News Analysis: Avangate Acquired By Francisco Partners For Matrix Commerce Capabilities

R "Ray" Wang

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…...

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Digital Distribution Leader Gains West Coast VC Backing

On October 7th, 2013, private equity firm, Francisco Partners acquired Avangate, a leader in digital commerce and subscription billing.  Avangate serves over 3,000 customers across more than 100 countries.  Avangate has experienced 70% year over year growth over the past six years.  The deal terms were not publicly disclosed and was led by My Le Nguyen.

Constellation sees this development significant for buyers and prospects because Avangate:

• Gains critical west coast financial community backing. The acquisition of Francisco Partners supposedly includes a buy-out of existing investors.  My Le Ngueyn of Francisco Partners is also an investor and board member at GXS, EF Johnson Technologies, and WatchGuard Technologies.
  
  Point of View (POV): Avangate frees itself from the shackles of non-west coast investors who tend not to invest for high growth and lack the key networks of Silicon Valley based investors.  My Le is a rising star at Francisco and will help Avangate invest in future areas of growth.  The buy out of existing partners and shift to US-based ownership and technology ecosystem is critical to Avangate’s continued success trajectory.

• Invests in key customer facing and product areas. Avangate provides what Constellation terms as a matrix commerce platform.  The product delivers a unfied online eCommerce, subscription billing, global payments, and reseller & affiliate management offering.  Avangate targets individual developers and large organizaitons such as FICO, Kaspersky, and Software AG.
  
  Point of View (POV): Constellation expects the management team to invest deeper in product development, sales, customer service, and marketing.  Recent customer successes requires Avangate to adequately support its growing vendor customer base with more engineering support, professional services, and product management resources.  Expect continued expansion of Avangate’s online commerce and subscription billing capabilities.

• Expands geographically and through mergers. New investment round provides opportunities to grow in new digital commerce hot spots as well as fund additional technology and customer base acquisitions.
  
  Point of View (POV): Many opportunities exist in areas with high mobile penetration and digital commerce growth.  Avangate could build upon its international strength given its European founding to expand its presence more into India, Indonesia, and Latin America to support both vendors selling into, as well as exporting out of those rapidly growing markets.

The Bottom Line: Matrix Commerce Platforms Continue To Gain Traction With B2B and B2C Customers

Avangate was founded in 2006 after the first Internet bubble.  Many lessons learned from the first bubble now apply to matrix commerce as the shift to cloud, digital distribution, and the rise of mobility drive brands and publishers to explore integrated and cost effective approaches.  When commerce revolves around the buyer, channels, demand signals, supply chains, payment options, enablers, and big data converge into what Constellation describes as matrix commerce. Matrix Commerce spans across disciplines as people, process, and technologies continue to transform today's commerce models.  Matrix commerce addresses the fusing of demand signals and supply chains.  Customers now realize the need to move to unified solutions instead of integrating a patch work of point solutions.  Consequently, solutions such as Avangate are transforming how digital goods and software publishers distribute, expand, service, and bill for their IP.

Your POV.

Are you looking at new digital distribution options? Are you an Avangate customer?  What are your thoughts on the investment by Francisco Partners?  Add your comments to the blog or reach me via email: R (at) ConstellationR (dot) com or R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) com.

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

• Assessing matrix commerce readiness
• Developing your digital business strategy
• Vendor selection
• Implementation partner selection
• Connecting with other pioneers
• Sharing best practices
• Designing a next gen apps strategy
• Providing contract negotiations and software licensing support
• Demystifying software licensing

Related Resources

• News Analysis: Zuora Raises $50M Series E Round, Rides #MatrixCommerce Wave
• Event Report: CRM Evolution 2013 – Seven Trends In The Return To Digital Business And Customer Centricity
• Monday’s Musings: Four Elements for A #SharingEconomy Biz Model In #MatrixCommerce
• Tuesday’s Tip: Why Context Matters – Forget Real-Time, Achieve Right-Time
• Monday’s Musings: Balancing The Six S’s In Consumerization Of IT
• Monday’s Musings: A Working Vendor Landscape For Social Business
• Research Report: The Upcoming Battle For The Largest Share Of The Technology Budget Part 1
• Research Report: How The Five Pillars Of Consumer Tech Influence Enterprise Innovation
• Best Practices: Five Simple Rules For Social Business

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 – 2013 R Wang and Insider Associates, LLC All rights reserved.
Contact the Sales team to purchase this report on a a la carte basis or join the Constellation Customer Experience!

Take the State of Siebel Survey - get free research

Constellation's J. Bruce Daley is conducting a State of Siebel in 2013 user community survey. This survey is designed to provide a benchmark for Siebel customers to guage their implementations against their peers.

Take survey

Take the survey and get a bunch of goodies from Constellation and Siebel Observer:

• Preliminary access to the survey results
• Complimentary copy of "The State of Siebel in the 2013 Market", value $2000
• Job posting in Siebel Observer, value $480

The survey is comprised of 36 questions and should only take 10-15 minutes to complete. Questions include:

• How many customer records does your Siebel implementation have currently?
• How many custom fields were added?
• How often does the business process change in your industry?
• How long do you plan to run Siebel applications?

Take the State of Siebel survey here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/2013SiebelSurvey

WebRTC Standards and Shipping Containers: An Analogy

Alumni: Constellation Research
Constellation Research

Dr. Brent Kelly is a Vice President and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research and President of KelCor, Inc. He focuses on the unique intersection of unified communications, social business, cloud services, video and mobility.  Dr. Kelly provides strategy and counsel to key clients including Chief Information Officers, Chief Technology Officers, investment analysts, venture capitalists, technology policy executives, sell-side firms and technology buyers. Prior to joining Constellation, Dr. Kelly served for 10 years as a partner at Wainhouse Research where he was the primary author of most of the firm’s unified communications reports and forecasts. Dr. Kelly is a regular presenter at Enterprise Connect (formerly VoiceCon), the communications industry trade show where his well…...

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Many have wondered about why big players in the Internet, communications, and device industries would not quickly get on board with WebRTC and rapidly promote it is a standard since WebRTC has so many supposed benefits. We often hear about Apple’s lack of comment on WebRTC and Microsoft’s alternative approach called CU-RTC-Web. 

I learned a lesson about standards from an unusual source: “False Economy: A Surprising Economic History of the World”. This book, by Alan Beattie, discusses why countries, economies, and continents are the way they are: not because of predetermined courses, but by the choices they made.

In one section of this book there is a discussion of the now boring and dull shipping business. Before the mid-1950’s, most shipping involved “break-bulk” cargo in which every time the items being shipped crossed a border or a dock, they had to be unpacked, carted to a new location, and repacked in a different shipping container. This break-bulk method of cargo shipping accounted for at least 10% of the total cost of the items shipped in global commerce. Interestingly, about half of the cost of global shipping came in a 2/10ths mile stretch of the dock where the cargo was unloaded and reloaded.

Around 1956, some enterprising entrepreneurs decided that creating standardized shipping containers would help efficiency and drive down the costs of shipping. Consequently, several major shipping companies introduced their own version of a shipping container. One company standardized on a length of 35 feet for its container while another used 24 feet and still another used 17 feet containers.

But, there were still obstacles to using standardized containers. Stevedore at the docks fought tooth and nail against standardization because it threatened their livelihoods. In the early 1950’s, New York had over 290 docks controlled by unionized labor. To bypass New York’s labor unions, a new container port was built in New Jersey where ships could dock and containers could be taken off by crane and immediately placed on trucks for transportation to the final destination.

Although this new dock was helpful, it did not solve the standardization issue completely.  Competing shipping companies still had differing container sizes.

It was only when the U.S. military began specifying the dimensions of the standard shipping container shippers could use when transporting military item did everyone get in line with eight-by-eight feet containers in 10, 20, 30, or 40 foot lengths. It took someone big enough and with enough economic clout to cause everyone to adopt the new standard or go out of business. 

The Analogy with WebRTC

Today, we see many competing standards for video. Skype has its own. There is H.264, VP8, and a variety of other codecs. Some companies even have their own proprietary tweaks on “standards-based” codecs. Vidyo has its own version of the standard H.264 as does Microsoft, Polycom, Cisco, and others. 

Like the contents of shipping containers, when video comes to a border or boundary, it often has to be unpacked, transported, and re-encoded in a different format so that the video packets can arrive at their destinations properly. As occurred in the shipping industry, these small border segments along the entire path are where a significant amount of the cost for video occurs with the need to buy transcoding gateways and session border controllers, which have become the stevedores of the video industry. 

And, like the shipping industry, some enterprising vendors have bypassed the existing video players by creating their own dock, so to speak, in the form of a video protocol called WebRTC. As in the shipping world where standardized containers avoided the need unpack/repack steps, WebRTC eliminates the need to download a video client since the WebRTC protocol is built into the Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox browsers.

Just like stevedores who fought against container standardization because it threatened their livelihoods, Microsoft and Apple are either fighting against or ignoring WebRTC because it threatens their particular interests. And so, we have at least two ports, in longshoreman parlance, one port or group supports the new WebRTC standard while the other port or group of companies does not. 

The moral of the analogy of WebRTC and the shipping container is this: even though the WebRTC standard is being promoted, and even though there are some places built where it can work, until there is someone big enough to enforce it (like the U.S. military did in container standardization) and there is economic penalty to those who do not adopt the standard, we will continue to see competing standards and efforts. As long as one or more of the major vendors believes it can make more money by not adopting the WebRTC standard there will be no universal implementation by all of the browser manufacturers.  

Beattie concludes his discussion of the shipping industry with these words, “Containerization didn’t just carry existing cargo more quickly and cheaply; it enabled a radical shift in the way that companies did business”. In like manner, WebRTC may enable a radical shift in the way companies do business, but we will only find out if WebRTC truly becomes a broadly accepted standard. Like the shipping industry, standardizing on WebRTC may take nudges from powerful organizations with enough clout to impact the economic wellbeing of those standing it its way. 

Genesys Advances its Cloud Offerings with Echopass Acquisition

Constellation Orbits
Constellation Research, Inc.

Elizabeth is a well-recognized industry-leading analyst. She was previously Vice President and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research.  Prior to Constellation, Elizabeth spent eleven years at Forrester Research as vice president and principal analyst.  She has managed large consulting projects for business and government organizations and provides technical insight and guidance to business and government organizations on their communication issues. Prior to her role as an industry analyst with Communication Initiatives and Forrester Research, Elizabeth held senior management positions with IBM, ROLM and Siemens ICN where she was a senior manager for strategic planning and alliances. Expertise Elizabeth’s expertise includes in-depth knowledge of unified communications,…...

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Genesys a major provider of software for customer service and contact centers entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Echopass, a cloud contact center provider and will add 1,250 new customers to Genesys’ Cloud direct services.  Echopass currently partners with Genesys for its contact center Customer Engagement Platform and specializes in larger enterprise cloud contact center solutions.  This new acquisition will significantly expand Genesys’ installed base in the cloud.

Although Genesys has a sizable base for premise contact center solutions, it hopes to gain traction in directly supporting cross-channel cloud solutions for larger enterprises.  Currently, Genesys’ Cloud offers a standardize solution that appeals to SMB customers interested in a fast-to-deploy and uncomplicated solution.  Genesys currently directly markets its flagship product, Genesys Customer Engagement Platform, as a premise solution.   However, the shift to cloud based models offers a major opportunity for Genesys to provide its customers a scalable and flexible cloud solution for customer support.  A cloud solution appeals to many companies, as it lowers the cost of entry for acquiring and upgrading contact center software.  Additionally, for companies that do not want to rip and replace their entire infrastructure Genesys offers a hybrid-cloud model.

The rapid pace of technology change combined with the need for a scalable and secure solution will continue to drive the demand for cloud base contact center solutions.  The timing of the Echopass acquisition suggests that Genesys recognizes the uptick in cloud contact centers and plans to play an increasingly active role in delivering the cloud contact center solution directly to its customers.  Additionally, other recent acquisitions by Genesys including Angel and Soundbite have expanded its cloud services and ability to deliver a comprehensive offering.

To Be Talked About Online, Be Hyper-real

Gavin Heaton

Founder
Disruptors Co

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

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About a million years ago, when I studied theatre and movement, I was fascinated by what appeared “real” on stage and what looked like it was a person slouching across an open space. There was a real difference between an actor who was able to inhabit and own the stage and someone who seemed to shrink within its open space. For some actors, this ability comes naturally but many have to work on it. And it is these techniques that interested me the most.

For a while I studied with Leisa Shelton, a brilliant and patient teacher. We would spend hours in quiet, but intense, routines, learning to stretch our bodies, extend our arms from the shoulder to the fingertip, create difficult but beautiful arcs across our shoulders, and walking with fluidity. One of the core “figures” we’d work on was drinking a glass of water – amazingly technical and challenging to master.

Leisa had, herself, studied for years in Paris, working with Ecole de Mime Corporel Dramatique de Paris-technique Etienne Decroux (1983-89) and was a member of the Meryl Tankard Co (1990-93). As a result, she generously shared not just her abilities and experiences but her stories which brought her theory and theatre practice to life for us all.

But there was one particular story that has stayed with me. It was about the physical proportions of Rodin’s The Thinker. Taking into account the position of the viewer, Rodin had created his famous sculpture larger than “real life” in order for it to appear in-proportion from the audience’s point of view. Parts of the sculpture – especially across the shoulders and back, were significantly larger than they would be in real life. And the lesson for us in this, was to appear “real” on stage, we had to work to extend the appearance of our bodies on stage, not just to be seen, or for aesthetics, but to appear real.

The same principles apply in the digital world. In fact, we are seeing a greater blurring of the distinctions between the on and offline world – they are merging into what we call “life”. This is made ever easier by the five forces impacting the future of business – social media, mobility, big data, unified communications and cloud computing. As consumers we are ever more connected and connectable – and enterprises continue to struggle to keep pace with consumer expectation and business demand.

However, we DON’T need to be in all places at all times. We need to take a lesson from Leisa Shelton and Rodin. We need to be larger than life in the spaces that we do operate. We need to be hyper-real – 10-20% bigger than we are in real life. And now, more than ever, we need to be PRESENT. That means we must be hyper-real and IN LOCATION.

Take a look at this great video promoting the upcoming release of the movie Carrie. It’s 6 million+ views come not just from a great idea, but from brilliant execution. They captured a real world impact and amplified it into our digital lives. They put a physical experience into our consciousness through digital storytelling.

In a world where our experiences dominate our perceptions, businesses, governments and not-for-profits can no longer be satisfied with a DIGITAL ONLY presence. To be talked about online, you have to be remarkable in the real world. You must act with purpose. And serve with intention.

It’s time for leaders to step up and own the space.

jyjou via Compfight

Event Report: Seven Trends From This Year's Human Resources Technology Conference 2013 (#HRTechConf)

R "Ray" Wang

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…...

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2013 Marks A Change Of Guard In The HR Technology Conference

Over 8,000 attendees gathered for the industry’s biggest and baddest event around human resources technology and the future of work at the Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas.  This year marked a few key milestones:

• Legendary HR icon, Bill Kutik steps down from the conference chair role but will still be very active
• Steve Boese takes over as the new HR Tech conference chair
• HR Tech category pioneer Naomi Bloom announced her transition to a new business model
• A record 303 vendors versus 257 from last year
• 20% increase in buyers at the event
• HR tonight show with co-hosts Bill Kutik and Naomi Bloom was a hit with Leighanne Levensaler, Brian Sommer, Patricia Milligan, and John Sumser.

Constellation Research Resources

For more cutting edge coverage, check out the Future of Work team at Constellation Research with Holger Mueller and Alan Lepofksy

Your POV.

Ready to make a technology buying decision?  Have you thought through your vision for the future of work?  How do you want your employees to engage? Add your comments to the blog or reach me via email: R (at) ConstellationR (dot) com or R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) com.

Feel free to reach out if you need help with:

• Building a future of work vision for your organization
• Defining an employee engagement strategy
• Assisting in vendor selection
• Supporting contract negotiations

Figure 1. The Flickr Stream From HRTechConf

Source: R Wang

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 – 2013 R Wang and Insider Associates, LLC All rights reserved.
Contact the Sales team to purchase this report on a a la carte basis or join the Constellation Customer Experience!

What to look for at the HR Tech Conference

Holger Mueller

Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

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

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The yearly HR Tech Conference is starting today - so last chance to compile a cheat sheet on what to check for during the conference and show...

The last of its kind?

As most of you will know the father of the HR Tech Conference, Bill Kutik, is retiring from the effort, and handing over the reins to Steve Boese - who certainly will sooner or later install changes to event with the motivation to improve it even further.

But what is HR Tech so far - probably a unique event across all enterprise automation that brings together the users, decision makers, vendors, partners and influencers around HR technology. Many other conferences strive for a similar influence and position - in my view only the HR Tech Conference has achieved, that basically if an enterprise is in for an investment in HR Tech, this is the event to attend. Likewise, if there are no major decisions awaiting - it's good to see how your vendor(s) are doing, what the competition is doing - and lastly - have some fun with the industry peers in Las Vegas.

And the format is equally unique - most sessions are a combination of an end user (usually a reference) combined with their vendor. This makes it a unique setup for your to experience both working together and ask some smart questions at the end. Usually you will not have a customer and a vendor on stage together - so make the best of the opportunity for your information and knowledge gathering.

For users...

... if you make it to Las Vegas you should have a to do list in mind. Start with the product map for your enterprise. Which products are helping you to achieve what benefit and which ones are here to stay and where are you looking for replacements or potential new products to deploy. 

You certainly will want to check in with your existing product vendors, see what they have to offer, what their next releases are, what their plans for expanding their functional foot print are. Nothing solves the systemic HR Tech integration problems easier for your than a vendor shouldering the integration needs required. 

If you are looking for new products - try to get an as complete picture of the vendor landscape. There is not a single HR automation area that only has one vendor offering its product - despite the vendors will want you to believe and buy into their uniqueness. 

Don't forget every product can only be as good as its implementation - so equally look for implementation partners for that product. Listen to the vendor who they would recommend - if the have a recommendation. And you should probably spend more time with getting a good understanding of the implementation partner market for that product, than with the vendors themselves. The vendors will come and visit and present to you - with the implementation partners you may not have a chance to meet and get to know their executives as well. 

Lastly you should not leave Las Vegas without making a dozen or so new connections. It's great to meet with friends and professional connections of previous events and former professional life stages - but it is even more important to extend your network - at least a little bit. And with that you should have a  keen eye to where your enterprise or you personally want to move in the next years - so if these means to speak with colleagues and professionals in totally new fields - so be it.

For vendors...

This conference is unique as it allows you to get an immediate pulse of how the vendor landscape has evolved. Messaging and positioning of your partners and competitors can never be so efficiently experienced and witnessed like at HR Tech. And while you should have a good understanding on how successful your key partners are and where your main competitors are moving, it is still a once a year opportunity to see the whole concert of messages being unleashed to a receptive audience.

So do not just spend time at your booth and sessions only - but walk the showfloor - and do not miss some of the key influencer sessions. These influencers need to come up with something more or less slightly new every year - listen carefully on how their messages and views are changing - as there may well be a chance to pickup a new trend and development to differentiate your product and offering in the market.

For service providers...

Likewise as for the product vendors, this is a unique chance to see where the competition is, what are the messages, what is working and what not. But likewise you should check the ecosystem of the product vendors that you are partnering with - how well are these working, executing and cooperating. 

You may equally look into partnership expansion options based on your impressions and observations both on show floor, sessions and interactions with users.
 

MyPOV

Make the most of the HR Tech conference - no matter if you are a user, a vendor or a service provider. There are plenty of recommendations for sessions out there - one I hope I personally will not miss is the HR Tonight show that comes at a much earlier spot - Tuesday from 8:45 AM - 10 AM - with industry icons Naomi Bloom and Bill Kutik. 

But most importantly - have some fun and enjoy yourselves!

Constellation Publishes New Report Addressing Social Identity Management

Report addresses gap between social media and enterprise risk management

Today Constellation Research announced the publication of a new research report: “The Consumerization of Identity” by Constellation Vice President and Principal Analyst, Steve Wilson. This report examines how the ‘irresistible force’ of social logon is colliding with the ‘immovable object’ of enterprise risk management, and explains what needs to be done before social identities can reach business grade.  

Download the report snapshot

This report reveals:

• Two dimensions of social logon: richness of identity data and depth of the social graph. Major social logons today may be strong in one dimension but not both
• Identity is a two way street: “Bring Your Own Identity” may be appealing but enterprises need not accommodate external identities if they pose a security risk
• Social logon and enterprise risk management are often at odds. Personal information is the lifeblood of social media companies.  They offer social logon because it feeds them with new forms of valuable data.  It’s early days: social logons are still very user centric, which is fine but they need to pay more attention to the risk management needs of enterprises.
• Businesses need to carefully understand the role of identification in transaction risk management.  The future of social logon in the enterprise lies in richer, more relevant personal information or “attributes” being made available by social Identity Providers.  Forward looking organizations will keep an eye on providers that can reveal more about users than simply their handles.

“There is nothing more personal than identity but identity online may not be what people think it is.  Businesses use identification as part of their risk management regime; the identities provided by Facebook, Google, Twitter and so on are super convenient but they only scratch the surface of what enterprises really need to know.  So I’m interested unpacking or “sequencing” social identity into useful pieces of information in different transaction contexts.  The big social media brands are experimenting with how to monetize all that privileged knowledge they have about their members; one of the most tempting opportunities is to act as Identity Providers but stepping up from social logon to business grade identities is harder than it looks.  My work is starting to uncover the hidden dimensions of social identity. My aim is to help businesses better understand their identification needs and identity providers to create sharper, richer identity services.” – Steve Wilson, report author, Vice President, and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research.

This report fits into Constellation’s business-focused research themes of the Next-Generation Customer Experience, Technology Optimization and Innovation, and the Future of Work.

ABOUT Steve Wilson
Steve Wilson is Vice President and Principal Analyst covering digital identity and data privacy.  Steve’s current research focuses on the intersection of identity management and information privacy, the blending of workplace and social relationships, and new ways of sharing or federating identity information.

COORDINATES
Profile: https://www.constellationr.com/users/swilson
Twitter: @steve_lockstep
Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/lockstep
Geo: Sydney, Australia

THE REPORT

More information on The Consumerization of Identity here: https://www.constellationr.com/research/consumerization-identity

Observations of Oracle World 2013

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. ...

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Photo credit: Jim Bahn

This year’s Oracle Open World was not the best of times; nor was it the worst of times. One of the world’s largest tech events was most notable for not being notable. No significant innovations or changes in direction were announced, Oracle executives stayed on message, competitors were not put down and longtime rival Microsoft gave the best keynote address of the event. In sporting terms it was a building year for Oracle. The big news turned out to be what was not being said.

Although a lot of lip service was paid to innovation, most of the true innovation was happening on the waves. The new products announced - Oracle Database In-Memory Option, the SPARC M6-32 server, and the SuperCluster M6-32 – do the same thing as older products only faster, better, cheaper. There was so much talk of appliances, it sometimes seemed like we were attending Williams Sonoma World. The other major product announcements: Compute Cloud, Object Storage Cloud, Database Cloud, Java Cloud, Business Intelligence Cloud, Documents Cloud, Mobile Cloud, Database Backup Cloud, Billing and Revenue Management Cloud, and Cloud Marketplace seemed to all have something to do with the cloud. In my estimation the connection between the two was not made very clear to the 60,000 attendees and perhaps for good reason.

Although the 34th America’s Cup Race was supposed to be the backdrop for Oracle Open World, the lack of major announcements and the keynotes speeches made Open World the backdrop for the race. Almost single handedly Larry Ellison has changed the elite, clubby, offshore yacht event into an extreme, mass media, in-your-face sport. Following rules which allow the winner of the last race to draw up the specifications for the boats in the current race, Team Oracle choose the superfast, super dangerous , super expensive, AC72, a wing-sailed catamaran for the competition – the world’s fastest sail boat.

The record time for an AC72 during the race was 55 mph (88 km/h, 47.57 knots); fast enough to get you a traffic ticket on most San Francisco streets. Sailors had to wear helmets, flak jackets, and underwater breathing devices while on board. Even so Artemis Racing crewmember Andrew “Bart” Simpson was killed during a training sail in May and the threat of a tragic mistake hung over every boat. With the cost of racing in AC72’s approaching $100 million, Club Nautico di Roma, the challenger of record, had to withdraw for financial reasons and only three teams could raise enough bank to race. Given the high level of sponsorship the race could no longer be held far off shore had been but in the busy cross roads of the San Francisco Bay.

Team Oracle started the best of 9 series with a two race deficit for trying to win a qualifying race the old fashion way - by cheating. Technology triumphed in the end. Using Oracle Big Data products to analyze the early races, Team Oracle modified its AC72 to make it the faster boat. In a made for television ending, Team Oracle came from behind to take the race from Team Emirates New Zealand (both entities long time Oracle customers). Following Roman fashion the keynote was interrupted to parade the Auld Mug, the oldest trophy in sports, around the Moscone Center in triumph.

At various points during the week the race had been so close that by my count Larry Ellison did not show up for at least three speeches he was scheduled to give including a keynote address to the 60,000 attendees. Given the boring nature of the announcements can you really blame him? Still there is some irony in a company saying you need to delight customers having a CEO who does not show up for meetings. Open World attendees repaid the snub by walking out in mass from pinch hitter Thomas Kurian’s speech but at the end of the day they will still buy the products. Given that Larry was the highest paid CEO in America last year his poor work attendance is likely to become an issue at this October’s shareholder’s meeting as the Wall Street Journal reports.

For this observer the best Oracle keynote was made by Edward Screven, the company’s chief corporate architect and Henrik Stahl, the vice president of Java Product Management. They presented a vision of the internet of things a world driven by smart, ubiquitous, connected devices: M2M—machine to machine and reported the number of developers working in Java is the same as the number of people in Sweden. The claim was also made that soon the number of devices will approach 8 billion. So during this speech received the unfortunate news that my toaster will soon be competing with my teenage daughter for internet access. Throw in my car, my refrigerator, and my washing machine and streaming old episodes of the original Star Trek or Emergency from Netflix will become even more painful than watching them.

The first Microsoft executive ever to address an Open World audience ever, Brad Anderson made the best keynote speeches of the entire event. Crisp, polished, practiced Anderson explained why Microsoft Azure was the best Cloud to run Oracle products. He was quickly followed by an Oracle speaker who explained why Azure was not the best cloud to run Oracle.

Unfortunately for Brad, at the end of the day, the Oracle spokesman will be proven right. The big news at Oracle Open World was what was unsaid. Oracle is crushing the stack and technology convergence is taking place in the cloud as well as in the hand held market. What this means is that Oracle is developing hardware optimize to run its software – a point made repeatedly during the event. Left unsaid at Oracle Open World 2013 was that someday Oracle hardware products and cloud products will converge giving it a cost advantage over all of its competitors running Oracle products including internal IT departments. In the long run Oracle Corporation, just like Team Oracle, has developed a strategy that cannot lose.

Disruptive Technology Companies: Taptera

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. ...

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San Francisco start up Taptera seeks to disrupt the world of SFA through mobile apps.The company is a spin off of Genentech where founders Chris O’Connor  was a Director of Cloud and Mobile Solutions and Dan McCall was a program manager.  While at Genetech the two developed 30 mobile productivity apps for internal Genetech use. In 2011 O’Connor and McCall left the company to start Taptera. Since then the start up has raised a little less than $3.5 million from enterprise software insiders lead by Terence Garnett  and M.R. Rangaswami.

Curently Taptera has seven products on the Apple App Store including

• Collateral

• Events

• Rooms

• Sophia

• Colleagues

• Marquee

• Showcase

Headquartered in San Francisco, the company is privately held but expanding. The company posts jobs on its blog.