relative to more expensive on-premise IT platforms. Brexit is having the immediate effect of slowing down sales cycles for managed hosting, enterprise-wide hardware and software maintenance agreements. The research team found that the uncertainty of just how significant the economic impact Brexit will have on the European economies is making companies tighten capital expense (CAPEX) budgets and trim expensive maintenance agreements. UK enterprises are reverting to OPEX spending that is already budgeted.

CEOs are pushing CIOs to get out of high-cost hardware and on-premise software agreements to better predict operating costs faster thanks to Brexit. The continual pressure on CIOs to reduce the high hardware and software maintenance costs is accelerating thanks to Brexit. Because no one can quantify with precision just how Brexit will impact European economies, CEOs, and senior management teams want to minimize downside risk now. Because of this, the cloud is becoming a more viable option according to Deutsche Bank. One reseller said that public cloud computing platforms are a great answer to a recession, and their clients see Brexit as a catalyst to move more workloads to the cloud.

Brexit will impact AWS Enterprise Discount Program (EDP) revenues, forcing a greater focus on incentives for low-end and mid-tier services. Deutsche Bank Markets Research team reports that AWS has this special program in place for its very largest customers. Under an EDP, AWS will give price discounts to large customers that commit to a full year (or more) and pay upfront, in many cases with minimum volume increases. One AWS partner told Deutsche Bank that they’re aware of one EDP payment of $25 million. In the event of a recession in Europe, it’s possible that such payments could be at risk. These market dynamics will drive AWS to promote further low- and mid-tier services to attract new business to balance out these larger deals.

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Workday Plans for Platfora Revealed

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,…...

Workday HR and financial analyses stand to benefit, but Platfora customers will lose the on-premises software option in the wake of the pending acquisition.

Workday customers stand to gain a deeper understanding of employees, recruits, customers, suppliers, business units and locations, but existing Platfora customers will soon lose the on-premises and public cloud software deployment option.

That’s the upshot of Workday’s planned acquisition of Platfora, a deal announced last week that left questions about the fit between the two companies and the future of the acquired big data analysis vendor. To answer some of the lingering questions, Workday executive Mike Frandsen, EVP of Products, Support & Delivery, and Platfora executive Peter Schlampp, VP of Products, briefed Constellation Research on what the deal will bring. Here are a few of the highlights:

Platfora Joins Workday

On Platfora’s future: Platfora’s current version will be the last to be offered as on-premises software, said Frandsen. Workday will continue to support Platfora’s existing software on all currently supported versions of Hadoop and Spark into 2018 and will honor all contracts. A future product based on Platfora’s technology will be a SaaS service on Workday’s cloud platform. That offering will not be marketed as a stand-alone big data analysis service; rather, it will enhance Workday’s current analytical capabilities, as detailed below.

On blending Workday and Platfora capabilities: Workday has more than 40 customers using its Hadoop-based Workday Big Data Analytics Platform, introduced in 2013 and based on Datameer technology. That service enables customers to import and analyze third-party data in aggregate alongside Workday data, but the company says it does not give them the ability to drill down or slice into that data. Tapping Platfora’s in-memory Data Lenses, “non-Workday data will be a first class citizen” and users will be able to “drill down and slice that data into different pivots or dimensions.”

Platfora self-service data-prep and data visualization capabilities will also figure in Workday’s enhanced offering, said Schlampp. But it won’t be a complete “reboot” of Workday Big Data Analytics, said Frandsen. Rather, Workday will rationalize functionality for different user personas drawing from “an abundance of great tools” for preparation and analysis of data on Hadoop.

On supporting deeper Workday analyses: Platfora’s expertise in behavioral analysis is not limited to customer analysis. That has been a focus area for the company, but behavior analysis will be equally applicable to HR and financial analyses. For example, in the HR arena, behavioral analysis will help companies understand the behaviors, strengths, motivations and likelihood to retain employees and potential employees. Further, Workday said it’s contemplating cohort analysis of employees based on hire date, compensation, manager, organization, work location, or any combination of these attributes.

On the finance side Platfora will help Workday better understand the profitability and value of customers and prospective customers, their satisfaction, their likelihood to remain customers and their likelihood to pay their bills in a timely way. Current and potential partners and suppliers might be evaluated in the same way, and all of the above would advance insights on the profitability of business units and locations.

MyPOV on the Workday-Platfora Plans

I stand by my initial take on this deal in seeing it as a boon for Workday customers, but it’s now clear that change is ahead for existing Platfora customers. Schlampp said he expects customers will continue to use Platfora “for many years to come,” but I think that’s optimistic. I expect customers to look to competing products as their subscription-based licenses to use Platfora expire (whether it’s used on-premises or with cloud-based Hadoop deployments on AWS, Google or Azure).

About one third of Platfora customers (I don’t have an exact count, but it’s said to be “dozens”) are also Workday customers. I would expect few if any of these customers to abandon existing Hadoop deployments and move all their data and analyses onto Workday. That said, these joint customers may well use and appreciate Workday’s Platfora-enhanced HR and financial analyses. And if that’s the case, they would surely load more HR- and finance-relevant data and third-party data onto Workday’s platform as a result.

Data to Decisions Chief Information Officer Chief Digital Officer

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Oracle acquires NetSuite - consolidation means more options for customers

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…...

Earlier today Oracle announced its intent to acquire NetSuite… rumors of the acquisition are almost as old that if they were humans, they would attend middle school, but there was a recent pickup, and they have no materialized…

Let’s first take a look at the press release in our customary style, it can be found here:

Oracle (NYSE: ORCL) today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire NetSuite (NYSE: N), the very first cloud company. The transaction is valued at $109.00 per share in cash, or approximately $9.3 billion.

MyPOV – Now we know why Oracle likes to grow cash reserves, it makes it Oracle’s second largest acquisition (after PeopleSoft in 2004, which turned out to be ‘just’ 1 billion more.

“Oracle and NetSuite cloud applications are complementary, and will coexist in the marketplace forever,” said Mark Hurd, Chief Executive Officer, Oracle. “We intend to invest heavily in both products—engineering and distribution.”
“We expect this acquisition to be immediately accretive to Oracle’s earnings on a non-GAAP basis in the first full fiscal year after closing,” said Safra Catz, Chief Executive Officer, Oracle.
“NetSuite has been working for 18 years to develop a single system for running a business in the cloud,” said Evan Goldberg, Founder, Chief Technology Officer and Chairman, NetSuite. “This combination is a winner for NetSuite’s customers, employees and partners.”
“NetSuite will benefit from Oracle’s global scale and reach to accelerate the availability of our cloud solutions in more industries and more countries,” said Zach Nelson, Chief Executive Officer, NetSuite. “We are excited to join Oracle and accelerate our pace of innovation.”

MyPOV – 2 CEOs, two quotes, 1 CEO and 1 founder, also two quotes. Hurd’s quote is important in regards of stopping all rumors that Oracle may discontinue NetSuite products and stating the opposite in regards of Oracle planning to invest into product and go to market. Catz quote is all about CFO, nota bene the first full fiscal year (after expected closing in this CY) is June 1st 2017 till May 30th 2018 – so quite a bit out. Goldberg’s quote is the usual positive one on the merger, ok and Nelson’s is all along Hurd’s line of further investment in product and broader reach for the NetSuite products courtesy of Oracle.

The evaluation and negotiation of the transaction was led by a Special Committee of Oracle’s Board of Directors consisting solely of independent directors. The Special Committee unanimously approved the transaction on behalf of Oracle and its Board of Directors.

MyPOV – Key to mention... because of the double ownership of Ellison in both Oracle and NetSuite.

The transaction is expected to close in 2016. The closing of the transaction is subject to receiving certain regulatory approvals and satisfying other closing conditions including NetSuite stockholders tendering a majority of NetSuite’s outstanding shares in the tender offer. In addition, the closing is subject to a condition that a majority of NetSuite’s outstanding shares not owned by executive officers or directors of NetSuite, or persons affiliated with Larry Ellison, his family members and any affiliated entities, be tendered in the tender offer.

MyPOV – Another key piece of information, making sure that this transaction is not turning into a management or Ellison ‘left pocket to right pocket’ transaction. It is certainly unusual to find in a press release, but then there are no other software vendors out there where double ownership of that scale is part of a transaction (at least that I know of).

Implications, Implications, ….

Let’s look at the implications that this acquisition has for the different constituents of the ERP market:

Implications for Oracle customers

This is likely not going to affect Oracle Cloud customers. Oracle has been a serial acquirer, the company knows how to do acquisitions, though this is the second- largest acquisition Oracle has done. And NetSuite has more overlap with many Oracle products than PeopleSoft had – e.g. NetSuite brings working CRM and Manufacturing applications to Oracle (something PeopleSoft did to a lesser extend). So Oracle will have to be very clear on where it sees the sweet spot for either product and what customers can expect to use depending on their size and use case. Oracle customers should also press Oracle to clarify and share the roadmap for any plans of 2 tier ERP (where Oracle Cloud products run at HQ and large subsidiaries, and NetSuite may run in smaller subsidiaries) – something that has worked well for customers of other ERP vendors.

Implications for NetSuite customers

As always with acquisitions, Constellation Research recommends to get any assurances, promises, roadmap items reconfirmed, best in written form. These are always difficult, but even more in an acquisition scenario. Overall this should be good news. NetSuite has been e.g. slow at rolling out to European data centers, something that Oracle will be able to accelerate – not just for Europe but other regions. It is likely that Oracle will put NetSuite under the ‘Applications Unlimited’ umbrella program – in the worst case – and there Oracle has a pretty good track record of keeping acquired applications maintained, the posterchild being the last century acquisition of RdB from DEC.

Implications for Partners

Oracle has already stated that it will keep all partnerships in place that NetSuite has put in place. A wise move but we will see if there is more partner consolidation over time. For Oracle partners that are not NetSuite partners – this maybe an alley to become a NetSuite partner. Conversely, for a NetSuite partner that is not an Oracle partner – it may be the option to become an Oracle partner. It will be interesting to see what it means for one of the best running partnerships in the industry -the NetSuite and Ultimate partnership for HCM, that like all other partnerships is in place and keeps going.

Implications for Competitors

We don’t see the acquisition making Oracle Cloud products more competitive – in the next quarters. At best there may be some ecommerce and manufacturing capabilities that Oracle may leverage from NetSuite. Changing store APIs is easy if done correctly. The most direct impact for Oracle customers is likely going to be that Oracle could put in place a similar two tier ERP strategy, that Oracle rival SAP has been running for a while with byDesign playing the role that NetSuite could play for large multinational Oracle customers. And certainly NetSuite is in a better shape and state than byDesign. In the NetSuite market it may create openings for all other players, assuming distraction on the NetSuite side, something the competition cannot count on, but certainly will try. Who will be – with NetSuite being part of Oracle – the largest independent SMB targeted ERP suite? We will see.

MyPOV

A good move by Oracle, that will gain – assuming NetSuite growth holds – almost 1 billion in cloud revenue. Financial analysts and markets will not remember where the cloud revenue bump came from in 15-18 months from now – so we will see if the acquisition will create the bump to the Oracle share price that management and board are expecting (the alternative would have been to buy back Oracle stock at the tune of a few billions). Likely that gamble will pay of due to the recurring nature of cloud revenue, and the one time ‘fizzle’ of share buyback (yes there are fewer outstanding shares, too).

The good news in the market is that this is not a hostile takeover for NetSuite customers. They knew NetSuite is running largely on Oracle technology, and the acquisition has been rumored for many years. Likely NetSuite customers will win with over time more capabilities and more investment into the NetSuite product. And Oracle customers may receive the one or the other NetSuite capability via an API in the cloud (we guess on commerce, merchant capability, order management etc.) as well as a two tier ERP strategy that has been working well for other enterprises using SAP.

For the cloud observers, Oracle just secured a large chunk of uniform cloud load for its IaaS, after large on premise loads (see SAP with Microsoft Azure here) and large internet property loads (see e.g. Microsoft and LinkedIn here) this was one of the largest cloud loads (on a compatible platform) that Oracle could acquire. More scale to Oracle’s IaaS offering.

For the software strategists, the questions is really why now. The acquisition was rumored for a long time, does Oracle need more cloud revenue, was NetSuite getting too expensive, was NetSuite embarking into a ‘not so’ Oracle centric architecture… all and more are plausible motives, which we are more likely than not will ever find fully disclosed.

Still early days, Oracle OpenWorld is likely to bring a lot of news and roadmaps for this acquisition. Stay tuned.

--------------

Another way to look at it - the one slide summary:

Market Move - Oracle acquires NetSuite - oddly consolidation means more choice from Holger Mueller

Recent blog posts on Oracle:

News Analysis - Oracle Unveils Suite of Breakthrough Services.. or short: Oracle Cloud Machine - read here
Progress Report - Oracle Cloud - More ready than ever, now needs adoption - read here
Event Report - Oracle Openworld 2015 - Top 3 Takeaways, Top 3 Positives & Concerns - read here
News Analysis - Quick Take on all 22 press releases of Oracle OpenWorld Day #1 - #3 - read here
First Take - Oracle OpenWorld - Day 1 Keynote - Top 3 Takeaways - read here
Event Preview - Oracle Openworld - watch here

Future of Work / HCM / SaaS research:

Event Report - Oracle HCM World - Innovation around the Core - read here
Event Report - Oracle HCM World - Full Steam ahead, a Learning surprise and potential growth challenges - read here
First Take - Oracle HCM World Day #1 Keynote - off to a good start - read here
Progress Report - Oracle HCM gathers momentum - now it needs to build on that - read here
Oracle pushes modern HR - there is more than technology - read here. (Takeaways from the recent HCMWorld conference).
Why Applications Unlimited is good a good strategy for Oracle customers and Oracle - read here.

Also worth a look for the full picture

Event Report - Oracle PaaS Event - 6 PaaS Services become available, many more announced - read here
Progress Report - Oracle Cloud makes progress - but key work remains in the cellar - read here
News Analysis - Oracle discovers the power of the two socket server - or: A pivot that wasn't one - TCO still rules - read here
Market Move - Oracle buys Datalogix - moves more into DaaS - read here
Event Report - Oracle Openworld - Oracle's vision and remaining work become clear - they are both big - read here
Constellation Research Video Takeaways of Oracle Openworld 2014 - watch here
Is it all coming together for Oracle in 2014? Read here.
From the fences - Oracle AR Meeting takeaways - read here (this was the last analyst meeting in spring 2013)
Takeaways from Oracle CloudWorld LA - read here (this was one of the first cloud world events overall, in January 2013)

And if you want to read more of my findings on Oracle technology - I suggest:

Progress Report - Good cloud progress at Oracle and a two step program - read here.
Oracle integrates products to create its Foundation for Cloud Applications - read here.
Java grows up to the enterprise - read here.
1st take - Oracle in memory option for its database - very organic - read here.
Oracle 12c makes the database elastic - read here.
How the cloud can make the unlikeliest bedfellows - read here.
Act I - Oracle and Microsoft partner for the cloud - read here.
Act II - The cloud changes everything - Oracle and Salesforce.com - read here.
Act III - The cloud changes everything - Oracle and Netsuite with a touch of Deloitte - read here.

More about NetSuite

Event Report - NetSuite SuiteWorld - NetSuite powers on innovates on all layers - read here
Event Preview - NetSuite Suiteworld 2016 - read here
News Analysis – NetSuite speaks BeNeLux – expands into Belgium, The Netherlands and Luxembourg - read here
News Analyis - NetSuite announces Cloud Alliance with Microsoft - read here
First Take - NetSuite SuiteWorld - Zach Nelson Day #1 Keynote - read here
First Take - Ultimate Software UltiConnect Day #1 Keynote - read here
Event Report - Netsuite powers on with targeted innovation - read here
Why NetSuite acquired TribeHR - read here
Act III the cloud changes everything - Oracle and NetSuite with a touche of Deloitte - read here
Act III and final day - A tale of two conferences - Sapphire and SuiteWorld - read here
The middle day - 2 keynotes and press releases - Sapphire and SuiteWorld - read here
A tale of 2 keynotes and press releases - Sapphire and SuiteWorld - read here

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

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News Analysis: Oracle's $9.3B Acquisition Of Netsuite Is About Cloud Consolidation

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…...

Oracle Bring Netsuite Back Into The Fold

@rwang0 @oracle @netsuite Acquisition

Oracle’s 9.3B acquisition of Netsuite came as no surprise to valley insiders. The rumors have surfaced for weeks. The surprise came as how badly Oracle sought cloud revenue and to bring a friendly partner back into the family. Constellation sees the following for the buy side:

Battle for cloud revenue continues. Oracle as with every cloud vendor is seeking to grow their subscription revenues. Netsuite brings almost 800M in revenue and grows the overall market share. Moreover, Larry keeps Netsuite in the family to avoid competitors from encroaching on the Oracle market.
Serves the mid market and divisions in an end to end capacity. Netsuite gives the Oracle customer an integrated cloud ERP, CRM, and commerce suite. Netsuite’s claim to fame is that more companies have IPO’d on Netsuite than any other company and that they have served a role in enabling two-tier ERP for corporate divisions.
Addresses gaps in Oracle’s Industry Cloud strategy. Netsuite’s core has been strong in manufacturing, retail, commerce, and professional services. While Oracle addresses these products in an on-premises model, Netsuite’s cloud approach fills holes in Oracle’s cloud strategy in key verticals. Commerce is a key battle ground going forward and Netsuite made significant progress with key brands. Those customers will benefit from the rest of Oracle’s marketing cloud and supply chain capabilities.

The Bottom Line For Customers

Existing customers can continue with status quo. Oracle has had a good history with post-merger integration. Netsuite will be able to take advantage of many of Oracle’s technical assets and customers can expect to benefit from the synergies. Customers should try to renew more favorable terms before Oracle takes over in order to sign more beneficial contracts.
Prospects can be rest assured Netsuite will continue in operational capacity. Netsuite’s core niche has been helping mid market companies with an end-to-end cloud suite. They also enabled companies who wanted to innovate in a two-tier ERP and cloud model. Moreover, many companies have scaled their business from startup to IPO running Netsuite. Customers will not have to worry about Netsuite’s future as Oracle will serve as a good care taker.
Partners can expect some changes in the program. For partners working with Netsuite expect some changes with reentry into the Oracle Partner Network. Netsuite had started to improve their partner program. Many Netsuite partners have been Oracle partners should lobby Oracle to keep the programs separate as the Netsuite program is more partner friendly.

Your POV.

Were you expecting Oracle to buy out Netsuite? What do you think will happen to you as a customer? As an Oracle customer will you consider Netsuite for Two-Tier ERP deployments?

Add your comments to the blog or reach me via email: R (at) ConstellationR (dot) com or R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) org.

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Although we work closely with many mega software vendors, we want you to trust us. For the full disclosure policy,stay tuned for the full client list on the Constellation Research website.

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The post News Analysis: Oracle’s $9.3B Acquisition Of Netsuite Is About Cloud Consolidation appeared first on A Software Insider's Point of View.

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Has Microsoft let in Google’s Trojan Horse? Chrome is Coming, and No-one is Safe

Sholto Macpherson

SME Tech Commentator
Digital First

Sholto Macpherson is a business technology journalist and expert on cloud software and services for SMEs. Since June 2011 he has published http://DigitalFirst.com, which explores how SMEs can use the latest cloud technologies and the impact of digital disruption on the accounting industry.Sholto has 14 years’ experience contributing to magazines and websites, radio and TV segments, webinars and conferences on enterprise and SMB technology and the cloud-led productivity revolution. His stories have appeared in national and regional Australian newspapers and industry websites such as CRN.com.au and iTnews.com.au.Sholto won a national IT Journalism award for Best Columnist in 2012 for his Cloud Channel column in CRN Australia magazine on the transition from server software to cloud software…...

In less than two years Satya Nadella has transformed Microsoft from incumbent under siege to tech pioneer, on multiple fronts. The change in stance since Steve Ballmer has been nothing short of remarkable.

One of Satya’s signature moves has been to open up Microsoft Office to other platforms, including Apple iOS, Google Android and Google Chrome. It was diametrically opposed to Ballmer’s approach of using Office as a drawcard for Microsoft Windows OS.

At first this seemed like a masterstroke. Extend the franchise by making it universal.

Now, however, Google is moving full pelt into hardware and preparing a global assault on the SME and enterprise PC fleet market. The Chrome for Work initiative will send masses of low-cost devices running Chrome OS into Microsoft’s home territory in an attempt to dethrone Windows for good.

And if the stats from IDC are to be believed, businesses will have plenty of reasons to switch to what is, in effect, a thin client environment for SaaS.

Three-year total cost of ownership is 61% lower than alternate PCs and tablets, a 49% lower device cost, a 74% lower device management and support cost, and a 53% lower deployment cost, according to an IDC white paper on Chrome in the education market.

The stats are similarly impressive for IT management. A 68% reduction in staff time managing devices, 93% less time deploying devices, 75% less time in managing security and a 92% reduction in time to troubleshoot, the paper found.

The prices for Chromebooks are insane. Samsung’s cheapest model, an 11-inch weighing 1.1kg and a battery life of 11 hours, costs US$189. And it runs Office.

Google Apps partners report reductions to IT costs of 40 percent to 70 percent for businesses that move to Google Apps in a PC environment. The savings of a combined Google Apps and Chrome shift would be even higher.

Sales reports reinforce the analysts’ findings. Chromebooks outsold Macs in the US education market for the first time in May this year, according to IDC.

“IDC estimates Apple's US Mac shipments to be around 1.76 million in the latest quarter, meaning Dell, HP, and Lenovo sold nearly 2 million Chromebooks in Q1 combined,” the Verge reported.

That was before Google announced that apps on the Android mobile platform – all 2.2 million – would be coming to Chromebooks too. Any app on your Android phone will sync to your Chromebook (or ChromeBox, the desktop unit).

The Verge shot a video of a Chromebook editing photos using Photoshop Express (for Android); pasting that photo into a Word document from Microsoft Office (for Android); and playing shoot-em-up space games (for Android) on the Chromebook’s touchscreen.

The photo file, Word doc and gaming data ran locally and natively on the Chromebook, the Verge claimed.

Microsoft is not the only one in Google’s sights. Tony Chadwick, a dyed-in-the-wool Apple fan who has started a Google services company called Chromeworx, believes it’s time to switch allegiances.

“The innovation mantra after Steve (Jobs) died has been taken up by Google. Apple’s model of cloud in the enterprise or business is just not workable,” Chadwick says. “Microsoft are coming at (cloud) at a million miles an hour but Google is still way ahead.”

Is Apple, with its focus on tech as luxury, really vulnerable to a tsunami of low-cost Chrome devices?

“I’ve been an Apple person for 30 years and I don’t want or need any Apple products. That sort of says it all to me,” says Chadwick.

Apple tends to run its own race. Microsoft vs Google will be the battle to watch – Satya versus Google’s Sundar Pichai. Two duelling, Indian-born CEOs determined to lead America’s greatest tech giants to glory.

Does Satya have a comeback? How will he protect the heartland? Microsoft’s awakened interest in hardware could hold the answers.

A version of this story first appeared on CRN.com.au.

Future of Work Google Microsoft Chief Digital Officer

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The Need for Customer Experience is Based on Science Not Myth

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…...

The need for customer experience to improve is not a myth. In fact, here’s why. Noted psychology researcher and writer Mihaly Csíkszentmihályi observed in 1998 that people who perform seamless, sequence-based activities on a regular basis are happier than people who don’t[i]. He coined the term “flow” to describe this behavior. With the advent of CoIT, we’ve actually imposed a new set of demands on our customer’s brains. But instead of offering a series of smoothly sequential flows, websites and mobile applications are characterized by lag, downtime, and restarts. And at the same time customer’s flow-oriented brains simply aren’t wired to deal with poor digital experience interactions. Science has shown the business need for great customer experiences is a fact, not a myth.

And it can be tempting to label customers picky and impatient. But there’s a wealth of research on what happens to customers at a neurological level when they are forced to deal with slow or interrupted processes.[i] Their impatience is an indelible part of their human circuitry. Brands must recognize that customers’ hardwiring of the brain’s and their neurological desire for flow and easy of use as part of the cost of doing business. Companies must come to terms with the economic imperative of the customer experience or drive customers to their competitors because of their poor focus on customer experiences.

Fast websites and mobile experience create happier users. Those happier users are more likely to follow “calls to action” to register, download, subscribe, request information, or purchase. Unhappy users, which could include those who experience a mere two-second slowdown in how a web page loads, make almost two percent fewer queries, three point seven-five percent click less often, and report being significantly less satisfied with their overall experience[i]. Worse, they tell their friends about their negative experience. With the word-of-mouth social networks provide, brands need to heed the seriousness of differentiating their brand’s customer experience or be left in the dust.

Response Times have been consistent for 45 years. Based on neuroscience, the facts about human perception and response times have been consistent for more than forty-five years[i]. In fact, these numbers are hard-wired in human brains. And they are consistent regardless of the type of device, application, or connection a customer is using. In fact, that’s key to where customer expectations come from thus important to capitalize on. And what’s critical is determining where a brand’ web / mobile sites compare to customer expectations as well as benchmarking against CoIT applications or competitors or even non-competitors who have a great customer experience.

Response Time Has Not changed Much. In Robert B. Miller’s 1968 paper, “Response Time in Man-Computer Conversational Transactions[ii]“, found people have always been most comfortable, most efficient and most productive with response times of less than two seconds. Since 2006, what has changed slightly is the average online shopper expects pages to load in four seconds or less. Today, forty-nine percent expect page load times of two seconds or less, and eighteen percent expect pages to load instantly[iii]. And while optimizing every aspect of a brand’s digital assets to meet an “instant” expectation is a laudable goal, organizations simply may not have initially budgeted the resources to achieve these goals. Digital experience maturity, however, provides teams the ability to identify the interaction points in the digital customer journey most sensitive to improvement so they can maximize return on performance investment and include this in the budget and resource planning activities. Here’s the results of the Walmart study on page load times and conversion rates:

Businesses can keep arguing that customer experience doesn’t matter, it’s a touchy-feely construct or get it directly affects the bottom-line and start by designing and measuring customer experience performance management. For more on this see my report, here.

@drnatalie petouhoff, VP and Principal Analyst

Covering Customer-Facing Applications

[i] http://www.webperformancetoday.com/2014/07/16/eight-tricks-improve-perceived-web-performance/

[ii]Robert B. Miller’s 1968 paper, “Response Time in Man-Computer Conversational Transactions, https://www.computer.org/csdl/proceedings/afips/1968/5072/00/50720267.pdf

[iii]http://insights.wired.com/profiles/blogs/47-of-consumers-expect-a-web-page-to-load-in-2-seconds-or-less#axzz498kHSokj

[i] http://www.webperformancetoday.com/2010/06/15/everything-you-wanted-to-know-about-web-performance/.

[i]Dual-task interference in simple tasks: Data and theory. Pashler, Harold Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 116(2), Sep 1994, 220-244. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.116.2.220

[i] The Concept of Flow: Handbook of Positive Psychology, Nakamura, J. and Csikszentmihayi, M. 2002.

Next-Generation Customer Experience Chief Customer Officer

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Taking Accountability For What You Say and Share - #AlansAngle

Alan Lepofsky

Vice President & Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

In this short video, I share my some thoughts on the recent data breach scandals rocking the US political scene, blaming tools, and taking accountability for the things you say and share.

Future of Work

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