| Constellation Research

Adobe's Creative Cloud Moves: Why They Matter

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. ...

Adobe made a slew of product announcements Monday during its MAX conference, and if you're so inclined to dive in, its press release provides all the gritty details.

Perhaps the most significant unveiling was Project Comet, a new toolset for rapidly prototyping user experiences. Adobe shared the rationale for Comet in a company blog post, which is excerpted below:

Because design has changed, the tools for design have to change too. These insights inspired us to create Project Comet.

You can take advantage of vector drawing tools for rapid design and layout, make interactive prototypes, and preview them in real-time on a device. Because design and prototyping is in one tool, you won’t waste time or re-do any work when you want to make changes.

Adobe also showcased a series of other improvements across the Creative Cloud suite, as well as new mobile applications, including Photoshop Fix, which brings the powerful photo retouching capabilities of desktop Photoshop to a mobile device.

The Bottom Line

Adobe's announcements provide a couple of key high-level takeways, notes Constellation Research founder Ray Wang.

"What customers are finally figuring out is that Adobe made the big investment to make all the acquisitions connected and interoperable," Wang says. "The trend is that suites are clearly doing better than best-of-breed, especially when companies have invested in the integration."

What Adobe has done with Creative Cloud is also a good template for how its Marketing Cloud will continue evolving. The result over time should be a higher level of productivity at the junction of creative and marketing, Wang says.

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News Analysis - IBM plans to acquire Cleversafe to propel Object Storage into the Hybrid Cloud >> a good move.

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…...

This morning IBM announced the intent to acquire Chicago based object storage vendor Cleversave.

So let's dissect the press release in our custom style, it can be found here:

ARMONK, N.Y., Oct. 5, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Cleversafe, Inc., a leading developer and manufacturer of object-based storage software and appliances. The acquisition will strengthen IBM's leadership positions in storage and hybrid cloud and support clients' drive to next generation mobile, social and analytics applications. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

MyPOV – Good summary of the deal and how it fits in the general – more hybrid as of this year – direction of IBM's cloud business.

Once the deal closes, IBM will integrate the Cleversafe portfolio into its IBM Cloud business unit to give clients strategic data flexibility, simplified management, and consistency with on-premise, cloud, and hybrid cloud deployment options.

MyPOV – Good to see where the 'new' kid will find a home, it could have gone to the Storage unit, too – but given the focus on cloud and cloud growth no surprise that Cleversafe will find its way to the Cloud business unit.

As companies race to digitally transform their businesses they are faced with several unique challenges, including the rapid growth of unstructured data (images, audio, and video) and finding the proper balance between on-premise and cloud storage deployments. The emergence of new storage technologies, such as object storage delivered through Cleversafe, allows companies to store and manage massive amounts of data more efficiently while meeting the demands of data-intensive workloads delivered via the cloud. […]

MyPOV – Good summary why cloud storage is key for modern application scenarios and use cases. Cleversafe brings key capabilities to IBM, which already has an object store as part of the SoftLayer acquisition, but it seems like IBM has been investing in other areas of the SoftLayer stack

"Today a massive digital transformation is underway as organizations increasingly turn to cloud computing for innovative ways to manage more complex business operations and increasing volumes of data in a secure and effective way," said Robert LeBlanc, Senior Vice President, IBM Cloud. "Cleversafe, a pioneer in object storage, will add to our efforts to help clients overcome these challenges by extending and strengthening our cloud storage strategy, as well as our portfolio."

MyPOV – Good quote by LeBlanc making clear why IBM bought Cleversafe… also – and not mentioned: By providing object storage for more than a decade, the Cleversafe products are not only mature and proven, but also adopted by a large number of customers. And with customers comes load, and load is something that IBM Cloud needs in order to scale and compete in the market.

Founded in 2004, Cleversafe is a privately held company based in Chicago and a recognized market leader[1] with more than 350 patents in object-based, on-premise storage solutions that enable clients to scale to exabytes of storage, or billions of gigabytes. Clients across multiple industries use Cleversafe for large-scale content repository, backup, archive, collaboration and storage as a service.

MyPOV – Always good to acquire IP and a wide range of solution portfolio. Cleversafe was smart (or founded too early?) to stay out of providing the storage themselves, but partnering with different cloud and hardware providers (the latter for on premises deployments).

"IBM is an innovator and leader in cloud and storage and we're excited about the opportunities that lay ahead once this transaction closes," said John Morris, President and CEO of Cleversafe. "Together with IBM we can extend our object storage leadership position to address the broadest set of workloads for clients with the most expansive set of object-based solutions."

MyPOV – Good quote by Morris – let's hope it will all happen as he describes.

Cleversafe's Dispersed Storage Network (dsNet®) solutions enhance on-premise storage options for clients and service providers with low-cost, large scale active archives and unstructured data content stores. The solutions complement IBM's software defined Spectrum Storage portfolio for data protection and backup, tape archive, as well as a high performance file and object solution where the focus is on response time

MyPOV – Kudos to IBM to address how Cleversafe fits in with the Spectrum products, when I asked for plans in the Q&A call – it was of course too early to address, understandable, but a key area to watch. We expect IBM to keep supporting existing offerings and products, and the next generation of Spectrum Storage to leverage Cleversafe assets like the intelligent slicing of content and more.

The dsNet solutions and technologies will be integrated into the IBM Cloud to enhance IBM's Infrastructure as a Service, SoftLayer and the SoftLayer Object Storage services platform, providing clients a hybrid cloud deployment model that offers greater choice of geography, performance, cost optimization and flexibility.Following close of the deal, clients will be able to use SoftLayer cloud services and IBM Bluemix, IBM's Platform-as-a-Service, to create dynamic and innovative applications with the Cleversafe technology as a foundational content repository and data archive.

MyPOV – And good to see that IBM also addresses the overlap with SoftLayer object storage. It will be interesting to see how much of Cleversafe will be moved to Softlayer and how much appetite IBM will have to support the heterogenous platform support that Cleversafe has today (e.g. AWS).

The planned acquisition underscores IBM's continued commitment to data storage innovation including investments across Flash, Software Defined Storage and Cloud Storage environments over the last five years alone. IBM continues to offer one of the most comprehensive storage portfolios in the industry, created through both acquisitions and innovations from IBM Research and Development.

MyPOV – A good reminder, but obvoiusy this portfolio needed some IP and business injection from the outside, nothing wrong with that, more a continued IBM strategy.

Overall MyPOV

A good move by IBM, which needed to upgrade it object storage capabilities. Very large and large files play a key role as load for cloud environments (just take the data point of Netflix network traffic as part North American cloud traffic). The older SoftLayer object store could not compete with that and could not deliver the customers that Cleversoft has acquired over the last 10+ years.

On the concern side, it is another acquisition and IBM needs to integrate Cleversave not only on the cloud side – but also for its Spectrum Storage portfolio. That will take some time, and it will be key for IBM to keep customers, talent and business together. On the flipside IBM has plenty of acquisition experience, its very cloud business operating on the base of a key acquisition, SoftLayer.

So congrats to IBM, that made a good acquisition both from an IP and customer load perspective. Storage is sticky, and can't be switched easily for existing applications. That will be both a blessing and a course for IBM going forward. We will be watching.

Thrive in an Age of Disruption

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. ...

Disruption is the new normal. Everywhere we look we find traditional business models under threat from emerging players, technology creating new opportunities for fast-moving businesses and the creaking bones of industrial age enterprises labouring to stay current, fresh or even just relevant. The darlings of our blue chip stock markets have given way to tighter, more technologically aggressive firms who wield tech not for COMPETITIVE advantage but to create UNFAIR advantages. Facebook and Google are the obvious examples, but there are more. Many more.

Many of these massively scaled companies have locked their valuations away from the markets – creating a vibrant behind-closed-doors market where Venture Capital firms tease out $1 billion valuations. Just take a look at the Wall Street Journal’s Billion Dollar Startup Club to get a sense of the scale in operation. Uber, with a current valuation of over $50 billion, leads the pack and now boasts a valuation way in excess of General Motors.

But while Uber, is on the surface, a business about transportation – and cars in particular – it is far from being a car company as we have known them. It is, in fact, a technology company. A software company. And a data company. It is disruption paradigms at every turn.

Even on a more micro level, disruption is taking place in our suburbs and in our streets. The NBN – when it arrives at it eventually will – will sweep non-digital businesses away in a tide of data. And those local institutions like post offices and newsagencies that are the hubs of our suburban malls, will be the first to go (if they have not disappeared already).

BUT

Disruption is not destruction.

It is possible to not only thrive in an age of disruption but to also prosper. And this is what I will be discussing at Newcastle’s DiG Festival on 12-13 October. In fact, the whole two days of the conference are devoted to the theme.

So if you’re wondering what disruption has in store for your career, business or enterprise, you might find this is the best investment you have made in years. See you there!

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Event Preview - AWS reInvent 2015

Holger Mueller

Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Before AWS reInvent starts in Las Vegas this week, I took the time to collect some thoughts on where AWS stands and what we may hear this week in Las Vegas.

So take a peak

Or if you can't watch, here are the key takeaways

Major Cloud Event - Probably the busiest event for cloud - look for announcements from almost all major players.
What will be the AWS surprise? - No idea, but looking at the surprises of 2013 (Kinesis and Workspace) and 2014 (lambda) - for all we will have to look for updates regarding roadmap and adoption. What comes after lambda? Mu?
New Instances - Very likely for AWS to announce new instances types, usually at the premium end - so expect more high compute, high memory, SSD leaning instance types.
Price reductions - AWS has traditionally announced price reductions at reInvent - not so (for a first) last year - let's see what AWS will do in this regards.
From utility to platform - I see in general a need for AWS to move towards more platform - we will see if we get more announcements / data points in these regards. In general enterprises like platforms over tool collection. Opposite story for developers.
Chasing load - It will be important to see how AWS plans to capture more load for future growth. ISVs (see e.g. the Infor partnership) are a key to load, we will see if Amazon has more in store.

Strata + Hadoop World Report: Spark, Real-Time In the Spotlight

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,…...

MapR, Pivotal and Teradata were among the who’s who of big data vendors making announcements at Strata + Hadoop World 2015. Here’s a quick analysis.
If Strata + Hadoop World 2014 seemed to be all about Hadoop, Hadoop, Hadoop, the 2015 buzzword was Spark, Spark, Spark. Initial impressions aside, there was more going on than adoption of that notable open-source, in-memory data processing and data analysis framework. Here’s a quick rundown of a few of the bigger announcements, along with my analysis of the developments.

@MapR, @Pivotal, @Clouder, @SnapLogic, @Syncsort, @Talend, @Oracle, @Teradata, @AtScale, @DataTorrent

Advanced analytics, Spark support and real-time apps were among the big themes at Strata + Hadoop World 2015.

MapR Adds In-Hadoop Document Database

MapR announced here that it has added JSON-handling document-database features to the MapR DB component of its Hadoop Distribution. MapR DB is the vendor’s version of HBase, which architecturally differs from the open-source, high-scale NoSQL database in order to deliver five- to seven-times faster performance, according to MapR.

Adding an In-Hadoop Document Database to MapR DB will save developers time, eliminate redundancies in data and infrastructure, and eliminate the time and trouble of moving and copying data to handle both transactional and analytical needs.

MyPOV: This combination makes sense, and it will surely appeal to existing MapR customers who are looking to do as much as possible with their MapR deployments. Will it change the dynamics of the Hadoop or NoSQL database markets? I suspect not, as organizations and developers seeking a NoSQL database will not look to make a sweeping choice of the Hadoop platform at the same time. MapR points out that you can deploy MapR DB independently, but without co-location and sharing of the data in a Hadoop cluster, the advantages largely evaporate. Think of the document database feature on MapR DB as a nice add for existing customers and one more selling point for customers looking for a Hadoop distribution and support company.

Pivotal Takes HAWQ Open Source

Pivotal this week announced contributions of many of its data engines to open source. That move started with Pivotal’s GemFire in-memory database, which became Apache Geode in April. At Strata + Hadoop World, Pivotal announced that its HAWQ SQL-on-Hadoop tool is now Apache HAWQ (incubating) and the MADlib machine learning library is now Apache MADlib (inclubating). Soon, the Pivotal Greenplum database and a query optimizer shared by Greenplum and HAWQ will also be contributed to open source.

HAWQ, which is based on Greenplum, was one of the earliest SQL-on-Hadoop options based on a relational database. MADlib, which began as an open-source project in 2002, is a collection of scale out, parallel machine learning algorithms that runs in HAWQ and Greenplum.

MyPOV: Being early to the market in 2013 didn’t appear to help HAWQ win a landslide of new customers. Several databases since ported to run on Hadoop – like Actian Vortex and HP Vertica – also offer extensive SQL compliance and fast query performance, yet they, too, haven’t taken the Hadoop market by storm.

Will an Apache open-source license make a big difference for HAWQ? I suspect the big data community will continue to associate HAWQ with Pivotal, even if it’s now billed by the company as a “Hadoop Native” product. Pivotal’s most compelling big data attractions are the breadth of its analysis and transaction options and its flexible, subscription-based approach, which lets you mix, match and switch between engines without cost implications.

Spark Gains Yet More Support

There were plenty of nods to Apache Spark at Strata + Hadoop World, starting with Cloudera’s “one platform” pledge to make Spark an enterprise-class data-processing and data-analysis choice on top of Hadoop.

There were also a spate of announcements around Spark as a data-transformation and processing engine within data integration products. SnapLogic, for example, announced Spark-based big-data capabilities through the Fall release of its SnapLogic Elastic Integration Platform. In the same vein, Syncsort and Talend have also announced Spark-based data-processing options. And in an analyst briefing held by Oracle on Monday, the vendor explained that it’s been working with Spark developer Databricks for more than 18 months to take advantage of the framework’s data-processing and data-analysis capabilities. Expect related announcements at Oracle Open World

MyPOV: “Spark inside” was a common claim seen at Strata + Hadoop World, and it’s clear this framework is seeing a broad vendor support. This is a theme we’ve seen all year, though it does not mean that the Spark core and all its components can be described as mature or production ready. Rather than take on the risk yourself, it’s best to work with certified vendors or Databricks itself if you hope to eventually take advantage of Spark’s fast, in-memory processing and analysis.

Teradata Embraces Python

Python is an increasingly popular language for big data analytics work. As evidence, an entire workshop track was dedicated to “PyData” at Strata + Hadoop World. Responding to this interest, Teradata this week introduced the Teradata Module for Python, which it’s pitching as a boon to DevOps-enabled applications.

The Teradata Module for Python module makes it a quicker and easier proposition for developers to embed SQL queries that invoke Teradata sources into their applications. Operations types like DBAs, meanwhile, gain granular visibility into Web and mobile apps and new versions of those apps that query against Teradata.

MyPOV: Developers were already embedding SQL queries into apps and operations teams were already dealing with Web and mobile apps invoking, and sometimes impacting the performance of, Teradata. This module should make life easier for developers and DBAs. It’s easy to guess that developers will add R and languages to the wish list.

Hot Startups Seen At Strata

After a dozen briefings at Strata, I’ve developed a short list for deeper research. I’ll close by noting two startups that caught my attention. Startup AtScale has the focused mission to help organizations use their existing BI systems and tools with Hadoop. It exposes the data inside Hadoop as fat, virtual tables to SQL-based tools and as virtual OLAP cubes to sources that use MDX.

Another startup that impressed was DataTorrent, which is working on a fast streaming and low-latency batch processing platform with plentiful connectors and an easy-to-use, drag-and-drop app-development interface. The company has contributed its platform to Apache as Project Apex, and it claims faster streaming performance than both Spark and Storm.

Data to Decisions Tech Optimization Chief Information Officer Chief Digital Officer

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Event Report - GE Minds & Machines

Holger Mueller

Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Good start - a platform for the Industrial Internet

We had the opportunity to attend GE' Digital first major customer conference 'Minds & Machines' at Fort Mason in San Francisco.

Take a peek at the video:

If you can't watch here are the key takeaways:

At the core of GE's offering is Predix, a PaaS offering built on top of Pivotal CloudFoundry.
GE Digital has built components on top of that, to make it easier for enterprises to build next gen applications on top of that.
Deployment of Predix applications can be to public and private clouds.
With the Predix Machine there is a lightweight component that can run 'close to the things' at the end points of an IoT network
Showcases we saw were Intelligent Cities, Healthcare, Asset Management, Service with Planned Maintenance and many more.
The showcase customer for Predix at the moment is Pitney Bowes, which monitors performance of their stamp print machines.
A great showcase of the power of the overall GE was a location demo using GE LED lamps and standard smartphone / tablet camera sensor.

MyPOV

A good and splashy start by GE for GE Digital, the vendor spared little expense to convert Fort Mason into a very nice event space. GE attracted a who is who on the ecosystem side, that probably on very large vendors like GE can. Kudos for GE to share how it went from a Buy to Partner to Build strategy, which was probably not the fastest path, but that's where GE Digital is today. Growing the business to a 15B in 5 years will be a tall order for any software business. In my view GE Digital will only be able to achieve this with openness for 3rd party things (GE is open for that) and creating substantial attach rates of software to the things it sells. For enterprises that do business with GE, Predix is a IoT platform to take a closer look at. We will be watching.

Data to Decisions Tech Optimization Innovation & Product-led Growth Digital Safety, Privacy & Cybersecurity Future of Work New C-Suite Next-Generation Customer Experience 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 Information Officer Chief Technology Officer Chief Information Security Officer Chief Data Officer

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Former IDG News Service Star Journalist Chris Kanaracus Joins Constellation to Deliver Enterprise Insights

Constellation is pleased to announce the addition of Chris Kanaracus to the research team as managing editor and principal analyst covering breaking developments in enterprise technology.

Kanaracus will serve as managing editor and principal analyst of Constellationâ€™s new Insights service. Insights will deliver Constellation Executive Network members exclusive, daily analysis of breaking news across Constellationâ€™s eight business research themes, leveraging the deep domain knowledge of Constellationâ€™s entire roster of analysts. Constellationâ€™s new Insights product is planned for general availability in late Q4, 2015.

The addition of Kanaracus signals Constellationâ€™s commitment to providing its clients with timely analysis of business and technology news across the enterprise.

â€œIâ€™m excited to join Constellation Research in a role that leverages my knowledge of the enterprise software industry and experience in high-pressure breaking news organizations,â€ Kanaracus said. â€œItâ€™s an honor to join such a distinguished team of analysts and I look forward to the journey.â€

Most recently, Kanaracus served as senior editor and research analyst for the Americasâ€™ SAP Usersâ€™ Group, which has more than 50,000 members. Prior to his role at ASUG, 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.

â€œChris has been at the forefront of advocating for clients on buy-side enterprise issues. Our clients are excited to have his sharp wit, fast response, and hard hitting insights as part of their membership to Constellationâ€™s Executive Network,â€ said R â€œRay" Wang, Principal Analyst and CEO of Constellation, â€œMore importantly, weâ€™re excited to boost our longitudinal research survey capabilities with Chris at the helm.â€

COORDINATES

Twitter: @chriskanarcus
Profile: https://www.constellationr.com/users/chris-kanaracus
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/pub/chris-kanaracus/2/a83/674
Geo: Boston, MA

About Constellation Research
Constellation Research is an award winning, Silicon Valley-based research and advisory firm that helps clients navigate tumultuous business environments with disruptive technologies and progressive transformation strategies. Constellation enables forward-thinking visionaries to harness the transformative power of digital technologies to solve tough business problems and advance their careers.

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Data to Decisions Digital Safety, Privacy & Cybersecurity Future of Work Marketing Transformation Matrix Commerce New C-Suite Next-Generation Customer Experience Tech Optimization Sales Marketing Innovation & Product-led Growth Chief Customer Officer Chief Digital Officer Chief Executive Officer Chief Financial Officer Chief Information Officer Chief Marketing Officer Chief People Officer Chief Procurement Officer Chief Supply Chain Officer

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BoxWorks 2015 - Solid Platform Direction But Not Enough On Core Usage

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…...

Below is my review of the announcements (or lack of) at Box's BoxWorks 2015 conference. Quick summary:

Box solidifies their strategy to be a content services platform for applications. Over the last few years they have invested heavy in their infrastructure and architecture and that work is now paying off. Box made several announcements that improve security, deployment and management including:

Compliance/Governance: Legal Holds
IRM: Device Trust / Watermarking
EKM: Amazon Web Services Key Management Service
Choose your network connection (AT&T, NTT)
Store data with other providers (IBM SoftLayer in 2016)

Unfortunately there was not a lot of news on the user experience side of Box, meaning the way people create, discover, share and collaborate on content. There were a few bright spots such as the introduction of a new application called Box Capture which allows mobile phone users to take a picture and store it directly in Box, and enhancements in their viewer technology to enable high definition video, 3D interactive objects (such as CAD drawings) and medical imagine manipulation. However, there were not a lot of updates in core functionality that people use everyday such as

Discovery of content and people (experts, networks)
Collaboration and sharing of content
Creating content and task management

In the video below I discuss these items in more detail.

Future of Work Data to Decisions Innovation & Product-led Growth New C-Suite Sales Marketing Next-Generation Customer Experience Digital Safety, Privacy & Cybersecurity

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We know tech is changing, but what is making everything change? A summary of change factors in technology and business in 2015 – Part 2

Andy Mulholland

Vice President and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research
Constellation Research

Andy Mulholland is Vice President and Principal Analyst focusing on cloud business models. Formerly the Global Chief Technology Officer for the Capgemini Group from 2001 to 2011, Mulholland successfully led the organization through a period of mass disruption. Mulholland brings this experience to Constellation’s clients seeking to understand how Digital Business models will be built and deployed in conjunction with existing IT systems. Coverage Areas Consumerization of IT & The New C-Suite: BYOD, Internet of Things, IoT, technology and business use Previous experience: Mulholland co authored four major books that chronicled the change and its impact on Enterprises starting in 2006 with the well-recognised book ‘Mashup Corporations’ with Chris Thomas of Intel. This was followed in…...

Part 1 outlined what and how core innovative technology is creating business disruption, and ended with the statement; The realization that Digital Business is about adding a new online capability to your existing business model, but is the disruptive recreation of your industry sector is dawning rapidly in Boardrooms as sector news and financial results are the cause of serious evaluation.

Part 2 provides some examples of new business models that illustrate some of the basic principles of the ‘disruption’ built around the principles out lined in part 1

Some of the largest, most powerful, Global Enterprises have announced new strategic goals; as an example General Electric, GE, aims to establish itself as one of the top ten global software companies in the coming years. GE has, in the past, shown itself to be quick to react to change in order to add value to its businesses; (Financing sales became both an enabler of sales but also a very profitable addition to its equipment manufacturing some years back); now GE recognizes that it’s the Software that differentiates, adds value, and can be used to change the Business Model for ‘standardized’ equipment manufacturing.

Most people would associate this move with the disruption that Apple introduced to the phone market with its concept of iPhone personalization via the App Store. Even here this is a market that faces still further disruption, as a Smart Phone becomes a Digital token representing its human owner in the Internet of Things, IoT, and decentralized Services Digital Business economy.

It is generally accepted that some twenty percent of western world Smart Phones are rarely used for voice calls, but they are indispensable to their owner’s life as they check their health, pay for items, and indulge in an ever-increasing number of other activities. Their Smart Phone has, in fact, become their Digital Persona projecting, and representing, them to the Digital World, just as surely as an IoT sensor represents the machine, or process, to which it is attached. Vodafone, a leading telecoms operator in the Mobile market, speaks of this as the opportunity to build a whole new business model aggregating and managing Digital Services that are directly applicable to the person/persona. With their Smart Phone providing a flow of information about the person’s location, event, even a sensed medical emergency, the value of a managed concierge style of guardianship seems a distinct possibility. (see Ray Wang’s blog with examples for more information on the use of a smart phone as a persona)

Global Market Leaders in many sectors are recognizing the market opportunities that come from rethinking, or repackaging, services and information to offer increased personalized value. Consumers (buyers) have been shown to be willing to quickly recognize the value in products and markets that align with enabling their more complex demands.

For these global enterprises the challenge lies in reinvention of their current operational thinking and management into the true Digital Economy of ‘Services’. The removal of long-term investment based resource decisions and the substitution of quick reaction, dynamic optimization, of events using skilled operational workers introduces time frames and financial reporting structures alien to the existing business and the majority of its management.

There is no simple template answer as to the right moves for a particular enterprise as in past transformations, though in several industry sectors the basis of the new competitive model is becoming clearer. As an example Aggregation works particularly well when coupled to activities such as process administration where there is no link to pleasure only to compliance. On the other hand Disaggregation is usually linked to activities associated with pleasure such as travel and holidays.

Disaggregation and de-centralization would seem to infer the removal of market opportunities in the face of consumers (users) wanting to manage the assembly of their own personalized product combinations. This has turned out not to be true with some of the best examples of emerging new market opportunities around enabling, and supporting, the necessary administration process elements between participants; good examples include; AirBnB, Booking.com, or TripAdvisor.

There are many revenue rich products, and markets, being created currently, what they have in common is that they are real innovations with a comprehensive and cohesive approach to an emerging recognizable issue; what is being offered, to whom, and how they operate are all innovatively addressed. None of them are merely offering the existing product from an existing market place with availability online, the old definition of multi Channel operations in a Digital Business environment!

Footnotes

Part 3 in this series (following next week) will endeavor to answer the key question; So what if anything can be pin pointed as under pining successful markets and competitive products?
In judging the awards for Constellation Research Connected Enterprise annual Super Nova competition it was extremely noticeable that new hardly known startups dominated the entries submitted by their satisfied customers. In each case the change achieved could truly be described as both innovative and disruptive, whilst the outcomes for the enterprise and its business were remarkable and substantial. See Constellation Connected Enterprise for more details on awards.

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Workday Rising - Learning Completes the Talent Management Suite

Holger Mueller

Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

We had the opportunity to attend Workday Rising in Las Vegas this week. The conference is well attended with over 5000 attendees, and held in the Mandalay Bay conference center.

Lots of things announced and happening - but here are my Top 3 takeaways:

If you have no chance to watch - take a look:

Learning - Workday announced a Learning module, scheduled to be released in about a year from today with Workday 27. Workday is hitting all the right features for a modern Learning application, a more detailed roadmap has not been shared (yet). The Mediacore (more here) acquisition is key for this, and the demos leveraged Mediacore capabilities. Read more about Learning in my News Analysis blog post here.
New Scorecard capability - Two of the Insight Applications that Workday announced a year ago at Rising were Scorecard based, and the new Scorecard capability is available now. On the question of the overall push for 'true' analytics (more here), the answer from Workday executives was that customers wanted Workday to address more reporting and dash-boarding capabilities.
Platform Housekeeping - Platforms age like humans and load up on more technical debt, from a chat with CTO Stan Swete and a presentation by David Clarke / Jim Stratton during the conference it is clear that Workday is doing substantial renovation, innovation and good housekeeping on the platform. Examples were the ability to move large data amounts across servers, multiple threaded reads and updates and a separation of processes.

Analyst Tidbits

Worksheets - Workday acquired Gridcraft (a little more here), a bona fide spreadsheet tool that is Excel compatible but can be embedded into enterprise systems. Workday did quick uptake on it - e.g. we saw an improved Compensation functionality. Gridcraft also has collaboration capabilities that were demoed in the keynote.
Trust Workday - Workday is taking a page from the Salesforce playbook - and creating a customer status website.
UI Improvements - a new employee profile, Android is a 1st grade citizen and new collaboration capabilities are coming. Spontaneous audience applause came for new branding capabilities of Workday to get more of a corporate design look & feel.
Effective Date Change Interface - Workday provided an interface to feed effective date based core HR systems (hint - SAP) - which reduces implementation effort considerably - the quoted number was 90%.
Ecosystem - The ecosystem is doing well, though the show floor looked smaller / with less partners than a year ago at Rising in San Francisco. Major ecosystem news was IBM acquiring Workday boutique analyst shop Meteorix (more here).

MyPOV

Another good Rising conference for Workday. A growing vendor, a growing ecosystem, more customers always creates a positive vibe at a conference. And with Learning Workday has (finally) delivered the missing piece to its portfolio of Talent Management solutions. Workday approaches Learning with the same verve as it did Recruiting - re-thinking it from an employee / consumer experience, always a good approach. Workdays is also doing good work at innovating and expanding its platform capabilities, which alleviates a general concern in regards of platforms that are reaching their 'teenage' years of age. It is also good to see how Workday is looking at TCO, the new effective date capability will make it easier, faster and cheaper to implement Workday, a good move.

On the concern side it looks like the Insight Apps are not moving as fast as at least I expected. Workday is saying customers wanted more basic / Bi reporting capabilities, which is plausible, but Workday is at risk to loose the (ambitious) initiative of being the most 'true' analytics vendor out there. But the calendar year is not over, so we will have to see what is coming. Equally Workday did not share a roadmap (yet) on what will come when for Learning, it will be important for Workday to share that soon so that customer can do their plans. And in contrast to Recruiting where the market leaders had slowed down and then got acquired (aka Taleo), the Learning market is thriving as part of a larger Talent Management function.

But for now congrats to Workday for completing the Talent Management 'puzzle' with Learning in the next year. Stay tuned for more.

And more on Workday

News Analysis - Workday completes Talent Management with Learning - Finally - or too late? Read here.
Event Preview - What I would like Workday to address this Rising read here
News Analysis – Workday to Expand Suite of Applications for Healthcare Industry - with a SCM twist - read here
News Analysis - Workday supports UK Payroll - now speaks (British English) Payroll - read here
Workday 24 - 'True' Analytics, a Vertical and more - now needs customer proof points - read here
First Take - Top 3 Takeaways from of Workday Rising Day 1 Keynote - The dawn of the analytics era - time to deliver Insight Apps - read here
Progress Report - Workday supports more cloud standard - but work remains - read here
Workday 22 - Recruiting and rich Workday 22 are here - read here
First Take - Why Workday acquired Identified - (real) Analytics matter - read here
Workday Update 21 - All about the user experience and some more - read here
Workday Update 20 - Mostly a technology release - read here
Takeaways from the Salesforce.com and Workday partnership - read here
Workday powers on - adds more to its plate - read here
What I would like Workday to address this Rising - read here
Workday Update 19 - you need to slow down to hurry up - read here
I am worried about... Workday - read here

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

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MyPOV