The 25 Year History of Lotus Notes

Alan Lepofsky

Vice President & Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Alan Lepofsky - VP and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research. With almost two decades of experience in the collaboration software industry, Lepofsky helps organizations improve the way their employees work together to get their jobs done. Lepofsky’s primary research area The Future of Work, focuses on: integrating collaboration and business processes (Purposeful Collaboration), structuring work via Social Task Management, leveraging analytics and digital assistants to work more productively, the strategic impact of mobile computing on business transformation, and measuring workforce culture based on Digital Proficiency instead of age. Twitter: @alanlepoLinkedIn: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/alanlepo     , Title: Big IdeasIntelligent Collaboration: The Intersection of…...

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Last week at Lotusphere 2015, I mean IBM ConnectED 2015, I had the pleasure of presenting with Mat Newman and Carl Tyler on the 25 year history of Lotus Notes. The session included live demos (including V1), marketing videos (some of which can be seen here), long lost products like Actioneer, Lotus Components and Lotus VIP as well as some of our favourite features from each major version. While Notes most popular days are long gone it is still amazing to recall how pioneering Notes was in areas like security, collaboration and mobile support.

I hope you enjoy the trip down memory lane. Leave a comment to let us know what we missed.

Additional Resources: 

  The State of Collaboration in 2015   

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

Where’s My Hoverboard? The Evolution of the Employee and the Future of Work

Gavin Heaton

Founder
Disruptors Co

Gavin is the Founder of Disruptors Co, one of Australia’s leading independent strategy and innovation companies. Gavin advises firms on strategy, marketing, product development and innovation. He is also a member of the Orbits program, the influencer network of  award winning analyst and advisory firm, Constellation Research. Gavin advises boards and leadership on innovation strategy, marketing, data-driven product development and corporate venturing. Gavin is on the board of Vibewire, a youth-led social enterprise based in Sydney, Australia and on the Technology Advisory Group for Good2Give – the workplace giving platform. ...

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I have been fascinated by the future of work for some time. Ever since I first wobbled out of the office, became “freelance” and started my first business many years ago, I felt that change was coming and that organisations as well as individuals would transform the nature of their relationship. But the amazing thing about “the future” is that it always takes so long to arrive. After all, I’m still waiting for my hoverboard – and that should have been here by now.

And while lasting change has taken some time to bed in, we have seen some remarkable changes in the landscape of work. Looking back, these changes seem small, but each contributed to a growing momentum, which when added together, provide a clear path to where we are today and where we are heading. Let’s take a look at some of these.

1. Where we work

Location has been a central part of the identity of “work” for centuries. It marked “work” out from “home”, delineated the work/life balance and created the need for commuting. But technology in many shapes and forms has transformed “where we work”. With mobile phones, connected devices, laptops and broadband access, now more than ever, our office is in our pocket. Moreover, the “spaces” where we work – especially for the “knowledge worker” – are also different. We can choose “hotdesks” over cubicals, coworking spaces over offices, cafes over desks and home over central business district. We don’t even have to live in the same country as our teams. For many years, my working rhythm skewed towards the evening and late night while collaborating with colleagues in the USA and across Europe. This impacted the “how”.

2. How we work

Gone are the days of “bundying on” – for most office workers at least. The workplace is far more aligned to outputs rather than inputs – what you produce rather than the time spent producing it. Unless, of course, you are running behind schedule or over budget! Technology is also transforming how we work – with more collaborative technologies finding their way into the office. There’s also a vast array of collaborative software to choose from – almost every office department will find dedicated software with a collaborative component (either built-in or bolted on) – and it all resides “in the cloud” which means your work is with you wherever you may be.

3. Why we work

We’ve also seen a remarkable shift in our reasons for working. Many younger people are opting out of the corporate path – or at least stepping off the ladder a few rungs up. The desire to “work with purpose” is seeing young (and now older) professionals make choices that would have been surprising even a decade ago. Creating your own ladder – entrepreneurship – or running your own startup or small business seems to be a viable and enviable option – which has a personal impact focus.

In his book, The Future of Work: Attract New Talent, Build Better Leaders, and Create a Competitive Organization, Jacob Morgan suggests that the “work that we know is dead”. He looks at a range of factors that made up the history of our working lives and then looks to the future to suggest new trends.

And while I largely agree with his observations I wonder whether we are quite as close to the future as he suggests. It always seems to me that individuals cope with change and adapt far more quickly than the culture, processes and policies of businesses and organisations. For example, I still hear of companies that prohibit access to YouTube or Facebook, despite the opportunities for collaboration and learning on offer. So perhaps the future has arrived, but it’s just not evenly distributed.

Future of Work Chief People Officer

Most Read News & Research - January 2015

In case you missed them, here are the most read blog posts and research reports from January 2015. 

The State of Collaboration 2015 Trends to Watch [video]	Alan Lepofsky
Research Report: Inside the 2015 Boardroom Priorities (1&2)	R “Ray” Wang
It’s Like Facebook For Work. Wait It Is Facebook For Work	Alan Lepofsky
Interested in Collaboration Software? Then Think About These Things	Alan Lepofsky
Understanding your Digital Business Model by its Business Functional Requirements for Operational Technology	Andy Mulholland
First Take - SAP's IoT Strategy becomes clearer.... !	Holger Mueller

  

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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 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

It’s "Apps For Social Business On Mobile Devices" Day!

Alan Lepofsky

Vice President & Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Alan Lepofsky - VP and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research. With almost two decades of experience in the collaboration software industry, Lepofsky helps organizations improve the way their employees work together to get their jobs done. Lepofsky’s primary research area The Future of Work, focuses on: integrating collaboration and business processes (Purposeful Collaboration), structuring work via Social Task Management, leveraging analytics and digital assistants to work more productively, the strategic impact of mobile computing on business transformation, and measuring workforce culture based on Digital Proficiency instead of age. Twitter: @alanlepoLinkedIn: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/alanlepo     , Title: Big IdeasIntelligent Collaboration: The Intersection of…...

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Apparently today was "new apps for social business on mobile devices" day. Below are four announcements that I'm aware of. (in alphabetical order)


CoTap - Introducing 4 new premium file integrations: addition of Citrix ShareFile, Egnyte, Microsoft OneDrive for Business and Microsoft SharePoint. (they already support Box, DropBox and GoogleDrive)



Jive - Introducing Workstyle Apps: Jive announces Jive Daily (share news and other information), Jive Chime (chat/messaging) and Jive People (directory/org chart).

 


Microsoft Yammer add support for Mac iOS 8 & Yosemite Handoff and support for Android Wear




Sitrion ONE Mobile Productivity with Micro-App Use Cases Leverage pre-built use cases or combine the richest set of core capabilities to create native micro-apps quickly.

 

Future of Work Sales Marketing Next-Generation Customer Experience Revenue & Growth Effectiveness Microsoft Chief People Officer Chief Marketing Officer Chief Revenue Officer

Digital disruption on verge of taking out Radio Shack

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…...

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The 94 year old retailer, Radio Shack, is on the verge of no longer being in existence. Sad, but another example of digital disruption in the retail supply chain. Radio Shack was one of the leading retailers when it came to cutting edge electronics. I remember as a kid going there to get a new tape recorder (yup I played my first Van Halen cassette, 1984, on a tape recorder from Radio Shack) or when cordless phones came out, Radio Shack was the go to place to acquire such technological marvels. There is a picture circulating around social media about all the technologies you could have at Radio Shack in the 1990s…that are all now contained in that device we carry in our pockets – the smart phone (see below). Talk about digital disruption.

As the rise of Amazon took place in the 1990s, electronics being sold more widely and consumers becoming more digitally savvy, Radio Shack found itself in a difficult situation. The store’s footprint was too small to carry the wide array of SKUs that a Best Buy or Circuit City could (not that is necessarily a long term advantage as the latter is out of business and the former struggling) and it could not compete with the online force that Amazon had become nor the discounting that the likes of Target and WalMart offered. Not a great place to be for Radio Shack.

So now the stories are that Sprint may take on or co-brand some locations. Makes sense for the telecom giant as they look to increase their reach with their brick and mortar stores. Unlike Radio Shack, Sprint only needs to carry a very focused and smaller inventory – just mobile phones and tablets. Wireless providers like Sprint and AT&T benefit from having some brick and mortar for sales but also lean on them for service and customer support. The more intriguing option is the one where Amazon would swoop in and purchase some locations. Interesting.

This comes on the heels of Amazon opening their first brick and mortar store, something I wrote about a while back, click here for post. Does this make sense for Amazon? Some are pointing out that Amazon could use these stores to showcase products. Not sure I agree with that. Amazon already has that…it is called Barnes and Nobles, Target, Best Buy, REI, Toys R Us, Dicks Sporting Goods, Home Depot etc…why would they add a cost layer to get something they already have? They could use the locations for pick up and returns. Hmmm, that I might see as a more viable option. Radio Shack stores have an average of 2,426 square feet, a little bigger but similar footprint to UPS stores. UPS stores range from 800 to 1800 square feet. The Amazon/Radio Shack stores could provide similar services: receiving and holding orders or processing returns. With this level of service, Amazon would not have to worry about carrying SKUs at these locations nor having a large staff to manage need to manage the retail aspect. Could they also act as smaller distribution centers (DCs)? Why not. As Amazon is also looking to expand their own transportation fleet – in such deliveries as grocery – these smaller outlets could also be staging areas for some inventory. They may even have their own drone delivery assets at each physical location. Don’t laugh too loud, this might be closer then we think!

One topic we are covering in 2015 is the transformation of the consumers’ home into an extension of the retailer. Amazon moving into Radio Shack locations would allow the online giant to move in this direction. It could give users of such services as Zappos who are used to getting multiple sizes and colors delivered to their home to try on and then return, an alternative channel from which they can return their items. This move might allow Amazon to get a little bit closer to their consumers.

Resources

  The State of Retail in 2015 and Beyond  

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Matrix Commerce Innovation & Product-led Growth Tech Optimization Future of Work Sales Marketing Revenue & Growth Effectiveness Next-Generation Customer Experience Data to Decisions amazon B2B B2C CX Customer Experience EX Employee Experience business Marketing eCommerce Supply Chain Growth Cloud Digital Transformation Disruptive Technology Enterprise IT Enterprise Acceleration Enterprise Software Next Gen Apps IoT Blockchain CRM ERP Leadership finance Social Customer Service Content Management Collaboration M&A Enterprise Service AI Analytics Automation Machine Learning Generative AI ML LLMs Agentic AI HR HCM Metaverse developer SaaS PaaS IaaS Quantum Computing Healthcare VR CCaaS UCaaS Robotics Chief Marketing Officer Chief Supply Chain Officer Chief Digital Officer Chief Information Officer Chief Technology Officer Chief Data Officer Chief Analytics Officer Chief Information Security Officer Chief Executive Officer Chief Operating Officer Chief Customer Officer Chief Financial Officer Chief Growth Officer Chief Product Officer Chief Revenue Officer

Jive Software Says There Is An App For That

Alan Lepofsky

Vice President & Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Alan Lepofsky - VP and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research. With almost two decades of experience in the collaboration software industry, Lepofsky helps organizations improve the way their employees work together to get their jobs done. Lepofsky’s primary research area The Future of Work, focuses on: integrating collaboration and business processes (Purposeful Collaboration), structuring work via Social Task Management, leveraging analytics and digital assistants to work more productively, the strategic impact of mobile computing on business transformation, and measuring workforce culture based on Digital Proficiency instead of age. Twitter: @alanlepoLinkedIn: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/alanlepo     , Title: Big IdeasIntelligent Collaboration: The Intersection of…...

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On Feb 3rd, Jive Software is launching the first of what Jive calls Workstyle applications. These specific purpose applications expand, not replace the platform they offer today with Jive (internal) and JiveX (external) community software.

Scroll down to after the pictures to read my thoughts on the announcements.

The first app, Jive Daily, which will be available for download the 3rd week of Feb allows people to share news, web sites and other stories with their colleagues. It's not really intended for short form content like status updates, but rather medium-long term content similar to a blog entry. I think of it as Jive's version of Tumblr or Medium. Jive Daily leverages Jive's knowledge in analytics to provide statistics around the reach and popularity of posts.




Second is Jive Chime. Chime is a 1 to 1 or group chat tool that allows teams to communicate with short messages like status updates or questions. Jive Chime will be available in beta this month and version 1 is expected in April.  Chime is entering to competitive market of "modern team chat clients" such as Slack, Glip, Hall, HipChat, FlowDock and others.  Chime will be available in the freemium:upgrade model, meaning the app is free for people to use, then IT will have to pay for things like directory synchronization and administration controls.




The third application announced today is Jive People.  People provides profiles and organization charts to help employees find their colleagues. People is also going to provide "Meeting Intelligence" which will look at your calendar and display information about the colleagues who are attending meetings with you.  People will start public beta in June.




MyPOV

Jive Software was originally successful by filling a gap that enterprise collaboration software was missing. As the years have passed, vendors like IBM, Microsoft, SAP, Oracle, Salesforce and others have (with various degrees of success) filled that gap, developing their own social software solutions. The announcement of Workstyle Applications shows that Jive, who's leadership has changed a lot in the last year, has the insight and ability to expand their portfolio as they look to grow their customer base. The success of Workstyle Applications is critical component in Jive's strategy to reach new customers and new revenue streams.

For Existing Jive Customers
Jive Workstyle Applications are being targeted at new customers, it is not an expansion play for their current customer base. That is not to say existing customers can not use the applications, but they need to understand that they are not (currently) an integrated part of today's Jive and JiveX platform.  That means the profiles in Jive People are not the same as the profiles people have in their Jive communities. Similarly, the Jive Daily stream is not the same as the activity stream shown on the Jive homepage. So, if an organization chooses to use both Jive/JiveX and Jive Chime, employees will need to think about where they want to post things, in the activity stream or in a Chime group, and they will then have multiple places to keep track of or search in the future.

For Business Partners
The growth and sustainability of any platform is linked to the strength of its partner ecosystem. Jive has done a good job thus far at nurturing partners to resell Jive, consult on implementation and build add-on applications that expand the features of Jive communities. Similarly, Workstyle Apps will need to be extendable so that partners can add additional functionality. One of the greatest strengths of products like Slack and Glip has been the variety of integrations that are available. For Jive Chime to compete, customers will need to be able to integrate the other tools they use to get their work done.

For Competitors
Jive was once the startup that filled the gaps in large enterprise software vendor's portfolios. In many ways, Jive has now become one of those large vendors, with new startups looking to fill the gaps in Jive's offerings. However, Jive has countered this quite quickly, reacting to what's hot in the market and delivering Jive Workstyle Apps. Today's announcement shows Jive is not just going to sit back and rest on their laurels. Coupling that with Jive's strong brand awareness in the social business market creates a challenge for those hoping to capitalize on a gap that may no longer be there.

What do you think?

If you're an existing Jive customer, will you also be interested in these new applications?
If you're not currently a Jive customer, will you be taking a look at Workstyle apps?
 

Resources

The State of Collaboration in 2015

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Future of Work Next-Generation Customer Experience Sales Marketing Revenue & Growth Effectiveness Data to Decisions Innovation & Product-led Growth New C-Suite Digital Safety, Privacy & Cybersecurity Tech Optimization Chief Customer Officer Chief People Officer Chief Marketing Officer Chief Revenue Officer Chief Experience Officer

Stop Talking About Digital Transformation

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What?

I mean, what????

Seriously?  Just last year two of my seven posts (yeah, didn’t do that well writing in my blog last year – but been working to remedy that by posting links to my other writings around the world – but I digress) were about digital transformation.

I have been talking about digital transformation for nearly four years now and began to write about the transformative power of data (what digital refers to) over 15 years ago (when I began to cover EFM at Gartner ‘member?).  Why on earth would I want to stop talking about it now – when its finally reached the peak of the hype cycle and is beginning to be adopted?

Because its too limiting.

In my (now) business transformation model data has a key place right in the middle of it (see figure below).

In conversations and work I’ve done these past 6-8 months with organizations and vendors data remains the main focus.  Top  investments for 2015 are focused around data and analytics.  Talk of Big Data and related concepts are taking over the world – and my colleagues (analysts, influencers, and pundits) are all super-busy around the topic of Data.

Data has taken front-and-center positioning among organizations’ plans and strategies for 2015 – and it is too limiting.

We need to amplify the conversation.

If we are going to talk about transformation we need to talk about more than just digital.  Data is but one piece of the pie.  Data, together with content and knowledge, become part of the information layer (see figure below).

If we are to talk about a complete transformation of the business we need to also talk about content beyond marketing and about knowledge beyond service as well as we talk about data.  We need to understand that the three work together to create information and that the flow of the information, freely via public clouds, is what will transform the business.  We also need to understand how new, old, and still-unknown data is going to be used to push business forward.

Data and digital are still part of the transformation, but we cannot forget the remaining pieces — and talking about digital simply limits the conversation to a small piece of it.

Let’s stop talking about digital transformation.

Let’s talk about business transformation.

What do you think?

Marketing Transformation Next-Generation Customer Experience Innovation & Product-led Growth Tech Optimization Future of Work AI ML Machine Learning LLMs Agentic AI Generative AI Analytics Automation B2B B2C CX EX Employee Experience HR HCM business Marketing Metaverse developer SaaS PaaS IaaS Supply Chain Quantum Computing Growth Cloud Digital Transformation Disruptive Technology eCommerce Enterprise IT Enterprise Acceleration Enterprise Software Next Gen Apps IoT Blockchain CRM ERP Leadership finance Social Healthcare VR CCaaS UCaaS Customer Service Content Management Collaboration M&A Enterprise Service Chief Customer Officer Chief Marketing Officer Chief Information Officer Chief Technology Officer Chief Digital Officer Chief Data Officer Chief Analytics Officer Chief Information Security Officer Chief Executive Officer Chief Operating Officer

News Analysis - VMware makes progress towards the (hybrid) cloud - now let's watch the adoption

Holger Mueller

Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Holger Mueller is VP and Principal Analyst for Constellation Research for the fundamental enablers of the cloud, IaaS, PaaS and next generation Applications, with forays up the tech stack into BigData and Analytics, HR Tech, and sometimes SaaS. Holger provides strategy and counsel to key clients, including Chief Information Officers, Chief Technology Officers, Chief Product Officers, Chief HR Officers, investment analysts, venture capitalists, sell-side firms, and technology buyers.  Coverage Areas: Future of Work Tech Optimization & Innovation  Background: Before joining Constellation Research, Mueller was VP of Products for NorthgateArinso, a KKR company. There, he led the transformation of products to the cloud and laid the foundation for new Business Process as a…...

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VMware seems to have made February the month of the cloud and is promising 28 days of Cloud Insight (see more here). VMware execs must be pretty confident that they have enough material – as they did not even include the recently (well last week) announced partnership with Google (more here).

SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwired - February 02, 2015) - VMware, Inc. (NYSE: VMW) today announced VMware vSphere® 6, the newest edition of the industry-defining virtualization solution for the hybrid cloud and foundation for the software-defined data center. With more than 650 new features and innovations, VMware vSphere 6 will provide customers with a highly available, resilient, on-demand cloud infrastructure to run, protect and manage any application. VMware vSphere 6 will be complemented by the newest releases of VMware vCloud® Suite 6, VMware vSphere with Operations Management™ 6, and VMware Virtual SAN™ 6.

MyPOV – Basically VMware is following through on the announcements made at VMWorld in summer of 2014 (my takeaways here) – and delivering the ‘6’ product family in Q1 2015 as announced back then.

[Update Feb 3rd 2015 - VMware points out correctly these products were not announced back at VMworld - but general features and capabilities not slotted to a specific release. They now ship as part of the '6' product family.]

VMware today also re-enforced its support of open frameworks for building and managing clouds with its new VMware Integrated OpenStack distribution. This first-ever OpenStack distribution from VMware will empower IT to provide developers with open API access to enterprise-class VMware infrastructure. Additionally, VMware revealed a technology preview that will enable customers to bridge the public and private cloud through the combination of VMware NSX™ network virtualization and VMware vCloud® Air™, VMware's public cloud service, to enable a single, secure network domain.

MyPOV – True to the announcements VMware is also delivering OpenStack capabilities, who are badly demanded by their customers. The concern is that in this case, with its own distribution, VMware may do (or hopefully not) the one or other things to break OpenStack or make it only work with its products (of course I speculate here). But customers may be ready to accept that for the pure benefit to run more of VMware with OpenStack tools. We still need to understand the timeline of the ‘technology preview’ mentioned above.

"As our customers accelerate growth, their IT organizations are expected to drive transformation, enhance efficiency and bring more value to the business than ever before," said Ben Fathi, chief technology officer, VMware, Inc. "We are helping them achieve these goals through continued innovation in VMware vSphere as the platform for their hybrid cloud strategy. VMware vSphere is the gold standard by which all other virtualization technologies are measured, and vSphere 6 raises the bar even higher."

MyPOV – Fair ambition for VMware, but it is time to be able to understand local data center load and move it to the cloud. VSphere still does (too) little for that. We may to wait for (hopefully) later in the month VCloud Air announcements.

In other news today, VMware announced the industry's first unified platform of virtualized compute, networking and storage for the hybrid cloud (read the news announcement), as well as new innovations for software-defined storage including VMware Virtual SAN 6 and vSphere Virtual Volumes™ (read the news announcement).

MyPOV – Key announcements for VMware customers, who should check them out if they have upcoming storage products.
 

VMware products announced February 2nd 2015 (from Webcast)

VMware vSphere 6 - The Foundation for Hybrid Cloud

Unveiled today, VMware vSphere 6 will deliver breakthrough new capabilities to address the unique needs of business-critical and cloud-native applications, and drive higher performance, scale and consolidation ratios. VMware vSphere 6 will also re-define infrastructure and application service-levels and availability. New capabilities and features include:

Broad Application Support - VMware vSphere 6 will address the specific challenges of cloud-native applications, including agile development cycles and multiple application instances. With VMware vSphere 6, organizations will be able to manage thousands of component instances of a single cloud-native application. New scale, performance and availability capabilities also make vSphere 6 the platform of choice for virtualizing scale-up applications such as SAP HANA, scale-out workloads such as Hadoop, and business-critical applications such as Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle Database, and SAP ERP.

>> MyPOV – Working well with a number if ISVs has always been VMware’s strength. That VMware can keep these relationships going in the cloud age will be a key development to keep an eye on – as most of the current partners have made commitments to their own cloud infrastructures. At some point e.g. SAP customers will think SAP will run better on the SAP cloud, Oracle products will run better in the Oracle cloud etc. – even if de-facto not a true development.

New Long-Distance Live Migration Capabilities - VMware vSphere 6 introduces Long-Distance motion®, which will enable zero downtime live migration of workloads over long distances such as New York to London. With multi-processor fault tolerance, another industry first, customers will benefit from continuous availability for larger virtual machines up to four virtual-CPUs.

MyPOV – This is a key (and long overdue) feature for VMware. Probably the best received and equally badly needed feature at VMWorld 2014 in San Francisco. With the long distance capability VMware takes away a lot of overhead and headache for its customers. A very good move in my view, now VMware needs to make sure the pricing is so attractive that customers will shelve the workarounds they have in place for this today.

Instant Clone Technology - Introduced as Project Fargo, a technology preview at VMworld® 2014 San Francisco, VMware's Instant Clone technology will make it possible to rapidly clone and provision thousands of container instances and virtual machines to make new virtual infrastructure available in sub-second timeframes.

MyPOV – A key feature added by VMware which keeps VMware relevant as infrastructure player even for more advanced organizations that run, build and have to maintain next generation applications that heavily rely on container infrastructures.

3D Graphics for Desktop Virtualization - VMware vSphere 6 will enable enterprises to deliver high-end workstation and graphics-intensive applications to virtual desktops such as VMware Horizon® 6 for industries such as engineering, automotive, education and architecture. Using NVIDIA GRID vGPU technology, immersive 3D graphics can be delivered from the cloud enabling greater density, scalable performance and increased cost-savings. Read the NVIDIA and VMware joint announcement.

MyPOV – It’s good to see the VMware efforts from its traditional portfolio and the EUC portfolio coming together. It will also make it real for VMware run EUC on VMware – which is always a great showcase for vendors.

Enterprise-Class Hypervisor-Converged Storage - VMware's flagship will provide enterprise-class scale, performance and new data services making it the ideal storage platform for virtual machines including business-critical applications. Read more about VMware Virtual SAN 6.

MyPOV – Good progress by VMware, storage is inherently non elastic, but bringing software defined storage to VSphere is a key capability to reduce maintenance and operational overhead.

Virtual Machine-Awareness for Third-Party Storage - VMware vSphere Virtual Volumes is the industry's first solution that will enable native virtual machine awareness on a wide range of third-party storage systems, extending VMware's software-defined storage control plane to the ecosystem. Read more about VMware vSphere Virtual Volumes.

MyPOV – Depending how it pans out this could be the most important storage announcement today – as it would allow customers of VMware to control 3rd party storage products. If this is in the interest of these vendors remains to be seen, but kudos for VMware to try brining these together.

Customers can optimize the performance, capacity and configuration health of VMware vSphere 6 with the newly introduced VMware vSphere with Operations Management 6. An integrated platform and management solution, VMware vSphere with Operations Management 6 simplifies infrastructure management with predictive analytics as well as automated recommendation and remediation capabilities. The solution delivers value from day one by helping customers proactively identify and remediate emerging performance and configuration issues and to reclaim any overprovisioned virtual machines along with associated compute, memory and storage resources.

MyPOV – Always good to see the operations / admin console ship with the new feature and not later. Speaks for solid engineering, quality assurance and realistic product delivery timelines.

Also announced today, VMware vCloud Suite 6 will integrate VMware vSphere 6 with the latest releases of its cloud management solutions -- VMware vRealize™ Automation 6.2 and VMware vRealize Operations 6 -- to deliver a private cloud based on a software-defined data center architecture. The latest release will also introduce showback/chargeback and budgeting capabilities via the addition of VMware vRealize Business 6 Standard to further empower infrastructure and operations teams to manage private clouds.

MyPOV – Key capabilities for hybrid cloud and long demanded / expected by VMware customers.

VMware Integrated OpenStack - A Simpler Path to OpenStack

VMware Integrated OpenStack is an OpenStack distribution that will enable organizations to quickly and cost-effectively provide developers with open, cloud-style APIs to access VMware's enterprise-class infrastructure. VMware will package, test and support all components of the distribution, including the open source OpenStack code.

MyPOV – So VMware decides to have its own OpenStack distribution, nothing to be too much afraid of. See my above concerns (and speculation) of VMware being the first to break OpenStack interoperability standards – but VMware will not be the only provider tempted to break the interoperability promise for the sake of better uptake of existing features and capabilities.

With VMware Integrated OpenStack, even IT shops with little or no OpenStack or Linux experience can be up and running with an OpenStack cloud in minutes. The solution will provide full integration with VMware's cloud management platform, enabling customers to leverage existing VMware expertise to manage and troubleshoot an OpenStack cloud.

MyPOV – And here we go – let’s help the SMBs first. As long as decision makers at these SMBs know what they are doing and make decisions with open eyes – good for them.

VMware is also announcing set of new professional services that will provide customers ready access to software development best practices to help implement OpenStack and DevOps projects successfully. VMware added a wealth of experience in designing, implementing and auto-deploying any size OpenStack cloud through its acquisition of MomentumSI, which closed in Q4 2014. Read more about what MomentumSI brought to VMware.

MyPOV – Good to see VMware ramping up the services needed.
 

Implications, Implications

Implications for VMware customers

Good news for VMware customers, always good to see a vendor deliver. The remote instance creation capabilities can become a real option for HA strategies. The container performance should encourage customers with next generation application projects to take note and potentially evaluate the new capabilities. Overall customers need to weigh benefits vs license and implementation costs of the new VMware products.

Implications for VMware partners

Equally good news when the main ecosystem anchor delivers. While some longer term opportunities may vanish (e.g. around HA) others may arise (e.g. OpenStack). Partners need to revisit their service and product portfolio in the light of thee substantial product announcements and chart their value adding strategy for the next years, potentially from anew.

Implications for VMware competitors

It is clear that VMware is making true on its feartures and capabilities parrtially discussed at VMworld 2014. If a competitor was counting on VMware not delivering, it is bad news for them now. The next months will have to show what impact the new products will have on the market and competitors need to chart their product and marketing strategies accordingly to achieve differentiation.
 

Overall MyPOV

Always good for a vendor to make true for their announcements. Many of the new capabilities VMware announced and now delivered are not ‘low hanging fruit’ – so congrats to the VMware R&D teams to bring it here. Now it’s back to customers to evaluate the benefit / cost relationship of the new VMware products, where some areas look favorable, others look more difficult. Customers should be aware of alternatives and weigh their options accordingly. On the flipside VMware offers one integrated data center platform that is engineered and tested together – so when VMware delivers on that with good quality – it is a very valuable platform for customers.

The main act for VMware – around vCloud Air – is still to come. It will be key to understand VMware’s progress and status on that crucial product before making ultimate decisions around VMware product adoption and rollout.

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More on VMWare by me

• Speed Briefings at VMworld - read here
• Event Report - VMware makes a lot of progress - but the holy grail is still missing - read here.
• First Take - VMware's VMworld Day 1 Keynote - Top 3 Takeaways - read here.
• Progress Report - Good start for VMware EUC - time for 2nd inning - read here.
• Speed Briefings at VMworld - inside and outside the VMware ecosystem - read here.
• VMware defies conventional destiny - SDDC to the rescue - read here.

Tech Optimization Innovation & Product-led Growth Data to Decisions Future of Work HP softlayer vmware IBM Oracle Chief Information Officer

Big Budget Commercials are Poor Customer Acquisition Tools Thanks to Audience Fragmentation

Partner, Sensei Marketing
Partner, Sensei Marketing

Sales & marketing veteran with almost 30 years’ experience and now 1800 digital projects to his credit for clients including Morgan Stanley, AOL, Hyatt Gaming Management, Snyder's of Hanover, Hitachi, the Home Depot, Kraft Foods, Drees Homes, American Idol, and hundreds more, including leading agencies around the North America.     ...

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This is not a Super Bowl commercial post; it will not rank the best/worst commercials. I made a promise to myself that I would never write another one of those; God knows there are way too many already being published. However, this post, on the day after the 2015 Super owl, is certainly inspired by the continued frenzy over these commercials.

Super Bowl commercials have become an event in their own right, inspiring blog fodder and YouTube-watching frenzies all around the world. The demand for Super Bowl commercials is so high that Canadians, tired of having broadcasters substitute their own ads for the popular ones shown in the US, successfully lobbied telecommunication regulators to put an end to the practice.

Clearly, there’s a big demand for these commercials, which – along with the impressive real-time audience the big game receives – is the reason television networks can demand such a high price. However, is the investment worth the return when audience fragmentation is so high?

Big Budget Commercials are Poor Customer Acquisition Tools Thanks to Audience Fragmentation  

There’s no question that television continues to command large audience attention; however, there has been a ten-fold increase in the number of channels available. Combine that with the hundred-fold increase in the number of programs and episodes available on those channels, and we begin to see the audience erosion marketers must address. And that doesn’t include the effect of that media shared across the Internet, YouTube channels, or made-for-Internet television (Eg. Netflix original programming).

According to audience research firm Simulmedia, “Compared to the 67.3 rating received by the highest rated show in 1953 (CBS’s I Love Lucy), the highest rated show for the 2013–2014 season earned only a 12.8 rating (NBC’s Sunday Night Football). So while big TV networks can deliver audiences, fragmentation requires advertisers to look deeper into the data to find their best target audience and optimize their media investment.”

Are You Reaching The Right Audience?

With the audience so fragmented, is this an achievable goal? Advertisers today are more challenged than ever before to be both strategic and reactive in their efforts to reach, engage, and drive action among their audiences.

To understand the effect of audience fragmentation in television, Simulmedia looked at three television networks that ranked high in their concentration of adults 18 to 34 for the month of May, 2014. They then delved deeper into that database to pinpoint the concentration of 18- to 34-year-old pizza buyers. The study determined that while those networks reached the largest number of adults in the target age range, the desired sub-set (18- to 34-year-old pizza buyers) were largely missed. In fact, one-third of the target group of pizza-buyers were enjoying television programs on smaller niche networks not tracked by Nielsen.

If marketing has one goal, it’s to reach consumers at the moments that most influence their decisions.

Reaching the right consumers is difficult enough; reaching target consumers at the moment most likely to influence their purchase decisions requires data. Big data.

More importantly, to acquire new customers in this fragmented media world, marketers must rethink  traditional advertising strategies and metrics. The media landscape has become impossibly large and convoluted by time-shifting, DVRs, and mobile devices. The go-to “reach” metric is no longer sufficient to justify big-dollar ad campaigns. Local and niche campaigns require more investment in data infrastructure and analysis, but when combined with an understanding of the customer journey, will generate greater return on investment (ROI) than big-budget commercials.

Sensei Debates

Are big-budget television commercials, like those created for the Super Bowl, effective for customer acquisition?

Marketing Transformation Next-Generation Customer Experience Chief Customer Officer Chief Marketing Officer

Oracle discovers the power of the two socket server - or: A pivot that wasn't one, TCO still rules

Holger Mueller

Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Holger Mueller is VP and Principal Analyst for Constellation Research for the fundamental enablers of the cloud, IaaS, PaaS and next generation Applications, with forays up the tech stack into BigData and Analytics, HR Tech, and sometimes SaaS. Holger provides strategy and counsel to key clients, including Chief Information Officers, Chief Technology Officers, Chief Product Officers, Chief HR Officers, investment analysts, venture capitalists, sell-side firms, and technology buyers.  Coverage Areas: Future of Work Tech Optimization & Innovation  Background: Before joining Constellation Research, Mueller was VP of Products for NorthgateArinso, a KKR company. There, he led the transformation of products to the cloud and laid the foundation for new Business Process as a…...

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Last week Oracle provided an update on its engineered systems – mainly the launch of the new X-5 line. When Chairman and CTO Larry Ellison took the stage – he had a surprise in the bag that few counted on – that Oracle would now start to compete in the space of two socket servers.

So let’s look at the implications:

It is worth to understand why this was a surprise – as in the past Oracle had focused on large, high end and high price engineered systems. The Exa line of products was a compilation of only the best that Oracle had in store after the acquisition of Sun. In numerous earnings calls Oracle’s executive team defended the strategy, while Oracle’s overall hardware revenue and profitability was suffering from lower end and cheaper servers that Oracle by now has gotten rid of.
 

Oracle's new view of the datacenter - Core (2 socket systems) and Engineered Systems (Source - Webcast)

For the first time Oracle and Ellison acknowledged, that next to the high end Exa machines, there are other needs in data center purchases, specifically around the two socket server aka low cost server demand. These machines are popular as they can handle any kind of load an enterprise may have, are cheap to procure, easy to operate etc. In contrast to that buying an Exa machine is significant CAPEX for even the largest enterprises – a decision that needs to be vetted, often employees need to get trained to operate the machines, sometimes application have to be re-written to take full advantage of them etc. Throughout this Oracle maintained that its Exa machines have always offered the best performance for the lowest cost. Turns out to get the machine was a pretty high hurdle price tag wise for enterprises.

So not surprisingly Oracle now announced a new product line, a two socket server, but true to Oracle’s corporate DNA - at a lower TCO. It looked like Cisco’s servers are the prime target and market leader that Oracle wants to challenge. True to long time tradition Oracle was not shy to compare purchase costs of its new machines compared to the machines of competitors.
 

Oracle compared VCA X5 with Cisco UCS and claimed significant TCO advantages (Source - Webcast)

But what we really have seen for first time is Oracle flexing its muscle around its ability to own the complete stack. While main competitor target Cisco has to partner with EMC and more vendors to get their machine to the market, Oracle has all the necessary pieces available in house (Storage – SSD of course, Networking – Infiniband (even Ellison joked how often he said that, Processors (surprisingly little said about that), Oracle Linux, Database (of course) and more higher level software). Reshaping the design of an engineered system to a different load profile and price point is easy when you have all the pieces available in house. The value proposition remains the same – one integrated and tested system by Oracle – just at a very different usage and a much lower price point.

Not surprisingly Oracle maintains that ultimately the large Exa machines are still better performance at a lower price. But the entry point for the new two socket server line is lower, and if customers ultimately may pay more to Oracle when buying a lot of two socket machines over time, nothing that Oracle has to complain about. Think renting vs buying a house. Plenty of people cannot afford a house, so they rent, but over time pay more for rent than for owning a house.

The question really is – what took Oracle so long? We can only speculate on the reasons and motivation – but here are a few:

• Oracle was still operating under the ‘big server for RDBMS, small machines for web tier’ paradigm of the 200x years. 
• Oracle has listened to customers (and sales reps) that selling large machines only, will not give Oracle the growth it wants to see in data centers.
• Oracle did not see it share of wallet on server / data center spending really growing.
• Oracle had to finish commitments and work on the high end side of the Exa machines, e.g. finish the 4 series. 
• Oracle had to get software components ready for the two socket market, 12c comes to mind as a candidate. 
• Oracle is serious about cloud, but needs two socket servers for its own cloud build out and did not want to buy them from the competition – but buy and built by itself. Ellison stressing the same architecture and versions in a side note of his presentation made this pretty clear. 

We will probably never know – but above seems to be plausible reasons to me.

MyPOV

A good move by Oracle, which will expand its data center footprint. Oracle will have to overcome some positioning with customers, but if Oracle can deliver and prove the very attractive TCO numbers it shared at the launch event, then CIOs will quickly forget ‘old’ positioning and look at Oracle’s brand new two socket server line. And more competition for servers is a good thing for IT budgets that are under stress every year.

But the real question remains – what took Oracle so long?

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Also worth a look for the full picture

• Market Move - Oracle buys Datalogix - moves more into DaaS - read here
• Event Report - Oracle Openworld - Oracle's vision and remaining work become clear - they are both big - read here
• Constellation Research Video Takeaways of Oracle Openworld 2014 - watch here
• Is it all coming together for Oracle in 2014? Read here. 
• From the fences - Oracle AR Meeting takeaways - read here (this was the last analyst meeting in spring 2013)
• Takeaways from Oracle CloudWorld LA - read here (this was one of the first cloud world events overall, in January 2013)

 

Tech Optimization cisco systems Oracle Chief Information Officer