Please. There is no perfect privacy.

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

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…...

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

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

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. ...

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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Oracle-Rimini Street Verdict Is A Milestone, But Far from the End

Chris Kanaracus

Managing Editor, Constellation Insights
Constellation

The long and winding legal saga between Oracle and Rimini Street over the latter's third-party software maintenance service reached a pivotal point this week with a Las Vegas jury's award of $50 million to Oracle.

However, the legal dispute between the companies is far from over, given the potential for an appeal as well as the existence of other legal actions between the companies.
Nor did the judgment provide what many observers have been wanting for years: Clear-cut rules of engagement for providing third-party support in a legal manner.

That's not quite how Rimini Street sees things, though. “We were pleased to finally get our day in court," Rimini Street CEO Seth Ravin said in a statement. "As Oracle and Rimini Street agree, there is no dispute that third-party support for enterprise software is permitted for Oracle licensees to purchase and for Rimini Street to offer. This case was about a good-faith license dispute regarding processes no longer in use."

Oracle's View
I spoke with Oracle EVP and general counsel Dorian Daley in the wake of the verdict. She unsurprisingly had a different view of it than Rimini.

"The verdict is a validation of what we've been saying for years," Daley says. "Rimini's business model is based on massive copyright infringement and it has to stop. We are hopeful customers become aware of this, will reconsider and return to Oracle where we can provide them with excellent service."

I asked Daley whether Oracle agrees that customers have a right to purchase support from a third party, rather than only Oracle itself.

There are third-party support companies operating today that haven't fallen afoul of required laws and guidelines, Daley says.

Also, despite what press reports on the case would have you believe, it's not true that Oracle is waging a general war on third-party support, according to Daley. "Take a look at our record and our history," she says. "We do not file a lot of lawsuits but when our intellectual property is at stake, we do."

Customers should be skeptical Rimini has truly changed its business model, Daley says.

Oracle is now seeking an injunction against Rimini. This is a pointless pursuit, according to Rimini.

"Once Rimini Street had the benefit of a judicial interpretation of disputed Oracle software license terms, we stopped all processes challenged by Oracle in this case and completed our transition to an all-remote support model in 2014," the company said in a statement. Therefore, Oracle’s request for injunction for processes no longer in use at Rimini Street is meaningless, as Rimini Street will explain in its forthcoming court filings.”

The Bottom Line

Oracle and Rimini's legal battle has gone on for more than five years and there is no end in sight, despite what you might read in the headlines, due to continued disagreement over the validity of Rimini's revamped processes.

Rimini has asked the court to declare that its current processes for PeopleSoft support do not infringe on Oracle's copyrights, something Oracle surely will fight against vigorously.

At the same time, that's an argument about process—not whether third-party support as a concept is legal. It certainly is, affirmed by arguments in this case as well as many conversations Constellation has had with legal experts.

Customers need to assert their right to third-party support, however, since incumbents like Oracle certainly aren't going to champion the option.

"There really isn’t much incentive for on-premises software vendors to endorse third-party maintenance," says Constellation Research founder Ray Wang. "However, as a key part of Constellation’s Software Bill of Rights, it’s an option that customers should protect and demand of their vendor."

Constellation believes that independent support (i.e. third party maintenance) is a key pillar of providing a win-win to customers and vendors, Wang adds. Customers should consider these options where possible regarding on-premises software when they are:

1. Considering contract negotiations on maintenance
2. Evaluating platform upgrades and cloud migration
3. Identifying cost savings to pay for future innovation

One of the benefits of on-premises software is that the customer still controls the software. Unlike the cloud, where customers “rent" their software in exchange for subscription pricing and faster innovation cycles, on-premises allows the customer to consider options such as independent support. As more customers move to the cloud, they will want to find some similar protections in order to avoid the impending cloud vendor lock-in that is already happening with some vendors, Wang says.

Tech Optimization Chief Executive Officer Chief Financial Officer Chief Information Officer Chief Procurement Officer

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How cost management in the supply chain can lead to innovation

pending

Guy Courtin was formerly Vice President and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research covering Matrix Commerce and how the Internet of Things drives the evolution of commerce.  Guy has over 15 years experience in the technology space and specifically in the supply chain space. Most recently he was the Vice President of Research at SCM World. Where he focused on the service providers that empowered supply chains. Prior to SCM World, Guy held numerous senior positions. He was responsible for product marketing at RSi, a retail supply chain solution provider. There managed RSi’s go to market strategy around their leading cloud based supply chain solutions. He also spear headed Progress Software’s supply chain group. Where he was responsible for driving revenue and market share as well…...

We have all heard the statement – you can’t cost cut your way to profitability. Too often in business, CxOs and others forget the spirit of this saying. Cost cutting, or more precisely, cost management, is vital to running your business. In many businesses and their associated supply chains, however, this is achieved in disjointed and siloed departments. This disjointed approach to cost cutting can achieve the basic goal of saving money and therefore “improving” the bottom line. But it falls short of long-term benefits for the businesses. Savvy CxOs need to look at cost through a different lens.

Determine the way costs impact the holistic picture of your business. Yes, I know that companies have to produce balance sheets, cash flow and income statements. But these exercises are driven on a quarterly and annual basis. What about the daily activity? When it comes to your supply chain, decisions about cost are made at a much more rapid pace. And their impacts need to be understood at the speed of business, not an accountant’s timetable. CxOs need to strive to get visibility into their costs at this level – not the level that is asked for by their accountants.
Understand how becoming more cost-efficient creates opportunities for new business models. Oftentimes when we speak with customers about some of their cost-cutting efforts, they emphasize the savings achieved. A worthy goal indeed, however, most CxOs do not promote or focus on the next level – what are the new business opportunities these efforts have created? Where can assets and resources be shifted because of efficiencies gained? If you can be more efficient in one area, where can you reinvest in others?
Change the mentality of cost cutting to waste management. I realize that this might appear to be one and the same. The distinction exists around the notion that waste management is a mentality that distinguishes between bad costs and good costs. It’s similar to when you go to your annual physical, and your doctor looks at both the good and bad cholesterol. Both numbers must be evaluated together, not in isolation. Adding cost is part of doing business but it must be done efficiently – cut waste not just blindly cutting spending.

What does this change in mentality look like? Take for example the work SCA Technologies is doing with one of its customers, a fast-food giant. The Pittsburgh-based supply chain software firm has worked with this client toimplement technology that provides a level of understanding of costs previously not achievable. The outputs have been to understand the nuances in the fluctuations of commodity cost – poultry, eggs, beef, and cheese, to name a few. As a result, the fast-food giant gains a full view of the impact these costs have on their final product – throughout the end-to-end supply chain. Margin impacts, in turn, drive decisions around new product introduction, pricing and promotions. In a business where margins are constantly under pressure, this insight has deep impacts on the day-to-day business.

For example, the fast-food giant was looking to introduce a limited-time offer into its menu, but after assessing cost upticks for specific commodities required for that product, it became apparent that shifting to a more favorable time of year for those commodities would improve profitability. This level of insight into cost structures, and more important, how they impact the entire supply chain, enabled a smarter—and more financially sound—decision to be made.

We have seen the same in the consumer electronics business. For example, Apple understands the strategic advantage inherent in looking at the cost of items such as flash drives and taking a forward position. When Apple looks forward to new product introductions, it also looks to buy future production and inventory of key items – this is a massive cost creation. However, the assurance of being able to capture market share by having the right inventory on hand is vital. The issue of absorbing and adding costs is not the concern – identifying a possible business opportunity is the priority. They can do this because they have a holistic view of how near-term cost can impact long-term market share.

The bottom line for CxOs is that cost isn’t bad! Of course incurring costs for employee sushi lunches and paying for all your employees’ cell phone bills might not lead to the greatest business outcomes. Unless you are Google when you use these “perks” to ensure your minions are kept in the mothership as many hours as possible. But focus on those areas where waste management can open up avenues otherwise neglected. Look to cost as the basis for short-term and long-term innovation and laying the groundwork for new product introduction and new business processes.

Matrix Commerce Chief Information Officer

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SAP Highlights S/4 Hana Finance, Cloud For Analytics

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,…...

SAP Financial Excellence Forum offers a preview of TechEd announcements including S/4HANA Finance and SAP Cloud For Analytics. The finance app needs a lift from S/4Hana Logistics while Cloud For Planning is joining a suite.

Attendees at this week’s SAP Financial Excellence Forum 2015 at the company’s North America headquarters in Newtown Square, Pa., got a sneak peek at two announcements set for SAP TechEd next week in Las Vegas. In both cases, important financial apps will be part of a bigger story.

The first app in question, SAP Simple Finance, was the center of attention at the Financial Excellence Forum (#FinancialExcellence). The app itself is not new, but at TechEd, SAP is rolling out a new name, S/4HANA Finance. The “S/4HANA” naming scheme will extend to all of the suite’s coming, next-generation components, including an S/4HANA Logistics app that’s next in line for release.

The home page of SAP S/4HANA Finance (formerly known as SAP Simple Finance), surfaces notable key performance indicators available for drill-down analysis.

Simple Finance – sorry, S/4HANA Finance – was the subject of multiple vendor and customer presentations at the Financial Excellence Forum. SAP Exec Bob Jenkins, for example, talked up in-memory-powered, real-time analytics and responsive, user-friendly functionality. Demos highlighted modern Fiori user interfaces with type-ahead searching, real-time analytics, predictive capabilities and the in-memory-supported ability to drill-down to granular data for root-cause analysis.

Execs from SAP customers New York Life and Florida Crystals were on hand to highlight their S/4 Hana Finance deployments, and an executive from a $4 billion unit of GE talked about that organization’s proof-of-concept project on the app. New York Life’s Jon Feinstein said the insurer revamped its financial apps to gain better access to financial data that’s helping to drive faster, better decisions and better outcomes. The company went live on S/4HANA Finance in July and is now in the midst of its first quarterly close on the app.

Sugar manufacturer Florida Crystals became the first SAP customer to deploy Simple Finance early this year. The company’s enterprise architect, Sergio Nunez, said that despite a few rough edges in the early product, his firm was able to deploy the Simple Finance within eight weeks. It helped that the company was already on HANA, having been among the first to run ECC on HANA in the cloud back in 2013.

SAP Cloud For Analytics

The second, and bigger, bit of TechEd news previewed at the Financial Excellence Forum was the impending release of SAP Cloud For Analytics. A comprehensive suite built on the HANA Cloud Platform, SAP Cloud for Analytics will include components for BI, planning and, eventually, predictive analytics and GRC (Governance, Risk and Compliance).

In another name change, SAP’s previously available Cloud For Planning app is morphing to become the planning component of SAP Cloud For Analytics. Thus, Cloud For Planning is now, surprise, surprise, “SAP Cloud For Analytics For Planning.” As before, this planning app is aimed at the many line-of-business users outside of finance who need planning capabilities. Power users and those inside finance are much more likely to use SAP Integrated Business Planning for Finance, which is the vendor’s next-generation planning module for traditional ERP or S/4HANA deployments.

SAP Cloud for Planning is morphing to become the Planning component of SAP Cloud For Analytics.

SAP’s financial apps executives didn’t dwell on the other components of SAP Cloud For Analytics, but the BI and visualization capabilities will borrow from and replace SAP Lumira Cloud (while Lumira Desktop and Server will remain the on-premises products). Customers will subscribe to SAP Cloud For Analytics, paying base fees for each component (BI, Planning, Predictive, etc.) plus per-user subscription fees. I’m told there will be public-cloud multi-tenant services as well as private-cloud deployment options.

MyPOV On S/4 HANA Finance and SAP Cloud & Analytics

SAP says 25 customers are in production on S/4HANA Finance (Simple Finance), 275 more have projects in the works and that more than 1,000 have licensed the app. That’s not bad considering that the app wasn’t generally available until March, but that’s scratching the surface of the total SAP customer base.

Talking to customers at this week’s form, I get the sense that S/4 HANA Finance is a nice to have, promising improved productivity and a start on analytical decision support within finance department. But the bigger payoff in real-time analytics and money-saving business optimization will be opened up once S/4HANA Logistics and other modules become available. That’s when the finance team and others will start to be able to crunch really crucial business data in real time. To paraphrase one customer, S/4HANA Finance is the gravy while S/4HANA Logistics is the steak.

On SAP Cloud for Analytics, I really like the idea of an integrated, cloud-based suite combining not just reporting, visualization and predictive capabilities, but also planning and GRC. We’ve seen BI and planning together from Adaptive Insights and BI and Predictive from SAS and IBM, but this is a novel, expansive combination in the cloud. Having a consistent look and feel and promised ease of use across all these categories will be a breakthrough for SAP, which has to live down the BusinessObjects legacy of disparate tools and interfaces.

The “For Planning” component will be available immediately and the “For BI” component by year end. We’ll have to see how soon SAP follows through with the “For Prediction” and “For GRC” components of SAP Cloud for Analytics, as well as all the data-integration options customers will need to connect to on-premises and cloud-based data sources.

Data to Decisions Tech Optimization Chief Financial Officer Chief Information Officer Chief Supply Chain Officer

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Forget the Cloud; Fog is Tech’s Future - says the Wall Street Journal - Organizing millions of IoT connections into Business Valuable Networks.

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…...

This WSJ article, in May 2014, was most certainly not advocating the end of the Cloud, but instead was highlighting the challenge of the ever-growing numbers of devices of all types connecting, and interacting, in a wholly different manner. The technology industry has come to realize that the Internet of Things is not just about sensors, it’s about the shift to millions and millions of devices interacting in new ways around events.

Research report now available: The Foundational Elements for the Internet of Things (IoT)

We are all too frequently aware of the poor responses caused by insufficient bandwidth, now bandwidth use, (over use), is multiplied by two dimensions; More traffic to centralized cloud based Data Centers for traditional heavy duty IT computational tasks; Plus and ever increasing number of small devices using connected service models.

The centralization of services into a lower number of ever larger cloud data centers might be desirable for the cost/scale needs of IT as we know it, but we need to recognize the rise of Internet of Things, IoT, also changes the game in terms of where, how and what resources are made available. Even more important to event centric nature of these new devices and their services is response times!

In the blog entitled; ‘We know things are changing, but what is making everything change? A summary of change factors in technology and business in 2015 – Part 1’; the root cause seen to be a global move in society, business and technology towards ever increasing de-centralization. Massive Data Center Clouds are doing an admirable job of delivering the centralized tasks of IT in a more efficient, effective manner, but it has become clear something different is required for mass numbers of small active devices. A different technology infrastructure and charging structure is needed to empower new de-centralization business activities; an infrastructure that unites Enterprises with their customers, and their increasing demands for personalization.

Fog Computing is an architecture that uses a collaborative multitude of end-user clients, or near-user, edge devices to carry out data storage, communication, control, and management tasks locally to improve responsiveness. Fog Computing is particularly suited to the kind of localized lightweight interactions around sensing and responding to an event that IoT, in its many forms, introduces.

This is an edited version of the Wikipedia definition of Fog Computing that gives a great deal more depth and correctly notes that the term and concept was first defined by Prof. Salvatore J. Stolfo a Professor of Computing at Columbia University, New York. However the name of Fog Computing is usually linked to Cisco following the better known publication of a white paper under this name by four Cisco Research staff in 2012, today the term Cisco Fog Computing is trademarked leading to a reluctance by some other technology vendors in using the term.

Though there may be reservations over the name Fog Computing due to its link to Cisco Marketing what is not in doubt is the almost total acceptance within the industry for the concept. Edge Clouds is a possible alternative name and at the end of this blog a list of papers on the topic, including some by major Technology, venders is included as a more detailed update.

Edge Computing models are not new, as in every iteration of technology from mainframe onwards has faced the challenge of the amount of connectivity bandwidth available at the time, and the resulting latency affecting response times. However IoT Devices do bring a different dimension to this challenge being less about background computational transaction and more about visible on screen interactions for users. The increased dimension of user and event time significance warrants a different approach to what is meant by, and required as’cloud’ architecture. A more detailed explanation of the concepts of Fog Computing, (still the most popular term), or Edge Cloud Computing a more recent term, both defining the use of small localized clouds can be found in a previous blog in this series published in January 2015 entitled IOT: From the Intranet of Things to the Internet of Everything – Introducing the required solution architecture So why come back to the topic again only nine months later?

The level of engagement and activity related to developing Fog Computing across the entire technology sector has ramped up considerably as it becomes increasingly accepted that an edge-based architecture is an essential part of a mass Device or IOT environment. At the same time its become clear that the distributed ‘interactive’ IoT environment using Fog Computing supports still further innovation in technology capabilities around Data models and event processing.

To grasp the activity level and understand how Fog Computing and Edge Clouds is being developed there is at the end of this blog a list of links to papers and sites. Understanding the basics of the infrastructure architecture leads naturally to grasping two very important consequences that following blogs will outline;

De-centralized Business models require a de-centralized open infrastructure on which to develop their capabilities and innovative competitive propositions; these business models require access to, interaction with, and use of data in a wholly different manner to the conventions of assembling and analyzing data currently in use.

Resources

Research report now available: The Foundational Elements for the Internet of Things (IoT)

Some resources for Fog Computing or Edge Clouds information;

An HP white paper defining their views on Fog Computing

http://www.hpl.hp.com/techreports/2014/HPL-2014-60.html

IBM explains their views on Fog Computing

https://www-304.ibm.com/connections/blogs/robertoa/entry/what_is_fog_computing?lang=en_us

Microsoft defining how its offerings match different Cloud/Fog requirements

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/ff394351.aspx

SAP team with Cisco to explain how they see the architecture developing

http://www.sapevent.ch/landingpagesfr/Manager/uploads/1525/Operations4.pdf

Central list of resources at Cisco for all Fog Computing matters

http://www.cisco.com/web/solutions/trends/iot/fog-computing.html

Ericsson provide an IOT telecoms view of Cloud Edge Computing

http://www.ericsson.com/research-blog/internet-of-things/edge-computing-in-iot/

The case for Smart Gateways to Operate Edge Cloud Computing architecture

http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2015/04/08/fog-computing-for-internet-of-things-needs-smarter-gateways/

A good briefing on Fog Computing by a startup product company

http://www.localgridtech.com/fog-computing-platform/

A new site campaigning to become the news site for Fog Computing

http://www.fogcomputingworld.com

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Adobe Aligns New E-Sign Capabilities with Salesforce, Workday and Ariba

Chris Kanaracus

Managing Editor, Constellation Insights
Constellation

Alan Lepofsky

Vice President & Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Adobe has announced a series of enhancements to its Document Cloud's e-sign capabilities, but the most important aspect of the release for customers is an expanded partner program that integrates the product into Salesforce, Workday and SAP Ariba. From the release:

Workday—Speed business processes with e-signature capabilities pre-integrated into Workday’s built-in business process framework. The integration provides Workday customers that purchase Adobe eSign services with the ability to add e-signatures to over 400 business processes across the entire Workday application suite to help save time, reduce errors and legal risk, increase compliance, and improve employee experiences.

Salesforce—Simplify the setup, use and management of signature workflows for sales via the #1 customer-rated e-signature solution for Salesforce. The latest eSign services update delivers an easy-to-use setup wizard, automates common tasks like adding product lists to agreements, and supports certificate-based digital signatures. And, it’s native on the Salesforce Platform and fully certified with the Lightning app builder framework.

Ariba—Streamline the procurement process through greater flexibility, security and control when sending contracts for e-signature in Ariba Contract Management. The latest eSign services integration enables users to add multiple signers, define signing order, and verify signers with multi-factor authentication.

The release includes many new features of general interest to enterprises as well, such as support for the newer digital signature format that will be adopted across the EU next year, a new workflow designer, an improved mobile app, and automatic e-signature sync across mobile, web and the desktop.

The Bottom Line

Such features are welcome given the rapid growth in e-signatures around the world, but also to be expected as Adobe evolves its product. The most significant part of Adobe's announcement is the tie-ins to Workday, Salesforce and Ariba, says Constellation Research VP and principal analyst Alan Lepofsky.

"Having digital signatures embedded into the business workflows that people use for HR, sales, marketing, finance and other processes eliminates the need to switch back and forth between multiple tools," Lepofsky says. "For example, a sales rep does not want to be working in Salesforce, then have to switch over to email and send a contract back and forth to get signatures. Having digital signatures embedded into processes helps drive adoption."

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Adobe Aligns New E-Sign Capabilities with Salesforce, Workday and Ariba