Rimini Street Reports Record Results

Constellation Research

J. Bruce Daley is a former vice president and principal analyst at Constellation Research, Inc.  , Title: Big Ideas Age Before Beauty Before there can be a wholesale conversion to the Cloud legacy applications must be converted. This will take decades and not every vendor has taken this obstacle into account when projecting growth. Professional Services Firms Need a Recurring Revenue Model The services business has a lot of advantages but one big disadvantage in that you are always going out of business. Some organizations are using the Cloud to offer clients new ways to spend money than just time-and-materials or fixed price projects. ...

Read more

Rimini Street,  the privately held third-party maintenance and support provider for Siebel and other Oracle and SAP software products announced record results for its third fiscal quarter ended September 30, 2013.

The company closed the largest deal in its history. Rimini Street also invoiced $15.4 million in the second quarter, a 40% increase and recognized revenue of $15.8 million, also a 40% increase over a year ago.  Deferred revenue also increased to $46.5 million. The company also signed up new customers, 33 new clients and completed deals in all application product line and in each global region, including North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia-Pacific.

From a financial perspective what is so attractive about these numbers is the company's recurring revenue model. If the company were to shut down all sales and marketing efforts and never sign another contract it would still be in business in 2025 - the same year Julianne Moore, Greta Scacchi, and Mark Madden all start collecting social security.

“Rimini Street continues to execute against its business plan,”  said Seth Ravin, Rimini Street CEO.

The company currently supports client operations in more than 72 countries. Rimini Street has 350 employees working in the Americas, Europe, and Asia. The company is continuing to hire people including managers and Siebel folks. The company is also looking for partners.  

JiveWorld 2013 Less Preachy More Practical

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…...

Read more

Today at the 5th annual JiveWorld conference in Las Vegas, in front of approximately 1600 attendees, Jive Software announced their upcoming Fall Cloud release, Jive 7. Here are my high level thoughts on the event and today'€™s announcements.

- I much prefer JiveWorld's new slogan "Get Real" over previous "€œnew way to work" style messaging. Rather than continuing to preaching about how organizations should dramatically change the way people work, "Get Real" reflects how social business has matured beyond simple sharing to what I refer to as purposeful collaboration.

- Jive has focused on delivering incremental enhancements that improve the way employees can use Jive to get their jobs done. While features like better task management, integrated instant messaging, improved profiles and directory are not necessarily innovative (and in many places catchup), they do all contribute to enhancing the platform in ways that new customers and prospects will appreciate. 

- Integration is the key to success. The integration with Google'€™s products is a smart move, as the mid-size market is filled with Google Apps for Business customers who are looking for additional social capabilities that Google has not yet fully delivered. If Jive can win over these customers now, it could prevent them from looking at similar offerings from Google (like Google+ and Hangouts), Microsoft (SharePoint, Yammer) and other collaboration vendors.  Similarly, Jive (via some of their own development + the acquisition of StreamOnce) provide very good integration with popular cloud based tools like Evernote, Box, Marketo, Salesforce.com and more. These integrations mean people can spend more time getting their work done in Jive versus switching back and forth between multiple tools.

Below I provide my point of view (MyPOV) on some of the specific product announcements.

> "Portals Redefined"

MyPOV: I'm glad to see Jive embrace (vs shy away from) the term portal, a word which some people may view as old and out of style. While "Social Intranet"€ may be more buzzword compliant, a portal, or window into something, is exactly what Jive is, as it provides an interface in which people can find and interact with people and content contained both within Jive as well as several other cloud services.

> "Full integration of Producteev's (which Jive acquired Nov 5, 2012) Social Task Management software."

MyPOV: As the use of social tools increases so to does the overload of information and challenge in trying to find what needs your attention. Social Task Management is a simply way of organizing the tasks and projects people are working on. Now rather than just having conversations, people can assign tasks to posts, files, blogs and other content within Jive. The integration of Producteev directly into Jive’s native features is a very welcome addition.

> "With Impact Metrics, executives and information workers can view how their internal blogs and strategy documents have been received, including sentiment analysis, readers, whether the message has gotten through to the targeted departments, and who's actions have driven the distribution and improved message reach."

MyPOV: This is one of the announcements I’m the most excited about. For years I’ve been lecturing on "Don'€™t forget the ME in social media."  What I mean by that is, it's important for a collaboration tool to show people the impact and reach of their own content. Have you ever wondered presentations you posted were used the most, or which questions you answered reach the most people?  Now with Impact Metrics people will start to be able to answer those questions and more.  While “big data” gets a lot of attention these days, it’s "small data” or the information specifically relevant to me that I think is more important. As this feature becomes more robust, I hope it goes beyond just providing statistics and offers suggestions and guidance on the types of content you should (and shouldn’t) work on, when your work is most effective, and which people or groups you should spend your time working with.

> "Real-time communications - employees can initiate 1:1 or group real time conversations"

MyPOV: Real time conversations provides an alternative to email and social networking posts or private messages. However, some guidance should be provided to employees as to when each type of message is appropriate. The ability to see online status and initiate chats provides Jive with similar communication features available in the collaboration platforms from IBM, Microsoft, Salesforce, Podio, Atlassian, Cisco and others. This feature is a result of last year’s acquisition of meetings.io, so expect this is just the start and we’ll see more unified communications features like screensharing and video conferencing coming soon.

> "Get relevant profiles and Jive conversations from within Gmail, including the ability to comment, interact and create new Jive discussions from existing emails."

MyPOV: Email clients are still one of the most important business tools people use, so providing access to Jive from inside them is an excellent move. Now customers using Google Apps (Gmail) can create, share and engage with Jive content without having to switch away from their inbox to a separate browser window. This seamless experience makes working with email and/or Jive content much easier for people. This integration provides Jive customers using Google Apps (Gmail) with similar functionality to that available to their customers who use Microsoft Outlook. 

> "Similar to the deep integration with Box for file storage, people can now access Google Drive directly from Jive."

MyPOV: Similar to my comments above about Gmail, Google Drive is a widely adopted cloud based file storage service so this will be a welcome addition for many customers. Now that Jive supports both Box and GDrive files, Jive can act as a single front end to both services, simplifying the experience for people who access files stored on both platforms. Customers who need more integration for file-sharing should look at services like http://www.jolicloud.com , http://otixo.com or https://www.cloudhq.net. 

> "Modernized corporate directory - People can now endorse colleagues’ skills, when creating new groups or projects, Jive auto-suggests colleagues that match the needed talents."

MyPOV: Expertise Location has long been the one of the Holy Grails of social business marketing. In the first generation of products people could update their own profiles with the skills, experiences and interests. Now rather than relying on individuals to saying what they themselves are good at, their peers are able to provide their opinions in the form of endorsements.  This is very similar to the way LinkedIn now allows people to endorse the skills of their connections.  While peer endorsements are a step up from self generated profiles, they still don’t require validation to prove that a person really has the skills people say they do. What is needed is a system that automatically generates skills and expertise based on “what you really do” not what you or even your peers say you do. For example, if you often blog about solar panels or wind turbines, the system should update your profile to indicate you’re an expert on alternate energy.


Final Thoughts and Recommendations 

- Jive has done a good job at leveraging their experience and head-start in the market to:
a) Deliver a platform that will allow customers to combine best of breed cloud-based solutions from Jive, Box, Google, Okta, Marketo and many others. This is a very timely as many organizations are at a transition point where they are moving away from on-premises solutions to embrace hosted offerings. Keeping their mind-share a leading edge cloud provider is critical to their growth.
b) Provide guidance on best practices that will help with successful implementations. As organizations begin to use social software for more critical business functions than just status updates and file sharing, they will look to Jive for help. Creating a professional services team is an expensive and difficult business, so this is a great opportunity for Jive’s partners.
c) Attract a partner eco-system that can add additional functionality and fill in the gaps in the features that Jive does not deliver themselves. The partner showcase this year was filled with tools that provide integration with other systems, compliance and auditing, gamification and more.

- Jive is at an interesting inflection point. They have grown the size of their company, their customer base and their partner ecosystem but the competition in the market has dramatically increased. With software giants like IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, Salesforce, Citrix, Cisco and others all now offer collaboration platforms Jive will need to remain nimble and prove that they can stay ahead of the competition or integrate with them in significant enough ways that they still provide additional value.

- From both a functionality and user experience perspective Jive is clearly one of the leading collaboration software vendors. They offer all the standard collaboration tools people expect, have one of the more advanced activity streams, excellent integration with other products, robust profiles and directory, very useful analytics capabilities, feature rich mobile clients and more. Customers interested in improving the way their employees work together and the ability for customers to engage with their brand should certainly have Jive on their short list of vendors.
 

What to Expect at Connected Enterprise: Being A CIO in Silicon Valley Panel

Sure, life's great at the top, but did you ever wonder what it's like to be a CIO in Silicon Valley--a region known for it's technological brain trust and early adopter approach to technology? With the CIO role changing due to business priorities and disruptive technologies, the modern CIO has his or her hands full just adapting to these changes. Add in Silicon Valley's infamous brain power and the expectation that new technologies will be rapidly adopted, and you're dealing with a whole new high-pressure animal. Join us at Constellation's Connected Enterprise as CIOs from HP, VMWare, Box, and Tesla share their insights --the good, the bad, and the ugly of being a CIO at the epicenter of innovation. 

Being A CIO in Silicon Valley Panel - What happens when everyone thinks they are an expert

October 31, 2013 2:30p.m.-3:00p.m. PT

Moderator: Justin Fox, Executive Editor, New York, Harvard Business Review
Ramon Baez, SVP and CIO, HP
Paul Chapman , VP of Information Technology, VMWare
Ben Haines, VP IT/Chief Information Officer, Box
Jay Vijayan, CIO, Tesla Motors

There's still time to register for Connected Enterprise --emerge with new ideas and a fresh perspective! Register now: http://connectedenterprise.ontrackevents.com/home.cfm

Why NetSuite acquired TribeHR?

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…...

Read more

Earlier this week NetSuite announced that it has entered a definitive agreement to acquire TribeHR, the Canadian partner that prides themselves to be one of the first social HR vendors, having been founded in 2009 - in the midst of the social boom, thus building their product on a social foundation.  

Did anyone mention HCM is hot?

We may be biased - but it definitively looks like companies really start paying attention at their largest expense - people... and as the the long labelled war for talent seems to be starting slowly but steady, that trend does not stop with the SMB companies. 

Coincidentally SMB companies are even more dependent on their key talent than larger companies, but have in the past (usually) not been a part of the whole Talent Management hype. Now they realize that their employees are prone to the pitches of the larger enterprises and SMBs need to react with HCM strategy, practice and technology products. 

So the need for talent acquisition and retention is coming to SMB, and with a force as we can see with the pivots that the SMB-Suite SaaS market leader is maneuvering through. In May it was a partner a let all flowers bloom strategy with many partners and offering customers choice (see here), that was complemented with the Oracle partnership in June (our take here) and now the acquisition of one of the more advanced partners from May - with TribeHR.

Why TribeHR?

We gave NetSuite good grades for the original partner strategy announced back at SuiteWorld - but raised the concern that offering multiple user interfaces is not a user - in this case you may want to say people - friendly situation. Many HCM functions happen so infrequently that plodding along a familiar user interface is a great win. And TribeHR addressed that more than some other partners with building code and product on the NetSuite platform...

And then TribeHR certainly was one of the larger and more mature vendors in the partnership portfolio - potentially only ecclipsed by Silkroad - but not sure if Silkroad was even open to an acquisition conversation... and certainly has a different path to HCM than TribeHR had. 

And kudos go to TribeHR to have consistently leveraged social - as LinkedIn and Facebook capabilities permeate the product.

HCM @ NetSuite

So NetSuite now has a pretty good HCM suite and is definitively a contender in the big race we described here - it has good core HR functionality, a relatively new (but key) recruiting product and solid performance management. That completes well with NetSuite's existing (basic) time management and more as part of the the Employee Resource Management module (expenses, purchases, collaboration), Incentive Compensation and the Payroll Services option. 

What's missing - and we will see how NetSuite will address this - is onboarding, learning and compensation - not all the way on the top for a SMB - but arguably with the rest of HCM automation being addressed - will get equally important - probably sooner than NetSuite thinks today - and we will see how quickly they will respond.

And of course Payroll remains a major pain point, especially for SMBs and while NetSuite covers the US well and partners further with e.g. Paychex on the international side, this is likewise an area to watch. And finally we think NetSuite needs to keep investing into recruiting - for the aforementioned reasons why HCM gets so relevant for SMBs - all about the acquisition and retention of talent.  

Confusion in the ecosystem on HCM strategy?

The pivots that NetSuite has been doing with its HCM strategy - though the company will not call them like that - are substantial and the company needs to clarify messaging with both customer and partners. Our take in June was that the Oracle partnership addressed the global HR and talent needs the partners could not address - and while TribeHR is not an Oracle Fusion HCM - it certainly gives NetSuite more automation in that area. 

And then NetSuite will have to stick to the strategy and execute - nothing creates confidence better with prospects, customers and partners to execute and deliver to a roadmap.

MyPOV

As mentioned - HCM is key for SMB, too. Kudos go to NetSuite to quickly and aggressively address that need and not be shy to pivot as needed. It is getting a good asset and a talented team with the TribeHR acquisition. 

Now it will be time time execute, create a road map, address the remaining gaps in the HCM portfolio, clarify the partner go to market. Exciting times and ultimately good news for the NetSuite customers. 

2013 (C) Holger Mueller - All Rights Reserved

Veeva Systems Goes Public

Constellation Research

J. Bruce Daley is a former vice president and principal analyst at Constellation Research, Inc.  , Title: Big Ideas Age Before Beauty Before there can be a wholesale conversion to the Cloud legacy applications must be converted. This will take decades and not every vendor has taken this obstacle into account when projecting growth. Professional Services Firms Need a Recurring Revenue Model The services business has a lot of advantages but one big disadvantage in that you are always going out of business. Some organizations are using the Cloud to offer clients new ways to spend money than just time-and-materials or fixed price projects. ...

Read more

A company whose founders include Siebel Systems alumni Matt Wallach and Mark Armenante has gone public. Veeva Systems (NYSE: VEEV), a cloud based software solution for life sciences, has made an initial public offering of 13,045,000 shares at $20 per share.

The price of the stock quickly went from $20 to $49 - a 245% rise - making Veeva one of the hottest IPO's of the year. The company's valuation is currently around $5.25 billion and the P/E ratio is 104 - meaning at the current rate of profitability investors would be paid back in the year 2114.

Founded in 2007 on the premise that industry-specific business problems would best be addressed by industry-specific, cloud-based solutions, Veeva believes this approach is particularly relevant to global, complex and heavily regulated industries. So Veeva sells software- as-a-services (SaaS) that enables pharmaceutical and other life sciences companies to use the cloud-based architectures and mobile applications with life science specific functionality and regulatory compliance. 

Although there are some common business processes within life sciences companies that horizontal cloud-based solutions have been able to address, (such as payroll and expense management), the health sciences industry has som industry-specific needs such as new drug submissions, quality management, regulated marketing, and non cash sales.

As a result, before Veeva was founded, life sciences companies were largely unable to implement cloud based solutions. The company's products include: 

Veeva CRM  a customer relationship management solution for sales representatives customized with industry-specific functions such as drug sample tracking with electronic signature capture, healthcare affiliations management, and the ability to conduct interactive demonstrations with physicians on a mobile device, with or without an internet connection.

Veeva Vault a regulated content management solution, that manages the collection, management and organization of  documents required for clinical trials that can manage complex versioning, workflows and approvals for promotional materials in compliance with government regulations.

Veeva Network a recently announced customer master solution that enables the creation and maintenance of the healthcare provider and organization master data.

Veeva utilizes a multi-tenant architecture which allows the company to rapidly deliver new functionality to all customers simultaneously and enabling customers to benefit from innovations and comply with frequently changing regulations more quickly because all customers are using the same version of the product.A multi-tenant architecture is one that allows multiple customers to use the same hardware and software infrastructure while keeping each customer’s data logically separated.

In addition, the company's global employee base, including our professional services team, gives it insights into industry best practices that can be more quickly incorporated into the Veeva solution. In addition, we believe that the the data generated from their applications can provide unique insights about the industry.

As of July, Veeva had 593 employees, including approximately 190 employees located outside North America, primarily in Europe, Japan and China. Veeva solutions are designed to enable compliance with global regulatory requirements and are available in 27 languages. For its fiscal year ended January 31, 2013, international revenues constituted over one-third of its total revenues.

As of August the company had 170 life sciences customers, including 33 of the 50 largest global pharmaceutical companies. Veeva has been implemented in over 75 countries, ranging from deployments within a single division o to major deployments at some of the largest global pharmaceutical companies. Customers include Bayer Healthcare AG, Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH, Eli Lilly and Company, Gilead Sciences, Inc., Merck & Co., Inc. and Novartis International AG.

In fiscal year 2013, total revenues were $129.5 million representing year-over-year growth of 111%.  The company is profitable and generated net income of $18.8 million for the last fiscal year.

The company is actively recruiting partners and hiring. A good contact on the hiring side is Kelly Abraham, senior recruiter. On the partnership side Melanie Watkins Director, Software Alliances at Veeva Systems is a good contact.

My Top 3 Takeaways from the SAP TechEd keynote

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…...

Read more

Today was the opening keynote of TechEd 2013 and despite some nothing new pre-leaks - there were some substantial announcements and takeaways - I will concentrate on my top three takeaways - probably more later during the week.
 

It is a little more than a 100 days since Vishal Sikka has taken over the reins of all product development - and he is wasting no time to get things done, even if this is hard and potentially unpopular decisions.
 

Takeaway #1 - SAP's to be landscape becomes clear

This is the first time I have heard an SAP executive publicly acknowledging the littered system landscape that SAP has accumulated through the years both internally and through acquisition - nothing says it better than the picture Sikka drew during the keynote:
 

Name your systems - it is a lot of parallel and redundant code and functionality - so let's look at the SAP to-be architecture:
 

So not surprisingly we will see the following in the near and far future from SAP:
 

• Of course HANA is the database of choice here - no surprise. Already today HANA has database services, application services are newer and application libraries are the future. It will be interesting to see what they will be, when they ship and if they are available and ready to be consumed by customers and / or partners.

• And HANA Cloud Platform (HCP) is the basis for building new applications - and will not only be used to build completely new applications as a separate tech stack (on the left as the illustration implies) but also complement and permeate in the tech stacks of the existing apps (the ones painted in black). This is where the (very) hard work will have to happen for SAP and for probably a (very) long time. Definitively the area to watch for existing clients. 

• More surprising was that the Fiori paradigm was also chosen as the UI paradigm going forward. And while Fiori is a welcome and good innovation by SAP - it has more focussed on high usage, simple, often self service scenarios - so it will have to be extended for more dense, power user screens and UI demands that SAP needs to satisfy as an enterprise application vendor. Nothing impossible - but new things to cover and create by Sam Yen and team.

Takeaway #2 - SAP gets serious on Analytics - partners with SaaS

This is probably one of the best mutually acknowledging each other leadership partnership I have seen in a long time. SAP acknowledges SAS leadership as the analytical tool of choice of data scientists and SAS acknowledges that HANA is a mature database platform to deploy models to and run analytical application on. 

At the same time SAP keeps its own ambitions in the analytics space - notably after the KXEN acquisition - so we witness another of the recently more and more popular co-opetition partnerships. These can go well - but can also be problematic.

But the prize is clear - if SAP manages to make HANA the database of choice for model building by the data scientists using SAS - then it can become the de-facto analytical database of choice for the enterprise. A (free?) bundle of SAS with Hana One - maybe on a larger AWS instance, say 10 GB of RAM - would not hurt that process. 

Takeaway #3 - SAP fixes mobile - technology wise 

With the announcement of version 3.0 of the SAP Mobile Platform SAP makes a key step towards fixing it challenged mobile track record. Out is much of the proprietary and all clunky Sybase pieces - and in is a standards based, open sourced mobile development platform. This will help capture both talent and capacity for new mobile applications. More to come, stay tuned, not my colleagues Chris Marsh's quote in the press release here.

So if you follow the software life cycle, once you fix the architecture, you can build great applications, when you have great applications - you have to get the price right. SAP now has some time to address the latter.

MyPOV

What to Expect at Connected Enterprise: The SuperNova Awards

Find out who wins this year's SuperNova Awards for innovators in disruptive technology. The winners will be announced LIVE at Connected Enterprise! This year  we'll be announcing the winners of the SuperNova Awards at the SuperNova Awards Gala Dinner which is always held on the first night of Constellation's Connected Enterprise.

There's still time to register for Constellation's Connected Enterprise: https://connectedenterprise.ontrackevents.com/registration.cfm

SuperNova Awards Gala Dinner

The SuperNova Awards Gala Dinner is an awards ceremony during which we honor SuperNova Award participants past and present, and announce the winners of this year's competition.

When: October 30, 2013 7:00p.m. - 10:00p.m.
Who: honorees include SuperNova Award finalists and winners; all attendees of Constellation's Connected Enterprise
Winners: official list of winners will be available October 31, 2013 on the Constellation blog

The Constellation SuperNova Awards are the first awards to recognize individuals for their courage in battling the odds to introduce disruptive technologies to their organizations.

2013 SuperNova Award Finalists

Consumerization of IT & The New C-Suite

Andrew Knapp, IT Support Specialist, Arizona Beverages
Chris Plescia IT Leader, Collaboration, Nationwide
Jason Thomas, Chief Information Officer, Green Clinic Health System
Lauren Klein, Social Leadership Community Strategist, Hitachi Data Systems
Lina Gallardo, Director, Product Management Group Markets, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota
Vijay Kesavan, IS Director, Diageo

Matrix Commerce

Jacob Jaber, CEO, Philz Coffee
Phillip Kennedy, Director, Information Technology, Pandora Jewelry
Ron Godine, Director of IT, TMW Systems
Sanjib Sahoo, Chief Technology Officer, tradeMONSTER
Trak Lord, Marketing & Media Relations, Metaio
Alan Hilburn, Director – IT Transportation & Operations, PSC, LLC

Data to Decisions

Ashish Braganza, Senior Manager of Global Business Intelligence, Lenovo
Brad Donovan, Manager, Agile Analytics and Innovation, GlaxoSmithKline
Bruce Yen, Director of Business Intelligence, Guess?
Dirk Zeller, Head of IT Consulting at Mercedes-AMG GmbH, Mercedes-AMG GmbH
Karen Simmons, Senior Director, Enterprise Data Warehouse, Kelley Blue Book Co., Inc.
Oswaldo Mestre, Director, Division of Citizen Services, Office of the Mayor, City of Buffalo 311 Call and Resolution Center
Lance Henderson, CEO, Zamzee
Roman Coba, Chief Information Officer, McCain Foods Limited
Ronald Baden, VP of Services, Host Analytics
Russ Turner, Site Reliability Engineering - Manager, Domino’s Pizza
Tony Candeloro, Vice President Product Development, ARI

Digital Marketing Transformation

Ashish Braganza, Senior Manager of Global Business Intelligence, Lenovo
Ashleigh Casner, Director of Marketing, Huddle
Brace Rennels, Director, Community Strategy, EMC
Christopher Jowsey, Senior Manager, Web eCommerce, Lenovo Australia
Karen Simmons, Senior Director, Enterprise Data Warehouse, Kelley Blue Book Co., Inc.
Pierre Bourbonniere, Head of Marketing, Société de transport de Montréal, La Société de transport de Montréal (STM)
Richard Milne, Global Director of eCommerce and Digital Marketing    Life Technologies Corporation
Steve Susina, Director, Demand Generation Services, Crain's Business Insurance

Future of Work

Andrew Knapp, IT Support Specialist, Arizona Beverages
Chris Plescia, IT Leader, Collaboration, Nationwide
Dirk Zeller, Head of IT Consulting at Mercedes-AMG GmbH 
Greg Hicks, Director IT, Social and Collaborative Innovation, UnitedHealth Group
Jay Grant, Chief Executive, InterPortPolice
Jeffrey Burns, "OPENPediatrics Program Director: Chief, Critical Care Medicine, Boston Children's Hospital",Boston Children's Hospital
Joan Orr, Vice President, TAGteach International
Kenneth Fonzi, Associate Director of Online Information Systems, Children's Hospital Foundation
Lauren Klein, Social Leadership Community Strategist, Hitachi Data Systems
Margaret Oldham, Director of Innovation and Opportunity, Beck Ag, Inc.
Paul Rumsey, Vice President, Global Learning & Development, Carlson Restaurants (TGI Friday's)
Sebastian Joseph, Chief Technology Officer, DDB Mudra Group
Susie Long, Director, Organizational Development, Dollar General

Next Generation Customer Experience

Carl Stokes, Head of IT, NHBC (National House-Building Council)
Eric McKirdy, Global Customer Care Manager, Ask.com
Fred Kirsch, Vice President, Content, New England Patriots
Jacky Saayman, Director, eMarketing and Programs, EMEA, OpenText
Jeff Sullivan, Senior Marketing Manager – Online Communities, Dell
Jeffrey Burns, "OPENPediatrics Program Director: Chief, Critical Care Medicine, Boston Children's Hospital", Boston Children's Hospital
Krissy Espindola, Director, Knowledge Management and Social Customer Support, T-Mobile
Lauren Klein, Social Leadership Community Strategist, Hitachi Data Systems
Lauri Travis, Community Manager, Tyler Technologies, Inc.
Lina Gallardo, Director, Product Management Group Markets, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota
Oswaldo Mestre, Director, Division of Citizen Services, Office of the Mayor, City of Buffalo 311 Call and Resolution Center
Philippe Vayssac, Customer Interaction Project Owner, Groupama Rhône Alpes Auvergne
Pierre Bourbonniere, Head of Marketing, Société de transport de Montréal, La Société de transport de Montréal (STM)
Samuel Creek, Principal Business Analyst, CA Technologies
Sanjib Sahoo, Chief Technology Officer, tradeMONSTER
Wynn Parrish, Vice President, Product Support, B/E Aerospace

Technology Optimization and Innovation

Annalie Killian, Catalyst for Magic, Amplify Festival / AMP Services Limited
Arland Weise, VP Administration, National Oilwell Varco
Dirk Zeller, Head of IT Consulting at Mercedes-AMG GmbH
Don Whittington, Vice president and CIO, Florida Crystals Corporation
Eric Feige, VP Digital Strategy, Prudential
Greg Hicks, Director IT, Social and Collaborative Innovation, UnitedHealth Group
Jacky Saayman, Director, eMarketing and Programs, EMEA, OpenText
Jacob Jaber, CEO, Philz Coffee
Jeffrey Burns, "OPENPediatrics Program Director: Chief, Critical Care Medicine, Boston Children's Hospital", Boston Children's Hospital
Jos Uijterwaal, CFO, Cloud9 IDE
Sanjib Sahoo, Chief Technology Officer, tradeMONSTER
Steve Airton, Information Services (IS) Controller, United Biscuits
Tom Cartledge, Director, Technology & Operations, John Moore Services (JMS)
Trever Scott, Senior Director, Information Technology-North America, Dole Fresh Fruit Company

Disruptive Technology Companies: Net-Results

Constellation Research

J. Bruce Daley is a former vice president and principal analyst at Constellation Research, Inc.  , Title: Big Ideas Age Before Beauty Before there can be a wholesale conversion to the Cloud legacy applications must be converted. This will take decades and not every vendor has taken this obstacle into account when projecting growth. Professional Services Firms Need a Recurring Revenue Model The services business has a lot of advantages but one big disadvantage in that you are always going out of business. Some organizations are using the Cloud to offer clients new ways to spend money than just time-and-materials or fixed price projects. ...

Read more

Golden, Colorado  based Net-Results offers a disruptive technology within the broader marketing automation space. The company links online behavior to database segmentation in a new way. Rather than define an action, such as creating an alert, and then applying the function to a subset of the database, Net-Results allows you to first build the segement and then apply different functionality to it.

For example, a trigger could be set to send an alert to the sales department to follow up with any prospect in a certain segment who views the pricing page for more than 30 seconds. An email could then be sent to that same segment describing the different packages offered.  The email could direct readers to a separate form for people in just that segment to fill out.

Since Net-Results is integrated with CRM packages such as Salesforce and SugarCRM segments can be based on data stored those systems. So a segment could be based on industry in addition to how the web site is used. A list of some data available for segmentation includes:

Website Visit Activity

• Website Visit Duration
• Specific Page Viewed or Not Viewed
• Number of Page Views
• Number of Visits
• Most Recent Visit

CRM Data

• First Name
• Last Name
• Company
• Title
• Email
• Phone (Work, Mobile, Home)
• City
• Account

Email Activity

• Did or Did Not Receive/Open/Click/Visit Site/Bounce/Unsubscribe
• List Membership

Web Form Interaction

• Traffic Sources
• Search Phrase 
• Search Engine Used
• Paid vs. Natural Search
• 3rd Party Referring Site
• Google AdSense

Lead Scoring

• Qualified
• Total lead score
• Contact score
• Activity score
• Engagement score
• Manual score
• Landing page visited

Net-Results is actively recruiting partners and hiring. A good contact at the company is Chaz Daum  at 303-771-2552

Open Source Not a Panacea for Cloud Infrastructure Decisions

President, Computer Economics and Strativa, Inc.
Computer Economics and Strativa, Inc.

Frank Scavo is skilled at formulating and communicating IT strategy, developing the business case for new systems, and facilitating the selection of enterprise systems, such as ERP, CRM, and supply chain management. He is also an expert in benchmarking IT spending and staffing levels for end-user IT organizations. Frank was one of the first tech bloggers, beginning in 2002 with his launch of the Enterprise System Spectator providing independent analysis of issues and trends in enterprise applications software and the strengths, weaknesses, advantages, and disadvantages of the vendors that provide them. Frank has been quoted as an IT expert in numerous business and industry publications such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Computerworld, CIO Magazine, ZDnet, eWeek, Datamation,…...

Read more

When it comes to cloud computing, do open systems win out over proprietary standards? My view is, perhaps in theory, but cloud computing--specifically public cloud infrastructure--has bigger problems right now than whether it's built on open source. Furthermore, open source cloud infrastructure providers have obstacles to overcome. 

I'm participating in an online video debate on October 29, hosted by IBM's Smarter Computing program, on "the pros and cons of open computing when it comes to cloud, big data, and software defined environments." This post outlines part of my viewpoint on this subject.

What's Not to Like about Open Source?

One of the problem in debating "open source" is that it is difficult to argue against the word "open" as a concept. For example, we all like to think of ourselves as open-minded, not close-minded. We admire top executives who have an open-door policy--have you ever heard of a manager with a "closed door policy?" In home-buying, sellers like to point out the open floor plan. Who ever advertised a house as having a "closed" floor plan?

So also, in computing, open just sounds better. Moreover, when it comes to cloud infrastructure, open source projects such as OpenStack and CloudStack have admirable goals, such as the ease of porting computing workloads from one cloud provider to another, promoting competition, and escaping the dreaded vendor lock-in.

The Larger Issue: Adoption

But, to me, it is premature to debate about whether open source cloud infrastructure is better. The larger issue today is the small percentage of corporate IT organizations that embrace public cloud infrastructure at all. In our Technology Trends survey at Computer Economics last year, we found that less than 10% of IT organizations worldwide have any use or plans to use public cloud infrastructure. Moreover, of these, only half claim use it, or intend to use it, for production systems.

If they are not using public cloud for production systems, then what are they using it for? Our survey found interest in public cloud for software development and testing, disaster recovery capabilities (such as backup and recovery), or for archiving older data.

In addition, I question some of those production uses of IaaS. Discussions with associates who advise data center managers confirm my suspicions. One associate, who works a lot in the entertainment industry, pointed out that one popular use of cloud infrastructure is in rendering animated film. In this case, animators require enormous amounts of computing power and storage to render even a few minutes of animation. As it turns out, cloud infrastructure is perfect for such a use, as it frees the IT organization from having to maintain those high levels of computing resources, which are only used sporadically. Furthermore, the risk is low. If the cloud provider goes down in the middle of a rendering job, the animator can simply resubmit the job. Nothing is lost.

But when it comes to production systems, such as accounting systems or royalty processing, these same entertainment industry decision-makers shun cloud infrastructure. It is not that they want to keep such systems on-premises, as witnessed by the fact that they have been outsourcing their data centers to managed services providers for years. As my associate remarked, "CIOs don't want to be in the data center business any more." But, rightly or wrongly, they are cautious about entrusting production systems to a cloud infrastructure.

Open Source Not a Panacea

Although the goals of OpenStack and other open source cloud projects are admirable, they may be a solution in search of a problem.

• Specifically, migrating workloads between competing cloud providers may not be as big a deal as open source proponents claim. Customer demands are already forcing competing cloud providers to recognize and support each other's APIs. For example, some members of the OpenStack community are urging support for Amazon's APIs.  If OpenStack fully goes this route, application systems written for Amazon's cloud will be able to be deployed on an OpenStack cloud without a lot of migration effort. Even VMware--the vendor with the largest stake in so-called private clouds--supports Amazon APIs and is also a contributor to OpenStack. Therefore, as far as I can tell, portability is not a major issue.

• Second, so far, it does not seem as if proprietary cloud providers are using their proprietary standards in order to extract higher fees from customers. Quite to the contrary, cloud infrastructure is a very competitive market. Whatever concerns IT decision makers have about public cloud infrastructure, one thing they cannot complain about is its cost. Leading cloud providers are not raising prices--rather, they are cutting prices, in some cases many times a year. IT decision makers are not holding on to their on-premises systems because they are concerned about the cost of public cloud--they are focused on risk. This was also a key finding in our Technology Trends survey.

If a cloud provider wants to overcome enterprise IT buyer concerns, it should focus on reliability, security, privacy, and offer a well-staffed support group. Many of the OpenStack providers are doing exactly that. It may well be that OpenStack providers, such as IBM, H-P, Dell, Rackspace and others, will be successful because of their value-added services, not because they embraced an open source infrastructure.

Incumbent Infrastructure Providers Have an Edge

Furthermore, proponents of open source cloud infrastructure may be underestimating the advantage that on-premises infrastructure providers have in moving their customers to the public cloud. Although, as discussed above, IT leaders have concerns about moving production workloads to the public cloud, one thing that does appeal to some of them is the ability to move seamlessly from on-premises system instances to cloud instances.

This is the so-called hybrid cloud infrastructure. CIOs may adopt a hybrid cloud strategy in order to move non-critical workloads out of the data center, freeing up system resources (e.g. the animation rendering application discussed above), or to "burst" to the cloud during period of high demand for system resources (e.g. during a major advertising campaign that strains an in-house e-commerce system).

Now, which provider has the advantage in helping IT organizations set up hybrid cloud capabilities? The provider that is already serving the on-premises data center (Microsoft, VMware, or Oracle, for example) or the one that would like the data center to replatform its on-premises systems to match the infrastructure of the provider's cloud infrastructure (e.g. OpenStack, CloudStack)?

The answer is obvious, which is why Microsoft, VMware, and Oracle are all providing public cloud services that require very little change to the customer's on-premises infrastructure. Unless an IT organization is building a data center from scratch, it is unlikely to want to standardize its internal infrastructure on a completely new technology--open source or otherwise.

Advocating for Cloud and Open Source

Nothing I've written here should be taken as an argument against cloud computing or open source. I've been blogging on these subjects since 2002 and consider myself as an advocate of both. In my view, one day nearly all systems will be delivered via cloud computing, and open source software has proven itself to be a viable business model for a variety of software categories, especially for lower levels in the technology stack. But in the case of public cloud infrastructure, I don't see open source cloud projects as dominating the market any time soon.

You can register for my video debate on IBM's website.

Related Posts

The Inexorable Dominance of Cloud Computing
Cutting Through the Fog of Cloud Computing Definitions

Photo Credit: Flickr, followtheseinstructions

Disruptive Technology Companies in Colorado

Constellation Research

J. Bruce Daley is a former vice president and principal analyst at Constellation Research, Inc.  , Title: Big Ideas Age Before Beauty Before there can be a wholesale conversion to the Cloud legacy applications must be converted. This will take decades and not every vendor has taken this obstacle into account when projecting growth. Professional Services Firms Need a Recurring Revenue Model The services business has a lot of advantages but one big disadvantage in that you are always going out of business. Some organizations are using the Cloud to offer clients new ways to spend money than just time-and-materials or fixed price projects. ...

Read more

Every year the annual Colorado Technology Association Wine Tasting Event has proven a promising venue to look for disruptive companies and this year's 9th was no exception. Whatever comes to mind when you think of Colorado, it probably isn't wine. Yet some of the best vineyards between the West Coast and the Mississippi are located in the Northwestern part of the Colorado - take that Wyoming, Utah,  and Idaho! Recently over 500 people showed up to talk tech and sip some of the Colorado's best wines at the McNichols Building in the Civic Center

Among the disruptive companies there were ReadyTalk, Net-Results, and Coldwater Software.

ReadyTalk is an audio and web conferencing company based in the fashionable downtown neighborhood of Lodo. The company is not actively recruiting partners but is hiring. The company can be reached at 800.843.9166 or [email protected].

Coldwater Software is a product and services firm built around Microsoft Sharepoint. Based in the Tech Center the company is actively recruiting partners and hiring. A good connection is Greg Rohan at 720-235-0374 or greg.rohan@ his company name .com

Golden based Net-Results offers marketing automation solutions. A fuller description of the company can be found under the story Disruptive Technology Companies: Net-Results.  The company is actively recruiting partners and hiring. Privately held, the Net-Results is profitable and not looking for investors at the moment.  A good contact at the company is Matt Filios at 303.771.2552 or Twitter @MattFilios.