| Constellation Research

Event Report: Oracle Open World 2014 - Day 1 #OOW14

Principal Analyst and Founder
Constellation Research

R “Ray” Wang is the CEO of Silicon Valley-based Constellation Research Inc. He co-hosts DisrupTV, a weekly enterprise tech and leadership webcast that averages 50,000 views per episode and blogs at www.raywang.org. His ground-breaking best-selling book on digital transformation, Disrupting Digital Business, was published by Harvard Business Review Press in 2015. Ray's new book about Digital Giants and the future of business, titled, Everybody Wants to Rule The World was released in July 2021. Wang is well-quoted and frequently interviewed by media outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, Fox Business, CNBC, Yahoo Finance, Cheddar, and Bloomberg. Short Bio R “Ray” Wang (pronounced WAHNG) is the Founder, Chairman, and Principal Analyst of Silicon Valley-based Constellation Research Inc. He…...

Oracle Doubles Down On Cloud Messaging Amidst A World Shifting To Digital Transformation

Over 60,000 physical attendees from 145 countries gather in San Francisco for the 2014 Oracle Open World. In addition, Oracle expects 7.1 million online attendees to join the live stream of one of the largest events in enterprise software. Amidst the usual partly cloudy San Francisco weather, attendees appear upbeat and interested in what Oracle has to say about the cloud as well as what Oracle will do next in a world of digital transformation.

As many know, Day 1 typically includes the Oracle Users Forum, afternoon Oracle PartnerNetwork Keynote, the evening Oracle OpenWorld Keynote with Larry Ellison, and the Day 1 Welcome Reception. A few quick observations from the Day 1 chatter include:

Cloud is finally in full force for Oracle and its customers. This year’s opening keynote features Larry Ellison and Intel’s President, Renée J. James bantering about the requirements of private and public cloud. The Day 2 keynote features co-CEO Mark Hurd’s address on the business value of the cloud. Day 3 kicksoff with EVP of Product Development, Thomas Kurian, talking about cloud services for the modern enterprise. Attendees get a slight reprieve from all the cloud rah rah on Day 4 when EVP of Systems, John Fowler, talks aobut how real-time enterprises are powered by database, high-performance engineered systems, and the cloud.

Point of View (POV): At a 2012 Oracle Collaborate event, less than 50 people expressed interest in the using the cloud among the crowd of 6000 attendees when polled. Fast forward two years, the shift among the Oracle customer base in the role of the cloud has begun. In conversations with over 100 attendees, the conversation is not whether the cloud is viable, but more about when to actively consider the cloud. Given the large number of cautious adopters and laggards in technology adoption, Oracle has done a good job timing its cloud message to its user base. Hence, Oracle’s intent is to show case how the full Oracle RedStack can be extended to the cloud from engineered systems in private clouds to Database as a Service (DBaaS), app dev environments in the Oracle PaaS, to the consumption of Oracle apps. As always, Oracle continues its strategy of one stop shop to both its loyal users and acquired entities.

Improved Oracle and partner keynotes could raise the bar in thought leadership. Attendees can look forward to a customer panel with notables such as dunnhumby, GE, Intel, P&G, Pearson, Walgreen’s, and Xerox. Partner keynotes include Renée J. James, President of Intel; Dr. Didiet Bonnet, Senior VP and Global Practice Leader of Capgemini; and Dr. Vishal Sikka, CEO of Infosys. Didiet Bonnet will talk from excerpts of his latest book on leading digital. Many in the audience will want to find out what the former CTO of SAP, Dr. Vishal Sikka has to say about the future of technology and business.

Point of View (POV): At over a million and in some cases almost three million for the highest level of sponsorships, these keynotes have traditionally suffered from over pitching of products and minimal thought leadership and entertainment value. Other than the die hard fans of Larry Ellison awaiting in line for hours to hear inspirational thoughts, many of Oracle’s keynotes have traditionally been ho-hum. One reason could be the lack of good partner keynotes from legacy hardware vendors to over scripted system integrator pitches. The good news, the events team and alliances team may have raised the bar this year with higher quality speakers and less product pitching.

Mini tents continue to make the show more intimate. Given the mega show status Oracle OpenWorld has evolved into, attendees quickly affiliate into a number of smaller events within events. Oracle organizes by topic with Big Data Central, Engineered Systems Central, ERP Central, CX Central, HCM Central, MySQL Central, OPN Central, and SCM Central. Industry central mini tents revolve around 18 industries including Aerospace and Defense, Automotive, Communications, Consumer Goods, Education and Research, Energy and Resources, Engineering and Construction, Financial Services and Insurance, Healthcare, High Technology, Industrial Manufacturing, Life Sciences, Media and Entertainment, Professional Services, Public Sector, Retail. Travel and Transportation,Utilities.

Point of View (POV): Attendees often find large shows lack the intimacy in relevant content and in size. The move to shows within a show have helped bring relevancy to the event. For the Big Data central folks, make sure to check out Oracle’s Big Data Strategy—Unified Data Management and Analytics [GEN9379] session on Wednesday October 1, 11:30 to 12:15 Moscone West 2008.
– For Engineered systems folks, the Infrastructure Transformation Made Easy with Oracle Systems on Monday, September 29, 11:30 a.m.–1:00 p.m. at Oracle Plaza is a must see.
– On the apps side, make sure to catch Oracle EVP of application development Steve Miranda’s General Session: Oracle Applications—Don’t Sit on the Sidelines [GEN7778] at Wednesday, Oct 1, 8:30 AM – 9:30 AM – Moscone West – 2008.
– For the HCM set, make sure to attend the Oracle Fusion Human Capital Management: From RFP to Reality [CON2357] on Wednesday, Oct 1, 4:15 PM – 5:00 PM – Palace – Grand Ballroom.
– Supply chain gurus should join the General Session: Supply Chain Management—Enabling the Modern Value Chain [GEN8086] on Monday, Sep 29, 12:30 PM – 2:00 PM – Westin Market Street – Metropolitan III.
– CX folks should take note of The Customer Experience Journey: How Oracle CRM On Demand Delivers CX at Insperity [CON7336] on Tuesday, Sep 30, 12:00 PM – 12:45 PM – Moscone West – 2016

A Working Guide To Where To Go For The Mini Tents
CX Mini Tent: Moscone West
Engineered Systems Mini Tent: Intercontinental Hotel
ERP Mini Tent: Westin Market Street
HCM Mini Tent: Palace Hotel
JavaOne Event: Hilton San Francisco
MySQL Mini Tent: Parc 55 Hotel
SCM Mini Tent: Westin Market Street

The Bottom Line: Expect A Very Different Oracle OpenWorld

Constellation has been championing Digital Transformation and Digital Business over the past two years. This shift is more than just technologies such as big data, mobile, social, cloud, unified communications, internet of things, and others. Businesses face a shift in business models enabled by these digital technologies. With 52% of the Fortune 500 gone bankrupt, merged, acquired, or fallen off the list since 2000, this shift is big and pervasive. As Oracle’s customers make this journey to digital transformation, they must ask if Oracle will be able to take them through this journey and if so, how quickly?

From the agenda items and the shift to cloud messaging, Constellation sees progress in how Oracle is addressing digital transformation and helping customers make the shift. However, time is of the essence and if Oracle has learned anything from its slow entry into the cloud, customers don’t have the luxury of time to wait it out. This shift is real. This shift is happening. This shift requires Oracle to move a few steps ahead of their customers requirements.

Dominate Digital Disruption

Join me at Constellation’s Connected Enterprise, an immersive innovation summit for senior business leaders. The theme of this year’s Connected Enterprise is Dominate Digital Disruption. Join 200+ other early adopters at Connected Enterprise to discover and share how digital business can realize brand promises, transform business models, increase revenues, reduce costs, and improve compliance.

This 3-day executive retreat includes mind expanding keynotes from visionaries, interactive best practices panels, deep 1:1 interviews with market makers, new technology demos, The Constellation SuperNova Awards Gala Dinner, a golf outing, and an immersive networking event.

Register before September 30 to take advantage of early bird pricing. Use code BBLG14 for VIP privileges throughout the event.

Your POV.

Ready for Oracle OpenWorld? What do you want to get out of this year’s show? Add your comments to the blog or reach me via email: R (at) ConstellationR (dot) com or R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) org.

Please let us know if you need help with your Digital Business transformation efforts. Here’s how we can assist:

Developing your digital business strategy
Building a Digital ARTISAN program
Connecting with other pioneers
Sharing best practices
Vendor selection
Implementation partner selection
Providing contract negotiations and software licensing support
Demystifying software licensing

Related Research:

Reprints

Reprints can be purchased through Constellation Research, Inc. To request official reprints in PDF format, please contact Sales .

Disclosure

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

* Not responsible for any factual errors or omissions. However, happy to correct any errors upon email receipt.

Copyright © 2001 -2014 R Wang and Insider Associates, LLC All rights reserved.
Contact the Sales team to purchase this report on an a la carte basis or join the Constellation Customer Experience.

The post Event Report: Oracle Open World 2014 – Day 1 #OOW14 appeared first on A Software Insider's Point of View.

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

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Personal Log: Rules Of The Road - How To Drive The #SVLife Way On 280

R "Ray" Wang

Principal Analyst and Founder
Constellation Research

Bad (Slow) Driving On 280 Is Just Not Acceptable Anymore

For those outside the San Francisco Bay Area, Interstate 280 is also known as the Junipero Serra Freeway. Completed in 1955 as part of the Eisenshower Interstate Highway system, the 57 mile four to five lane freeway connects San Francisco and San Jose. To residents, the freeway is often affectionately known as “The Autobahn” mainly because of the higher speeds and less congested travel when compared to other freeways in the Bay Area. In non-rush hour times, vehicles often zip by easily at speeds of 85 miles per hour or more.

Start With These Five Simple Rules To Keep 280 Moving For Everyone

With the influx of transplants (like me 20 years ago) into the Bay Area, conditions have gotten a bit more congested and driving norms have not been passed on to the newly arrived. Travel from Silicon Valley to San Francisco can take up to 90 minutes in peak traffic. Some of it is due to increased volume, but a good deal is due to poor driving.

Hence, fear not, here’s a quick guide to the basic rules. Feel free to add your own in the comments suggestion:

Pass or speed on the left lane or get off it. Stay off the left lane if you plan to go the speed limit. That’s just rude as we’re all in a hurry and we don’t need you causing accidents as people try to pass on the right lanes. Especially, you in the Prius or minivan, you’re often holding up massive traffic and seem oblivious.
Let others lead if you are moving slower. If someone is crazy enough to break the speed limit, then move out of the way or follow them. It’s a win-win. Why? If you are in a hurry, it’s good to have a pace car ahead of you. They are willing to take one for the team and why not encourage them to lead so you can also quickly follow. Stop trying to block faster cars because you feel jealous. Get over it!
Keep your fellow drivers informed of speed traps and dangers ahead. Take advantage of Waze or other crowd sourced tools to report hazards. A classic and helpful trip is to tap the breaks a few times as you pass a speed trap. The effect of cascading breaking will warn others to slow down and avoid a speed trap. Another option is to flash opposing traffic with your high beams to warn them of the oncoming hazard or speed trap. Don’t believe in the urban legend that this will set off a car jacking. It’s not true and if it was, it’s so 80’s.
Call in emergencies to 911 ASAP. Be a Good Samaritan. If you see a car pulled to the side of the road, see a hazard on the road, or face a reckless driver, call 911 ASAP. The quicker you deploy someone to the emergency, the quicker you take one less law enforcement officer off the road so you can speed along. Think of it as a win-win where you help the public good and get to speed while the cops are out addressing an emergency.
Stay alert and safe. With folks often crossing triple digit speeds, one small slip can cost you your life. Use a headset if you are on the mobile device, and certainly don’t try to text or tweet. You are moving way too fast to safely do all this at once.

The Bottom Line: Keep The #SVLife Tradition Alive And Well

280 is the icon of the SF Bay Area. It’s meant to be the Autobahn. Please pass on these rules so we can keep 280 moving along and safe and speedy for everyone. Otherwise, we’ll be filled with folks who drive like they do on 880 and 680, leaving huge spaces in the left lane because they don’t want anyone to pass but are too lazy to keep a closer distance behind the next car. That’s just so un-SVLife! Stay speedy and safe!

Reprints

Reprints can be purchased through Constellation Research, Inc. To request official reprints in PDF format, please contact Sales .

Disclosure

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

* Not responsible for any factual errors or omissions. However, happy to correct any errors upon email receipt.

Copyright © 2001 -2014 R Wang and Insider Associates, LLC All rights reserved.
Contact the Sales team to purchase this report on an a la carte basis or join the Constellation Customer Experience

The post Personal Log: Rules Of The Road – How To Drive The #SVLife Way On 280 appeared first on A Software Insider's Point of View.

New C-Suite Innovation & Product-led Growth SoftwareInsider Leadership Chief Information Officer Chief Technology Officer Chief Information Security Officer Chief Data Officer Chief Executive Officer Chief Experience Officer

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News Analysis: Adobe EchoSign's Electronic Signatures Goes 100% Mobile

R "Ray" Wang

Principal Analyst and Founder
Constellation Research

Frictionless Signatures Key To Matrix Commerce Success

On September 16th, 2014, Adobe EchoSign announced native mobile e-signature capability for Android devices. While EchoSign has been in the cloud for some time, and the iOS app has been out since December 2011, the native capability in mobile allows over 37 million users to send documents for signature, receive e-signatures, e-sign documents, and track documents.

Source: Adobe

The analysis from the product announcement shows how Adobe EchoSign:

Natively addresses document workflow management in a mobile environment. Adobe EchoSign's solution includes the ability to sign by finger or stylus, sign or click to approve a document, and delegate signing to another person or reject a signing request. The mobile experience works with both iOS and Android devices. Responsive design elements show optimization for Android tablets with 7" and 10" screens. For Apple, responsive design adjusts for iPhone and iPad.

Point of View (POV): The battle for mobile in document workflow management heats up. The latest solutions attempts to one up competitors Docusign and eSign Live with native capabilities in iOS and Android. Customers should take advantage of these platforms to enable the incorporation of digital signatures into mobile experiences.

Delivers a legally binding and enterprise class secure solution. The native mobile solution is compliant with UETA, Electronic Commerce Directive in the EU, and the US Federal ESIGN Act. Documents are also encrypted and saved as certified PDFs. As with the cloud based system, the mobile capability includes an audit trail and also meets SSAE16 compliance.

(POV): Constellation estimates that an average customer will save at least 73 percent in contract signage times. Moreover, the native support for standards and enterprise class secure solutions enables customers to embed the solution without having to worry about security and compliance requirements.

Brings its ecosystem together to deliver on the promise of frictionless experiences. While the solution allows users to send documents for signature from any device or the native EchoSign library, the integration with Google Drive, Box, Evernote, or Acrobat.com cloud storage provides a significant advantage for customers leveraging cloud security options. Users also benefit with the ability to choose a language for the signer.

(POV): Adobe EchoSign's alliances team has done a good job bringing together a larger ecosystem to enable the promise of digital transaction management and frictionless commerce experiences. Customers can take advantage of certified integrations to Apptus, Ariba, Adobe products, Big Machines, Box, Conga Compressor, Drawloop, E-Fax, Emptoris, Exaris, IRIS, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Microsoft SharePoint, Netsuite, OneLogin, Rocket Lawyer, Salesforce.com, SAP, SciQuest, Selectica, ShareMethods, SpringCM, SugarCRM, and Xobni.

The Bottom Line

The latest Adobe EchoSign release reflects the demand for mobile first in Matrix Commerce. Customers and prospects can build out end to end processes and incorporate mobile e-signatures into the commerce journey. As a key component of the matrix commerce journey, customers can expect these friction free experiences to improve contract signing times, improve customer satisfaction, and reduce overall contract management and commerce process times. Moreover, the ability to extend the solution into the broader ecosystem should help with the campaign to commerce digital experience.

Your POV

Ready for matrix commerce? Are you looking at reducing friction through digital signatures? Do you see the mobile addition as a key enabler? Add your comments to the blog or reach me via email: R (at) ConstellationR (dot) com or R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) org.

Please let us know if you need help with your Digital Business transformation efforts. Here’s how we can assist:

Developing your digital business strategy
Building a Digital ARTISAN program
Connecting with other pioneers
Sharing best practices
Vendor selection
Implementation partner selection
Providing contract negotiations and software licensing support
Demystifying software licensing

Resources

Reprints

Reprints can be purchased through Constellation Research, Inc. To request official reprints in PDF format, please contact Sales .

Disclosure

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

* Not responsible for any factual errors or omissions. However, happy to correct any errors upon email receipt.

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

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Weekly Recap Week of September 26th

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…...

Here is my video recap of the week ending September 26th:

Looks like my Parrot Zik lead to a better sound quality. Enjoy.
[The piano in the background is our 8 year old practicing, apologies.]

Here is what I am talking about in the recap:

My takeaways form the Workday Analyst Meeting (read here)
My musings about Transboarding (read here)
My take on the Wipro Analyst summit (my colleague's Guy Courtin post will be here)
The 5 questions I would like to ask Apple (read here)
Sage acquires Paychoice (press release here)
Puppet releases new server, apps and more (press release here)
What I would like Oracle to address this Oracle OpenWorld (read here)

I forgot (sorry) the some of the news coverage of the press colleagues who talked to me:

Workforce.com - Who wants a Million Dollars? HR Tech Firms Drawing that and some - read here
Java World - Oracle CEO Larry Ellison steps down as CEO ... - read here
Stocks.org - Is Oracle ready for new clients and new objectives - read here
Gigaom.com - As Oracle's OpenWorld approaches and deck chairs shuffle, has Oracle finally figured out the cloud? Read here.

New C-Suite Future of Work Tech Optimization Next-Generation Customer Experience Revenue & Growth Effectiveness Data to Decisions Digital Safety, Privacy & Cybersecurity Innovation & Product-led Growth Openworld wipro apple workday Google amazon SAP Oracle Microsoft AI Analytics Automation CX EX Employee Experience HCM Machine Learning ML SaaS PaaS Cloud Digital Transformation Enterprise Software Enterprise IT Leadership HR IaaS Disruptive Technology Enterprise Acceleration Next Gen Apps IoT Blockchain CRM ERP CCaaS UCaaS Collaboration Enterprise Service Chief Customer Officer Chief Information Officer Chief Digital Officer Chief People Officer Chief Human Resources Officer Chief Technology Officer Chief Information Security Officer Chief Data Officer Chief Executive Officer

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What I would like Oracle to address this OpenWorld

Holger Mueller

Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

I wrote a long - covering all what Oracle does - post last year before Oracle’s OpenWorld conference - you can find it here. Re-reading it before writing this post I found it surprisingly accurate - even one year later… tempted to ‘copy & paste’ it - I will try to only look at this post from the vantage point of my research areas - Next Generation Applications and Future of Work.

Database - Oracle will have to show traction for both 12c and the new in memory options. The announcements have been done, now it’s time to show what customers are doing, what interest partners are shown and drive the roadmap further.

Cloud - We attended Oracle’s Cloud analyst briefing earlier this year (findings here) - it is now time to see what Oracle will unveil from the large NDA portion it presented at the event. Be ready for a lot of XaaS (everything as a Service) products. More importantly Thomas Kurian said back then that Oracle wants to compete with AWS and be price competitive - so it will be interesting to see what Oracle does in this area. And let’s not forget out of the more or less 19M developers out there - 11M are Java developers. Will be key for Oracle to show the way forward - maybe unveiling a PaaS.

The key questions I will be asking are - what will Oracle be doing to enable developers to build modern, next generation applications, taking millions of database, middleware and Java developers by the hand into the cloud era.

HCM - Last year we challenged Oracle in regards of traction in Fusion HCM - and they responded by hijacking my agenda with customer meetings. The result was our report here – showing more traction than we and most industry watchers expected. Now it will be key to see how Oracle has used the last 12 months to build on that. We will also be watching on what Oracle has done and plans to do in the Talent Management space, particularly on Recruiting, where Oracle is the 800 pound gorilla with Taleo, but has not innovated much. Given the retirement challenges in the workforce that even newly appointed co-CEO Mark Hurd tweets about - the Oracle story needs to be good.

The key question I will be asking are - how will Oracle keep differentiating its HCM portfolio vis a vis the competition, innovate to keep it modern and how to develop and extend an attractive value proposition to HCM buyers out there.

Ping me on twitter for more observations and question I should be paying attention for in the frenzy days of Oracle OpenWorld 2014. Oracle has only scheduled 38 events / meetings / briefings for me – so this will be ‘slow’ conference… Find out where I am and what I think by following me on Twitter - @holgermu .

---------

Also worth a look for the full picture

Is it all coming together for Oracle in 2014? Read here.
From the fences - Oracle AR Meeting takeaways - read here (this was the last analyst meeting in spring 2013)
Takeaways from Oracle CloudWorld LA - read here (this was one of the first cloud world events overall, in January 2013)

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

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

Lastly - paying tribute to my Future of Work / HCM / SaaS research area:

Oracle pushes modern HR - there is more than technology - read here. (Takeaways from the recent HCMWorld conference).
Why Applications Unlimited is good a good strategy for Oracle customers and Oracle - read here.

Find more coverage on the Constellation Research website here.

Future of Work Tech Optimization Data to Decisions Innovation & Product-led Growth New C-Suite Marketing Transformation Next-Generation Customer Experience Digital Safety, Privacy & Cybersecurity Openworld ADP SuccessFactors workday Google amazon SAP Oracle 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 Chief Information Officer Chief Technology Officer Chief Customer Officer Chief Human Resources Officer Chief Information Security Officer Chief Data Officer

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5 pillars of emerging technology at Wipro – creative disruption

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…...

This week I had the privilege of attending the Wipro analyst day in Boston. A large number of industry analysts and influencers were in attendance – it is always good to see old friends at these events.

The day had the usual rhythm: general presentations in the morning followed by the speed dating process of meeting with individual members of the Wipro leadership team. One of these sessions that piqued my interest was a 1 on 1 with KR Sanjiv, Wipro’s Chief Technology Officer out of Bangalore. We discussed the emerging technologies he is focusing on for the next 2-5 years. Always a fun topic.

He gave us 5 key categories:

Cognitive
Smart Machines
Man – Machine interface
Robotics
Next Generation Architecture

What struck me the most were the middle three. Why? From my perspective these are part of a wave of digital disruption that is beginning to form in our supply chains – whether it be retail, CPG, industrial, life sciences, aerospace to name a few.

Smart Machines is really about the movement towards greater intelligence and analytics within machines. In particular wearables. I wrote a post recently that looked at this trend in supply chain management. Click here for post. There is an increasing segment of companies like Unvired from the software side and Motorola from the hardware side that are tackling the need for greater intelligence in wearable technologies that reduce friction in the supply chain. Think enhanced capabilities for pick packers in the warehouse or more decision making power for floor managers on the manufacturing floor. Wipro was showing off a device that is used to for personal health monitoring – think about how much flexibility and reach this gives health care providers. As well as the data it provides to ensure better monitoring and anticipating needs (similar to a retailer anticipating a consumers’ demand for a product).

Man – Machine interface – think of this as how we have evolved in our interactions with machines. The example we discussed was how Tom Cruise manipulates files in the movie “Minority Report.” Of course that was a movie, but the work done in this space will have a deep impact. Currently our interaction with machines, and the information they contain, is via a keyboard. More recently we have added touch screens. But this is still a flat method of interactions. When it comes to the real world…items have three dimensions. In addition to the ever growing mountains of data and information we produce and look to leverage to run our businesses and supply chains. As Mr Sanjiv stated “The new generation wants more intuitive and ‘human’ interfaces rather than the click and touch.” The amount of data that is needed to manage today’s supply chains only continues to expand – and seeing the information on a traditional screen isn’t optimized for the needs of today’s users.

Robotics is just what it sounds like. Using machines to fill in some needs gaps that humans are not capable or are not as efficient at doing as a robot. KR spoke at length about the usage of drones or even smarter robots to do jobs such as clearing sludge out of hard to reach pipes. Of course these are not ideas that other companies are not already exploring – think iRobot or Amazon with their drone project. Even DHL has announced using drones to deliver medicine to hard to reach islands in the North Sea – click here for story. Right now much of the talk of robotics is constrained to such areas test drones for delivery, using robots in utilities to fix infrastructure or companies like Kiva that are building robots to manage part of warehouses. However there is not question that robotics will have a important role to play in reducing the friction that is encountered in commerce and supply chain.

Overall a good day spent with some sharp folks from Wipro. The discussion of the pillars of emerging technology parallel much of what we are observing when it comes to addressing new disruptions and reducing friction points that are in Matrix Commerce. I will be interested to observe how Wipro’s work in these spaces come to fruition.

Matrix Commerce Innovation & Product-led Growth Event Report wipro Executive Events Chief Supply Chain Officer

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Microsoft Begins Bridging The Worlds Of Email and Social Networking

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…...

Today Microsoft announced that the group functionality commonly found in social networking tools will now be available right inside the Office 365 Outlook client. As seen below, people can access their normal email Inbox and folders as they always have, but now below that they can navigate to the groups they are part of. A group is a place where people can share messages, files and take advantage of a group calendar.

Now you may be thinking: "Conversations, files and calendars... are those features all available today?" Well, yes all those features are but they are spread out across multiple tools making it difficult for people to use. Think back to a few years ago when Microsoft's attempt at collaboration was focused around their on-premises Sharepoint platform. Common industry opinion was that Sharepoint's activity feed, document libraries and Teamsites lagged far behind pure cloud-centric collaboration players such as Yammer, Jive and Box. Fast forward to today and Yammer is owned by Microsoft, SharePoint, Outlook and Office have strong web-based offerings (bundled as Office 365) and OneDrive is a very robust enterprise file-sharing option. So all the pieces are there, but choosing which tool to use and when can be confusing to the average person. But by blending email and enterprise social networking inside a single client, Microsoft could be taking a significant step in helping improve the adoption of enterprise social networking for Microsoft customers.

It's important to note however, this is not the integration of Yammer within Outlook. The new Office 365 Groups are not mirror images of the groups that currently exist in Yammer. For example, if you're the member of the Marketing group in Yammer, that group will not automatically appear in Office 365. You will need to create a new group and then add the members. When you start using this new Office 365 group, the messages will not be cross posted to Yammer nor vice versa. So why was Yammer not simply integrated? My assumption is that Microsoft has learned a lot from Yammer, but coding similar functionality using the Microsoft stack will provide them a better long term solution than trying to integrate Yammer across the rest of Office. For example, Office 365 Groups are planned to be rolled into other products such as Lync.

Once the core functionality of Yammer is natively part of the Microsoft platform, I can see the Yammer name being depreciated. While early adopters and those of us in the social networking echo chamber may morn the removal of the name, for the majority of customers the simplification could be a welcome change. Don't believe me? Look how little Microsoft emphasises the name Sharepoint now. By focusing on Office 365, Microsoft can remove the complication of SharePoint vs. Yammer, Teamsites vs. Office 365 Groups, Yammer groups for Office 365 Groups, Exchange Distribution Lists vs. Office 365 groups, Document Libraries vs. OneDrive, etc.

Ideally Microsoft will make migration tools available to help move customers to a single common set of tools. Until then, this gap provides a great opportunity for business partners.

Kudos to Microsoft for taking this step in bridging email and social networking. I look forward to hearing customer stories about how people now click on a group name and post a message instead of sending an email.

Future of Work Microsoft Chief People Officer Chief Information Officer

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5 Questions for Apple - Why good product development practices matter

Holger Mueller

Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

I have been looking at the challenges that Apple has been facing with its iPhone since quite a while. And to go on record before that - the iPhone has transformed the smartphone industry, just this week Sony indicated it will quit making smartphones, Nokia is challenged in any aspect despite Microsoft as a backer and Blackberry, well let’s not even start there….

So what are the key events of concern that prompted this post around the iPhone? Here are a few:

Antenna-gate - Remember how iPhone users were able to short circuit the antenna and weaken or even loose signal.
Hardware issues - Let’s take the recent ‘bending’ issues as latest exhibit. [Update 9/25/14 - Saw the email Apple sent to customers with iPhone6 orders - looks like Apple is doing extensive 'Sit tests'.]
Battery issues - Through many iOS upgrades users have experienced reduced battery time.
Design Flaws in iCloud - I personally experienced a few years ago what many iOS 8.0.1 users are experiencing now. My iPhone 4s became unstable – I could not even send text messages without the phone crashing (which for the non-Apple users is the sudden, reset to the home screen). After many installs and help from the geniuses at Apple stores on two continents it was clear - iCloud does not separate code from user data, much to my surprise. So local backup, clean install on new iPhone, then get data back (pictures) was the solution then.
Software issues - Well everyone remembers the Apple Maps debut.
Security issues - Just google ….

So with that as a background – here are my 5 questions for Apple’s product leaders:

How does Apple decide on Go / No Go for a new iPhone?
As with all engineering projects there must be certain Go / No Go dates for a new product. Kudos to CEO Tim Cook to go on record that the Apple Maps application was released to soon. The question is, what has Apple learnt since then and why does it have to ask users roll back an OS update now? It doesn't look like lessons were learned at the moment.
How does Apple slot key capabilities?
Operating systems get released in major chunks that uptake capabilities and then see smaller additions and many fixes over time. The insight from the iOS 8.0.1 pull back is that it contained the ‘on’ switch for the health features of iOS 8. Downgrading to iOS 8 disables them. The engineering question is – why were these broad and basic capabilities not part of iOS 8 – but part of the typical ‘fix’ release afterwards. How much testing of these can / could Apple have done with these key features only going live with 8.0.1.? Mixing fixes and core features (like the health features) is seldom a good idea.
How does Apple do basic hardware testing?
Given the past antenna issue and the bending, Apple should address this area. And while the antenna issue was more random (but should still have been caught before release) – any bending of the phone is an easier to catch potential flaw. 100s of millions of smartphone users sit down every day – phone in the trousers’ back pockets.
When will Apple fix iCloud?
As many iPhone users right now – and in the past (like me, see above) have experienced – the iCloud architecture of storing a user’s apps code and data together is fundamentally flawed. Violates one of the fundamental principles of software engineering. As when the code breaks, you don’t want to lose the data. That only a local backup helps you to roll back any software (not just an OS) upgrade is not 21st century and a huge hassle. Apple users pay decent money for iCloud – it should not only be secure (sic!) but also embody basic computing principles.
How does Apple design, develop and test OS and Apple application code?
It would be good if Apple could share how it designs, develops and then tests both operating system and applications releases. At some point Apple prided itself on how it empowered single developers with single features – not sure if that is still the predominant software development approach today. But that approach can be a recipe for disaster, no need to elaborate. And how does Apple potentially automate the testing? The fix to tie iOS 8.0.1. issues is supposed to come out anytime soon - but what precautions and automation of test coverage does Apple have to make sure no new unwelcome side effects come up?

MyPOV

Building software is hard. And you don’t get rewarded if you get 99.9% right – as customers expect 100% these days. That number will not come down but will only go up. But the series of events of Apple beg the question, how Apple does quality control and beyond (like Go / No Go decisions for new products or how it creates code). It’s also a marketing and communication challenge – if Apple e.g. would have shown that the iPhone6 bends – but it’s ok afterwards – it could have been a feature.

A lot has been written about the consumerization of IT – but at this point it looks like Apple could potentially use some good traditional IT and enterprise software best practice advice, depending how it answers the above (and more) questions.

[Disclaimer – I don’t cover Mobile, so my esteemed colleagues who cover the space may forgive the foray in their turf and potential inaccuracies – but the recent events with iPhone6 and iOS 8.x at Apple, would cause some serious conversations at a number of enterprise software vendors, if similar things happened there.
And I finally I have written a blog post that all my family and friends are interested in reading and talking about – even my 8 year took note! But then – what’s wrong with the world that 8 year olds know about flawed Apple iOS releases???]

New C-Suite Future of Work Next-Generation Customer Experience Innovation & Product-led Growth Tech Optimization android apple Google amazon Microsoft Chief Customer Officer Chief Information Officer Chief Digital Officer

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Progress Report - Workday supports more cloud standards - but work remains

Holger Mueller

Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

We were invited to the yearly Workday Technology Summit in the beautiful Golden Gate Club in the San Francisco Presidio. More than 20 analysts and influencers spent a full day with Workday executives getting briefed on the latest and greatest of where Workday is today and where it plans to go.

Again another event where it was hard to pick the top 3 takeaways - but here is my attempt to it:

More Standards for Cloud Infrastructure - One of the key concerns we hear from end users, usually the technical side of any due diligence on Workday selections, are questions about the viability and scalability of the Workday technology stack. Everybody understands that at the time Workday started off, there were no ‘off the shelf’ options to build a modern cloud infrastructure, nor were there any public or private cloud vendors and technologies of record. But the concern today is how Workday can support and scale (more from a human than technical perspective) their in house developed technology. So it was great news already at Tech Summit in 2013 to see OpenStack being discussed, and 12 months later we learnt much more on the progress on the topic from David Clarke: Workday is actively working with OpenStack (RedHat distribution) and plans to have 5 customers live in production on OpenStack by early 2015. In the meantime Workday is running development and test systems both on Amazon’s AWS and HP Cloud (Helion?). The ability to run development and test systems on standard IaaS vendor’s clouds like AWS and HP and the support of ‘approved’ cloud technologies like OpenStack will be a key confidence building point working for Workday with both CTOs and CIOs. Push comes to shove, Workday could technically - not that the vendor gave any indication this is a desired deployment scenario soon - deploy on a private cloud. But a good capability to have in your back pocket, given competitors like Oracle and Infor offering this option.

On top of that Workday is doing all the important and good housekeeping duties for its cloud infrastructure, while customers are live and not disrupted. For instance Workday was able to change the complete storage sub system in the course of the last 12 months. Being able to do this ‘in flight’ is a major achievement for Workday.

Lastly it is good to see that the team around Clarke is undertaking disaster preparedness sessions around disaster recovery on the management side and implementing AWS like availability zone model across their currently 4 data centers.

Screenshot from Clarke's presentation

Payroll - Workday reconfirmed the 2015 (UK) and 2016 (France) delivery dates for its additions of payrolls to their existing US and Canadian ones. Beyond that scope the vendor is convinced it will be able to partner with local payroll vendors going forward. Workday has the capability for bi-directional payroll integration and thinks that this provides its customers enough visibility in payroll matters. And finally Workday is undertaking scalability testing of its payroll, with good results. It will be interesting to see, if Workday will be able to stay course of 4 payrolls and then partner payroll strategy in the years to come.

Korngiebel's SmartWatch Demo for T&E

User Interface - We got an in depth demo about the progress Workday has made on the UI side in the last 12 months. And indeed the team has done a lot of work, starting with a brand new Android native client, more adaptive design brought to more products and clients, new functionality like e.g. Job Change brought to the iPhone client, new PIN login, the W-Drive and more, all very good progress and housekeeping on the new UI Workday that just rolled out earlier this year.

On the innovation side Joe Korngiebel was the first UI design lead to show a smartwatch demo in an expense approval scenario. In general the Workday UIs look clean and easy to use, but in these fast paced times for UI innovation we think Workday will probably need a next generation facelift in the next 12 months to keep up with the latest we are seeing from Workday competitors. Moving to a flat design as Korngiebel announced will be a good first step. More is likely to come later this year.

TidBits

Finance & HR, better together – The day started with Betsy Bland and Leighanne Levensaler giving an update on where respectively Finance and HR stand. They both provided a number of integration benefits that customers and prospects should pay attention at. I am not sure if these synergies are strong enough yet to almost default the attach rate of Finance to HR installs, but it is good to see Workday working on suite level benefits.

Learning - I asked Workday CEO Aneel Bhusri on the strategy in regards of Learning, the last functional piece missing for Workday to complete the Talent Management suite of products - and he confirmed that the approach - for now - is to partner.

MyPOV

Workday is solidly executing on its roadmap and delivering what it has promised to customers. Two key performance factors that are key for SaaS vendors who have to earn the trust from their customers’ day in and day out. It is also evident that the Workday technical teams can implement necessary housekeeping items and innovations while customers are operational, a key capability for any SaaS vendor.

From the executive Q&A at the end of the day it was clear, that Workday’s Bhusri is focusing the vendor on promises made and getting the Finance product to the maturation Workday wants (and needs) it to get to. It seemed like that when that point is reached, Workday will revisit its agenda in regards of further functional roadmap items, vertical extensions, even potentially dabbling into PaaS (Bhusri said it would be with a lower case ‘P’).

A lot of hoopla was made around the impression the analyst community had, that Workday now wants to be more than the system of record, but a system of engagement. Not sure where Workday will take this topic down the road - but certainly making HCM applications more engaging for its users is desirable. However, engaging enterprise software doesn’t make that software the system of engagement - so we will have to check back in on that topic, hopefully soon.

For existing customers it is good to see, that Workday is making progress and is far from resting on its laurels as the category leader for cloud HCM. More cloud deployments options - though not available for customers right now - are a key confidence and investment security aspect for Workday.

For prospects, Workday is and remains a key vendor to evaluate and likely to shortlist.

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HP attempts to merge with EMC – Have most legacy IT vendors run out of ideas?

Founder, capioIT
calitolIT

Phil is the founder of capioIT, a research analyst firm focussed on driving change in the analyst and research market through innovation and collaboration, with a strong focus on IT services and BPO strategies in the Asia/Pacific region. He has 17 years' experience in corporate strategy, consulting and market intelligence, gained in a diverse range of organisations and industries. Prior to founding capioIT, he established the Australian and Services business units at Springboard Research. Prior to Springboard Research, Phil was responsible for driving analyst firm IDC's research in the services marketplace across the Asia/Pacific region. During his 6 years at IDC, Phil led a large multi-national team of analysts across a range of IT related services with a particular focus on IT…...

EMC was a very successful vendor in redefining the storage space, but its business is being impacted on all angles from changing buying patterns, competitive shifts, Infrastructure as a Service, price pressure and of course an internal inability to shift the business model quickly.

Cut to the core and EMC has publicly been considering its long term future financial position. It has one piece of gold, in the form of the 80% of VMware that it owns. The fact that VMware is the redeeming feature of EMC speaks to the failure of EMC to continue to transform in front of the market rather than reacting to change. (One of the major takeaways for capioIT at EMC World was that EMC was following the market in reaction mode, rather than making things happen out in front through innovation).

The EMC scenario is reflected at HP, albeit in the case of HP, the breadth of the business means that the scale of the challenge is even larger. Furthermore, the legacy of the executive dysfunction prior to Meg Whitman taking over as CEO and Chairman has had a massive negative impact.

For EMC, along cames HP, still not burnt from the failed acquisitions of EDS and Autonomy, willing to merge/acquire EMC. Put simply if this happens, it has every indication of adding to the mess of $19B in write-downs that HP has undertaken in recent years.

It is the marriage of two vendors who are struggling to find their identity in a nimble, evolving world. The rationale for two already cumbersome vendors forming a much larger entity with the ability to be flexible, reactive to customer evolution and part of the new order of technology is difficult to identify.

There are so many implications of this. Front and centre, the impact on Cisco, VMware and the VCE enterprise is worth scrutinising. Cisco and EMC always have had a degree of competitive tension in their relationship and it would not surprise that in the longer term Cisco looks to EMC as more competitor than deep partner and increases the enhanced relationship with NetApp amongst others.

The other investment option for EMC is to invest in analytics providers such as Qlik, Tableau et al particularly in alignment with Pivotal. This would solve some of the problems for the future but cannot create the revenues of the storage business in the long term. In addition the potential integration issues and the ability to keep the real IP of these companies, the developers, within EMC does not have a clear resolution. If EMC were to do anything in the analytics space, it would have to be as part of Pivotal. The challenge is that Pivotal has reinforced an agnostic approach to the platform of choice for the user of analytics.

The challenges that HP and EMC face, and the risk that they are willing to make in order to maintain relevance highlights how difficult it is to be a legacy vendor. The transformation required to stand still is at such a level that very few will survive, whether they are a hardware, software or services based legacy vendor. Consider that the biggest challenges for these vendors’ revenue streams are yet to come. The shift to a subscription model for the procurement of technology has only just begun. So far in broad terms revenue and earnings have held up, but long term options are increasingly difficult.

The vendors who are comparatively successfully transitioning to the new technology environment have to be measured on potential rather than execution, but IBM and Microsoft have made tough decisions and embraced changing business models to be in a better place in late 2014 than they were at the beginning of the year. Cisco and Oracle are in the balance, but it is hard to argue that HP, Dell, EMC and Fujitsu are in a better position now than at the beginning of 2014 in light of a rapidly changing future.

Focus Point – A merger of HP and EMC may have been a great idea in 2004, but in 2014, it just reinforces the view that most of the legacy vendors have simply run out of ideas to execute a long term future around.

Tech Optimization tableau HP Chief Information Officer

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HP attempts to merge with EMC – Have most legacy IT vendors run out of ideas?