Breaking Big: Teradata Believes We are in the Internet of Analytics vs #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…...

Teradata announced two new breakthrough software capabilities that empower business users to uncover and operationalize the insights hidden within Internet of Things (IoT) data. These were 1. Teradata® Listener™ and 2. Teradata Aster® Analytics on Hadoop make it possible to intelligently listen in real-time and then use analytics to see the distinctive patterns in massive streams of IoT data.

And while Teradata does agree that we are in the age of over 50B connected devices, generating a massive and constant stream of data, the focus has not been on ingesting and maximizing value from the data with machine learning algorithms. Even the most technology-savvy organizations recognize that extracting value from data generated by the IoT is a difficult, skills-intensive process. Even more difficult is integrating the IoT data with business operations and human behavioral data.

Why the Internet of Analytics? Teradata’s latest innovative IoT software capabilities eliminate complexity and latency, while providing organizations with entirely new capabilities to leverage data. Teradata Listener is intelligent, self-service software with real-time “listening internet of things 50B ” capabilities to follow multiple streams of sensor and IoT data wherever it exists globally, and then propagate the data into multiple platforms in an analytical ecosystem. Data propagated to the recently-released Teradata Integrated Big Data Platform 1800 provides access to large volumes of data with its native support of JSON (Java Script Object Notation) data. Data propagated to Hadoop® can be analyzed at scale with Teradata Aster Analytics on Hadoop.

What Does This Mean To YOU? Let’s take for example, a Teradata customer and major manufacturer who sells and services magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), radiography, and ultrasound imaging equipment to global hospitals and clinics. With thousands of patient scans daily, these medical devices have become indispensable in global healthcare. Text logs describing patient behavior and sensor data are streamed 24/7 from the equipment into the manufacturer’s Hadoop data lake. Teradata runs text analytics on the data to uncover insights that help global field service personnel improve machine up-time and extend maintenance windows. Simultaneously, data from the equipment manufacturing process flows into a Teradata Appliance where advanced analytics offer insights for improving quality and manufacturing efficiency and help ensure that problems are not passed to the next product generation.

What Products / Services Were Announced?

Teradata Listener – Teradata Listener is intelligent, self-service software for ingesting and distributing fast-moving data streams–either individual or multiple streams–at one time. It allows customers to push data to Hadoop, Teradata Aster Analytics, Teradata Database, and other platforms. It enables data scientists, business analysts, and developers to quickly and easily analyze new data streams for faster answers to business questions. Without needing to rely on IT for help, users can analyze data from numerous sources including sensors, telematics, mobile events, click streams, social media feeds, and IT server logs.

2. Teradata Aster Analytics on Hadoop – Unique in the industry, the enhanced Aster Analytics on Hadoop is an integrated analytics solution from Teradata now featuring a set of more than 100 business-ready, distinctly different analytics techniques and seven vertical industry applications to run directly on Hadoop®. This allows organizations to seamlessly address business problems with an integrated analytics solution.

The flexibility and simplicity of these capabilities enables everyday business analysts to perform as data scientists by tackling the organization’s most challenging problems. Teradata Aster Analytics on Hadoop allows users to combine machine learning, text, path, pattern, graph, and statistics within a single workflow. Teradata offers flexible Aster Analytics deployments that include the Teradata Big Analytics Appliance, Hadoop , the software only version, or in the Teradata Cloud. And not all clouds are created equally!

4. Teradata Integrated Big Data Platform 1800
Released on Monday, October 19, the Teradata Integrated Big Data Platform 1800 is the ideal platform to support the new IoT capabilities. It enables customers to perform complex ana
lytics at scale and is available at a cost-effective price of approximately $1,000 per terabyte of compressed data. The Teradata Database, running on the Teradata Integrated Big Data Platform, provides access to data in many formats, including XML, name-value pair, BSON (Binary JSON) and JSON from web applications, sensors, and Internet of Things-connected machines.

5. Think Big is First to Offer Comprehensive Managed Services for Hadoop Data Lakes

Many organizations have found that it is relatively easy to download Hadoop software for free, and then load their data. What is far more difficult is to gain a competitive advantage from analyzing big data. The problem is compounded as a result of the current shortage of talented individuals with Hadoop skills. Organizations need individuals who understand the complexities of building and operating distributed systems, and have experience with managing systems at scale. Think Big consulting teams can manage data lakes and build applications with their highly trained and field-tested engineers, developers, and data scientists

“Think Big Managed Services for Hadoop help customers drive business results by building an analytical ecosystem that ensures data quality, reliability, and day-to-day completion of operational tasks,” said Ron Bodkin, president, Think Big. “Hadoop is a maturing technology with a range of challenges. Think Big offers world-class service to help customers address the common Hadoop platform and application challenges.”

For more info check out these links:

Up-coming Webinar, November 16: Real Time Data Streams: What’s in it for Me?
Teradata Listener Data Sheet
Teradata Aster Analytics on Hadoop Data Sheet
Teradata Integrated Big Data Platform 1800 Data Sheet

With all the devices and data, we have to work at making sure we are not collecting data for the sake of collecting data. Data has to be cleansed, managed and mined for insights that drive real business results.

@DrNatalie, VP and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research

Next-Generation Customer Experience Chief Customer Officer

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Teradata Puts Aster On Hadoop, Adds ‘Listener’ For Streaming Data

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,…...

Teradata puts Aster database on Hadoop to support ‘multi-genre’ analytics. New ‘Listener’ software collects and delivers high-volume, high-velocity data for IoT and other streaming scenarios.

Teradata is making a slew of announcements at this week’s Teradata Partners conference in Anaheim, CA, but none is more significant than the news that the Teradata Aster database will soon be available to run on Hadoop.

Teradata acquired Aster back in 2011 for its ability to handle newer, variable data types, such as clickstreams, log files and social feeds with unconventional analyses (for a database) including MapReduce and pattern and path analysis. Teradata subsequently extended Aster’s repertoire, adding support for graph analysis an in-database analytics based on the R language. Aster handles all of these analyses, as well as conventional querying, with SQL and SQL-like expressions, making it accessible to non-data scientists.

With Teradata Aster soon available to run on Hadoop, customers won’t need separate infrastructure to gain Aster’s diverse analytical capabilities.

MyPOV on Aster On Hadoop. The question for Teradata customers considering Aster has always been, do I really want to run three separate platforms, assuming the Teradata data warehouse and Hadoop are also in the picture. Now that there’s an option to run Aster on Hadoop, customers won’t need to invest in, deploy and run separate infrastructure for the database. Instead, Aster will run on Hadoop clusters, with YARN as the common resource manager.

In another benefit, customers won’t need to move data from Hadoop to Aster, as the database will access the data in HDFS directly. Finally, Aster’s versatility will stand out against rival SQL-on-Hadoop offerings that focus more narrowly on conventional SQL querying. Aster on Hadoop will be available in the first quarter of next year on Teradata’s Hadoop and Unified Data Architecture appliances. Software designed to run on Hortonworks, Cloudera and other Hadoop distributions will follow soon thereafter.

‘Listen’ to Streaming Data

Among the other announcements at Partners, the company introduced Teradata Listener software for capturing and distributing streaming data. Teradata Listener is designed to work with a variety of streaming sources, including mobile apps, event-processing engines, service buses, Cassandra, Spark, social networks, and a diversity of sensors. Destination options include Teradata, Aster, Hadoop, and more.

Teradata Listener is designed to capture and distribute data in streaming scenarios including IoT use cases.

MyPOV On Teradata Listener. This is focused software that doesn’t try to do too much. It’s not a processing engine, a service bus or integration software. Think of it as multi-point connector for streaming data. And kudos to Teradata for not overhyping the Internet of Things angle. Streaming applications come in many shapes, sizes and speeds, and connected sensors are just one of the sources Listener can capture and deliver to Teradata or Hadoop.

Running Hadoop as a Service

In one final announcement of note at Partners, Teradata announced that its Think Big consulting unit has introduced managed services for running Hadoop clusters. Given the scarcity of talent familiar with Hadoop, the idea is to speed and simplify the path to deploying and keeping Hadoop clusters up and running.

MyPOV On Hadoop services. This offering fills a clear need, but the focus of this service is on platform administrative services. The harder talent to find is data scientists. Think Big can certainly help with its consulting services for big data strategy, but these ongoing managed services won’t fill the talent gap where big data analysis is concerned.

MyPOV Overall on Teradata Partners

Teradata announced new hardware here, too, including an upgraded flagship 6800 active data warehouse platform, an upgraded extreme-capacity 1800 appliance, but it strikes me that Teradata is putting the emphasis on software and services more than ever. With revenue under pressure, Teradata is also pushing more strongly into the cloud with the offering of the Teradata database on Amazon Web Services, as announced two weeks ago at AWS re:Invent. These are all good signs, here at the 30^th anniversary Partners event, that Teradata is adapting for the future.

Data to Decisions Chief Information Officer Chief Digital Officer

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Google's Tempting-Sounding Apps Migration Offer: Mind the Fine Print

Chris Kanaracus

Managing Editor, Constellation Insights
Constellation

Chris Kanaracus is managing editor of Constellation Insights.  Insights delivers exclusive, daily analysis of breaking news across Constellation’s eight business research themes to Constellation Executive Network members.  Prior to joining Constellation, Kanaracus spent seven years covering the enterprise software industry for IDG News Service, where he frequently broke exclusive stories with a focus on end-customer issues. Kanaracus has also held various managerial and reporting roles at newspapers in New England since 1998. Twitter: @chriskanaracus , Title: Big IdeasConstellation Insights Insights delivers exclusive, daily analysis of breaking news across Constellation’s eight business research themes to Constellation Executive Network members. ...

Google has unveiled a tempting-sounding offer aimed at convincing customers to switch to its Docs productivity tools, as competition heightens in the space from the likes of Microsoft Office 365 and IBM SmartCloud. Here's the gist, from the official blog post announcing the deal:

We're so confident that Docs has all the features you need, without the ones you don't, that we're making it even easier to give it a try. If you're worried about switching to Docs because you still have an enterprise agreement (EA) with another provider, we'll cover the fees of Google Apps until your contract runs out. We'll even chip in on some of the deployment costs and set you up for success with one of our Google for Work Partners.

Google will give customers a "simple contract with no traps or gotchas" once their existing EA runs out, and it will be possible to save up to 70 percent by switching to Docs, according to the post.

This all sounds pretty good on the surface, but there are pluses and minuses for customers to consider, says Constellation Research analyst Alan Lepofsky.

On the plus side: "There can be several challenges when switching from one vendor to another, including technical, cultural, political and financial," he says. "This program from Google helps to reduce the financial and technical ones."

The downside: "You’ll be running in a mixed environment until a final decision is made," Lepofsky says. "When a customer has to cutover quickly to avoid costs, it could be easier on the users. With the ability to run both until the end of your existing EA, the mixed environment could be around longer."

There are also some significant terms and conditions not mentioned in the blog post, but which are included in Google's own enterprise agreement for the migration offer.

For one thing, customers must commit to using Google Docs at standard terms and conditions for a year following the end of their existing EA.

"So for current IBM or Microsoft customers evaluating a move to Google, if they use the time until end of their EA to evaluate both, but then stick to renewing with their current vendor, they will be stuck double paying for 12 months to Google," Lepofsky notes.

In addition, the credit offer is good for only up to 3,000 user licenses per customer. One might quibble with the idea of that user count equating an enterprise-sized deployment. Standard monthly fees "will be applicable for any additional user licenses during the Remainder EA Term which will be prorated to the end of such term, and for the one year period following the Remainder EA Term," according to the agreement.

The Bottom Line

As for Google itself, there is little risk in making this sort of offer, Lepofsky says: "I don’t see any short term negatives for Google, as it won’t lose them customers. If it gains them anything greater than one, it would seem like a win."

However, "I can see competitors dropping pricing, or offering similar deals, thus making this program less relevant," he adds.

Finally, while costs and licensing are only two of the decision points used in vendor selection, "based on today’s announcement, customers could use Google’s new offer as a leverage point to reduce the costs associated in renewing their existing contracts," Lepofsky says.

Chief People Officer Chief Information Officer

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SAP Tech Ed 2015 Preview: Beyond the Keynotes

Chris Kanaracus

Managing Editor, Constellation Insights
Constellation

SAP's major US developer and technology conference, TechEd, kicks off this week in Las Vegas, featuring keynotes from platform solutions president Steve Lucas and Bernd Leukert, global head of products.

As Constellation Research analyst Doug Henschen notes in his own preview of the event, major announcements are expected to include a new Cloud for Analytics service as well as an update on the new S/4HANA application suite.

While the keynote material will be the subject of much attention and analysis, TechEd's massive session agenda provides greater immediacy and interest for customers and partners. While I won't be at this year's event, I dug through the catalog and highlighted some sessions I'd make a point to attend if I were.

SAP's Own Journey to S/4HANA

Dogfooding is a time-honored tradition among software vendors, and SAP doesn't depart from it. On Tuesday, SAP will present a session that describes its move to the Business Suite on HANA and planned migration to S/4HANA:

Explore the international adoption road map for the implementation and learn best practices involved in setting up the project. We talk about insights gained from performance testing and look at how SAP runs its ERP system on S/4HANA. We'll go over our project plan to implement S/4HANA OP1503 SAP internally; we’ll look at the steps needed to ensure a successful migration.

POV: Given the scope of SAP's project and the stakes involved in its success, any customer exploring a move to S/4HANA should get value out of this session.

Cloud Foundry and HANA Cloud Platform: The Convergence

From the session abstract:

SAP plans to integrate the open runtime platform Cloud Foundry, the industry standard for open platform-as-a-service (PaaS), into SAP HANA Cloud Platform. In this session we explore the impact of this evolution, the capabilities that Cloud Foundry adds to the SAP PaaS (such as multi-runtime support and community services) and a preliminary road map.

POV: While SAP wants customers to adopt HANA Cloud Platform as an extensibility and integration framework, Cloud Foundry has emerged as an industry leader in PaaS. The details of how the two platforms will work together are crucial.

SAP Cloud Integration: What's In the Works

Customers will get an update on SAP's cloud integration plans on Tuesday, as the session abstract describes:

Many organizations have invested years and money to connect their on-premises landscapes. They expect continuity and nondisruption as they anticipate and adopt cloud innovation from SAP. This session outlines our strategy for cloud integration and provides a current status of our cloud integration portfolio with a focus on SAP HANA Cloud Integration technology.

POV: Most SAP customers will end up with hybrid environments versus a full-blown move to the cloud, making it crucial for SAP to provide robust prebuilt integrations as well as integration tools.

SAP UI Technology Roadmaps: Seeking Clarity

There are many scheduled TechEd sessions on Fiori, the cross-platform user experience technology SAP is using for all new product development.

While seemingly off to a decent start with the customer base, Fiori remains in its infancy and the fact is that SAP has a sizable collection of older UI technologies in wide use among the customer base. One session promises to give customers clarity into their future:

Learn more about the road map of SAP's most important UI technologies and clients. Get to know their key characteristics, current capabilities, and features, and what to expect for the future. Examples of topics to be covered include: SAPUI5, SAP Web IDE, floorplan manager (Web Dynpro for ABAP), SAP NetWeaver Business Client, SAP Fiori launchpad, and SAP Enterprise Portal.

POV: After pushback from user groups, SAP made Fiori inclusive with maintenance payments, reducing the financial cost of implementing it. Still, it will be years before most customers are able to retire older UIs in favor of Fiori—assuming they even want to—so the information delivered here is of significant importance.

Data to Decisions Next-Generation Customer Experience Tech Optimization Chief Customer Officer Chief Information Officer Chief Digital Officer

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Event Preview - SAP TechEd 2015

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…...

A short event preview of SAP's upcoming developer conference, SAP TechEd, happening in Las Vegas this week.

So take a peek:

If you can't watch - have a look:

A year ago (see here) it was (finally!) all about PaaS at SAP. Similar to Oracle, which had Oracle Openworld happening the week before (this year it's the other way around). And similar to IBM, who has been promoting the API economy for quite a while. SAP partners with Apigee and has made good progress as we saw at 'ILoveAPIs' last week (see here).
Anyone remember the yellow SAP logo - it was all new 12 months ago.. time flies.
So what will SAP show the developer community how they can make a living in 2016? I think the Hana Cloud Platform (HCP) will be key and needs to remain forefront of these efforts.
A year ago it was all about HANA SPS9 - let's see how much HANA messaging we will hear the next days. Of course a main focus is the recent HANA Vora announcement (more here). It's a very good move by SAP, TechEd will show how SAP will motivate developers to uptake the new capabilities.
And lets learn more about the new SAP Analytics solution, that was announced last week.
Let's see how the ecosystem is doing, key to see SAP uptake and adoption.

If you are in Las Vegas in person, catch me - I always have a minute. Or follow me on Twitter @holgermu - all my notes are there first!

More on overall SAP strategy and products:

Event Report - SAP SuccessFactors SuccessConnect - Good Progress sprinkled with innovative ideas and challenging the status quo - read here
News Analysis - WorkForce Software Announces Global Reseller Agreement with SAP - read here
First Take - SAP SuccessFactors SuccessConnect - Day #1 Keynote Top 3 Takeaways - read here
News Analysis - SAP SuccessFactors introduces Next Generation of HCM software - read here
News Analysis - SAP delivers next release of SAP HANA - SPS 10 - Ready for BigData and IoT - read here
Event Report - SAP Sapphire - Top 3 Positives and Concerns - read here
First Take - Bernd Leukert and Steve Singh Day #2 Keynote - read here
News Analysis - SAP and IBM join forces ... read here
First Take - SAP Sapphire Bill McDermott Day #1 Keynote - read here
In Depth - S/4HANA qualities as presented by Plattner - play for play - read here
First Take - SAP Cloud for Planning - the next spreadsheet killer is off to a good start - read here
Progress Report - SAP HCM makes progress and consolidates - a lot of moving parts - read here
First Take - SAP launches S/4HANA - The good, the challenge and the concern - read here

First Take - SAP's IoT strategy becomes clearer - read here
SAP appoints a CTO - some musings - read here
Event Report - SAP's SAPtd - (Finally) more talk on PaaS, good progress and aligning with IBM and Oracle - read here
News Analysis - SAP and IBM partner for cloud success - good news - read here
Market Move - SAP strikes again - this time it is Concur and the spend into spend management - read here
Event Report - SAP SuccessFactors picks up speed - but there remains work to be done - read here
First Take - SAP SuccessFactors SuccessConnect - Top 3 Takeaways Day 1 Keynote - read here.
Event Report - Sapphire - SAP finds its (unique) path to cloud - read here
What I would like SAP to address this Sapphire - read here
News Analysis - SAP becomes more about applications - again - read here
Market Move - SAP acquires Fieldglass - off to the contingent workforce - early move or reaction? Read here.
SAP's startup program keep rolling – read here.
Why SAP acquired KXEN? Getting serious about Analytics – read here.
SAP steamlines organization further – the Danes are leaving – read here.
Reading between the lines… SAP Q2 Earnings – cloudy with potential structural changes – read here.
SAP wants to be a technology company, really – read here
Why SAP acquired hybris software – read here.
SAP gets serious about the cloud – organizationally – read here.
Taking stock – what SAP answered and it didn’t answer this Sapphire [2013] – read here.
Act III & Final Day – A tale of two conference – Sapphire & SuiteWorld13 – read here.
The middle day – 2 keynotes and press releases – Sapphire & SuiteWorld – read here.
A tale of 2 keynotes and press releases – Sapphire & SuiteWorld – read here.
What I would like SAP to address this Sapphire – read here.
Why 3rd party maintenance is key to SAP’s and Oracle’s success – read here.
Why SAP acquired Camillion – read here.
Why SAP acquired SmartOps – read here.
Next in your mall – SAP and Oracle? Read here.

And more about SAP technology:

News Analysis - SAP Unveils New Cloud Platform Services and In-Memory Innovation on Hadoop to Accelerate Digital Transformation – A key milestone for SAP read here
HANA Cloud Platform - Revisited - Improvements ahead and turning into a real PaaS - read here
News Analysis - SAP commits to CloudFoundry and OpenSource - key steps - but what is the direction? - Read here.
News Analysis - SAP moves Ariba Spend Visibility to HANA - Interesting first step in a long journey - read here
Launch Report - When BW 7.4 meets HANA it is like 2 + 2 = 5 - but is 5 enough - read here
Event Report - BI 2014 and HANA 2014 takeaways - it is all about HANA and Lumira - but is that enough? Read here.
News Analysis – SAP slices and dices into more Cloud, and of course more HANA – read here.
SAP gets serious about open source and courts developers – about time – read here.
My top 3 takeaways from the SAP TechEd keynote – read here.
SAP discovers elasticity for HANA – kind of – read here.
Can HANA Cloud be elastic? Tough – read here.
SAP’s Cloud plans get more cloudy – read here.
HANA Enterprise Cloud helps SAP discover the cloud (benefits) – read here.

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

Future of Work Tech Optimization Digital Safety, Privacy & Cybersecurity Data to Decisions Innovation & Product-led Growth New C-Suite SAP developer SaaS PaaS IaaS Cloud Digital Transformation Disruptive Technology Enterprise IT Enterprise Acceleration Enterprise Software Next Gen Apps IoT Blockchain CRM ERP CCaaS UCaaS Collaboration Enterprise Service Chief People Officer Chief Information Officer Chief Digital Officer Chief Data Officer Chief Technology Officer Chief Information Security Officer

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Please. There is no perfect privacy.

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…...

A new effort dubbed Project Enigma "guarantees" us privacy, by way of a certain technology. Never mind that Enigma's "magic" (their words) comes from the blockchain and that it's riddled with assumptions; the very idea of technology-based perfection in privacy is profoundly misguided.

Engima is not alone; the vast majority of 'Privacy Enhancing Technologies' (PETs) are in fact secrecy or anonymity solutions. Anonymity is a blunt and fragile tool for privacy; once anonymity is broken, you still need the rule of law to stem abuse. I wonder why people still conflate privacy and anonymity? Plainly, privacy is the protection you need when your affairs are not secret.

In any event, few people need or want to live underground. We actually want merchants and institutions and employers and doctors to know us in reasonable detail, but we insist they exercise restraint in what they do with that knowledge.

Consider a utopian architecture where things could be made totally secret between you and a correspondent. How would you choose to share something with more than one party, like a health record, or a party invitation? How would you delegate someone to share something with others on your behalf? How would you withdraw permissions? How would it work in a heterogeneous IT environment? And above all, how would you control all the personal information created about you behind your back, unseen, beyond your reach?

Privacy is about restraint. It's less about what we do with someone's personal information than what we don't do. So it's more political than technological. Privacy can only really be managed through rules. Of course rules and enforcement are imperfect, but let's not be utopian about privacy. We all know there is no such thing as absolute security, and there is no perfect privacy either.

Digital Safety, Privacy & Cybersecurity Chief Information Officer

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Event Preview - HR Tech 2015

Holger Mueller

Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

What should end user consider when going to HR Tech in Las Vegas - the 18th edition, happening in Las Vegas this week.

So take a peek:

If you don't have a chance to watch - here are the key points:

Prepare for the event - It will be crazy there, but everybody is there - so plan ahead.
Check in with the existing vendor(s) - What is new, what do the plan to do, how much interest can they garner, where are the booths, are they spending more or less on marketing than last year, etc.
Check in with your vendor(s)'s competitors - same as above, with a frivolous atmosphere.
Consider portfolio cleanup - Less moving parts makes less headaches - what could you consolidate?
Check out the implementation partners - Talk to your existing one as well as look for alternatives. Even if you don't want to switch anything, always good to know options.
Attend sessions - The proven HR Tech vehicle of mostly
Get familiar with technology trends that matter to HR:
- Understand what is happening with Analytics - read more here on what it is about - and attend a panel with Castlight Health, Cornerstone, Equfax, Ultimate, Workday moderated by yours truly at Monday, 11 AM (more here, Technology Insight, TECH1 session).
- BigData - Bring together all your relevant information without knowing what questions you want to ask - for the first time. Know what Hadoop is and what your vendor is doing and planning in that space.
- Cloud - is a given. But understand data center locations, see my recent blog post / video on the EU High Court invalidating the Safe Harbor agreement here.
- Mobile - Understand the plans - make sure the mot popular operating systems - iOS and Android are equally supported by your vendor.
5 new business cards - At least make 5 new connections with peers in the industry.

If you see me, stop me for a chat - even for saying Hi! for 10 seconds... and follow my updates as always on Twitter @holgermu.

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

Future of Work Tech Optimization Innovation & Product-led Growth New C-Suite Data to Decisions Next-Generation Customer Experience workday AI Analytics Automation CX EX Employee Experience HCM Machine Learning ML SaaS PaaS Cloud Digital Transformation Enterprise Software Enterprise IT Leadership HR Chief People Officer

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#SocBiz #FutureOfWork News Including VMWare, Box and Jive

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…...

Here is a recap of some of the key news of the last week in the Social Business / Employee Collaboration / Future of Work world.

VMWare's end user computing division acquires mobile email client Boxer
Box shifts gears and turns their core file-sharing services into a platform from developers to leverage in business applications
Jive improves their external community platform, Jive-x

Did I miss something big? Please post a link in the comments.

Reference Links:

Future of Work

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Quip Raises $30M As They Try To Redefine Content Creation and Collaboration

Alan Lepofsky

Vice President & Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Oct 15, 2015, Quip raises $30M in Series B financing.

In the video below, I talk about some of Quip's key features, highlighting how they combine content creation and conversations into a single user experience.

Earlier this year I named Quip one of my Constellation Research Rising Stars

Congrats to @quip on being named one of @ConstellationRG's 2015 #RisingStars in collaboration software #socbiz pic.twitter.com/qHZxjMsgd9
— Alan Lepofsky (@alanlepo) February 15, 2015

Competing Against Industry Giants and Popular Startups

Because Quip combines content creation and collaboration, they span several of today's common market categories. Depending on your organization's needs, they could compete against:

Traditional document tools in Microsoft Office 365 or Google Apps for Work (Google Docs)
Note taking tools like Evernote, Microsoft OneNote, BoxNotes, Mammoth
Group chat tools like Slack, Glip, Ryver, HipChat

What Comes Next?

Now that Quip has secured an additional $30M, there are several areas I hope to see improved as they continue to try and evolve the way people work together. They have created an interesting foundation for content creation and collaboration, and I look forward to following their next steps. If your organization is using Quip, I'd love to hear if/how it's changing the way your teams work.

Future of Work

Read more about Quip Raises $30M As They Try To Redefine Content Creation and Collaboration

VMWare Buys Boxer: More Evidence E-Mail Is Alive and Well

Chris Kanaracus

Managing Editor, Constellation Insights
Constellation

Alan Lepofsky

Vice President & Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Email: Is there any more criticized yet pervasive productivity tool out there? The fact is that despite many, many pronouncements to the contrary, email isn't going anywhere and in fact, its ecosystem seems stronger than ever, as Constellation Research analyst Alan Lepofsky noted recently on Twitter:

Think email is dying, these 3 dozen + startups would disagree. #socbiz pic.twitter.com/dsnfMenoCw
— Alan Lepofsky (@alanlepo) June 7, 2015

VMWare's purchase of email client Boxer this week is yet another proof point that the technology—love it, hate it or just live with it—is probably here to stay in the enterprise.

"It's another example of validating that email is still a mission-critical business tool, despite all this talk of social and email going away," Lepofsky says.

Boxer, which uses containers for user management and security, will be moved under VMWare's Airwatch mobile device management product family. It's integrated with many popular content and productivty tools, including Box, Evernote, Facebook, Outlook, Gmail, iCloud and Twitter.

VMware's Noah Wasmer explained the rationale for scooping up the company in a blog post, excerpted below:

The Boxer team, which will join the AirWatch team, has developed a mature personal information management (PIM) solution for enterprises that offers a container approach to mobile application management and security.

What if this suite could be well integrated into an ecosystem of apps through a standard like ACE? Imagine, your apps and your data – seamlessly working together with one unified identity and NO logins or configurations – consumer simple, enterprise secure.

The team at Boxer understands that enterprise IT has to earn the right to be on the user’s device by creating a “consumer grade” user experience that is precise and blazing fast. Their success in this area has been led by their consumer solution which has earned rave reviews for its simplicity and usability. Boxer has carried those attributes over to their enterprise solution.

On the other hand, this is not VMWare's first foray into the collaboration space, Lepofsky notes. During the past several years, it acquired Socialcast for enterprise social networking, the Zimbra collaboration and communities suite, and SlideRocket presentation software. VMWare has since sold off both Zimbra and SlideRocket.

The Bottom Line

So what's different this time? One key point is the placement of Boxer under AirWatch, Lepofsky says: "For companies that were always interested in Blackberry because it was so secure, is this now a compelling offering because of the security features AirWatch provides."

And again, the deal as well as others—such as Microsoft's 2014 acquisition of Accompli—provides validation of how embedded email remains in both consumer and business culture. It also underscores the fact that email, more than 40 years after its introduction to the world, is still a work in progress.

"Email is a fantastic communication tool, but it's not a great collaboration tool," Lepofsky says.

New C-Suite Future of Work Chief People Officer Chief Information Officer

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Reference Links:

Quip Raises $30M As They Try To Redefine Content Creation and Collaboration

Competing Against Industry Giants and Popular Startups

What Comes Next?

VMWare Buys Boxer: More Evidence E-Mail Is Alive and Well