Constellation's Quarterly Enterprise Mobility Survey

At Constellation we're passionate about how business models can be transformed by disruptive technology. However, we're not satisfied with just sitting around theorizing--we want to know how people like you are actually using the technology. This holistic approach to research production ensures we produce the highest quality research and advisory.  

So... will you help us?

Take this short 15 minute survey. Tell us how you're using mobility in your organization, and we'll send you a snapshot of the survey results. 

Share the link to this survey http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/V23PZJL

Plex Software and Its Mandate for Growth

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,…...

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As the first cloud-only manufacturing ERP system, Plex Systems has an wide footprint of functionality, going beyond what is offered by newer cloud vendors.

Nevertheless, after more than a decade of development, Plex has fewer than 1000 customers and its presence is limited mostly to smaller manufacturing companies in a few sub-sectors.

As evidence, there were about 700 attendees at last year's PowerPlex conference. This year's PowerPlex, which I attended this week in Columbus, Ohio, saw about 750 Plex users in attendance.  Granted, overall, these are highly satisfied and enthusiastic customers. There just needs to be more of them.

On the one hand, Plex claims a compound annual growth rate of nearly 30% over the past three years--an impressive number. But as the first fully multi-tenant manufacturing cloud vendor, Plex could have, and should have, been growing at a faster pace. Now, there are several other cloud vendors taking aim at Plex's market, such as NetSuite, Acumatica, Rootstock, and Kenandy. 

Plex must grow more aggressively, for two reasons. First, the company was acquired last year by two private equity firms. Private equity is not known for patience. Second, as CEO Jason Blessing pointed out in his keynote, growth protects the investments of existing Plex customers. Software companies that do not grow do not have the resources for continued innovation. Eventually, they only provide enough support to keep current customers--at best. They become, in effect, "zombie vendors," to use Blessing's term.

So, what does Plex need to do to grow at a more substantial pace in the coming years? I see six mandates. Some of these are fully embraced by Plex, while others, in my view, could use more emphasis. 

Get Noticed

If some cloud vendors need to tone down their marketing hype, Plex needs to kick it up a notch. Plex was not only the first truly multi-tenant cloud manufacturing systems, it was also one of the first cloud providers period. Yet still the majority of manufacturing systems buyers have not heard of Plex. Reflecting Plex's home turf in Michigan, discussions with Plex insiders about this often includes the phrase, "midwestern values"--in other words, not blowing one's own horn. However admirable this humility may be on a personal basis, it is not useful from a business perspective.

Hopefully, this is about to change with the hiring of Heidi Melin as Chief Marketing Officer. Melin worked with CEO Blessing at Taleo, and more recently she was CMO at Eloqua, which was acquired by Oracle. In my one-on-one interview, Blessing was high on Melin's arrival, and indicated that she would be especially focused on digital marketing to reach the many thousands of companies in Plex's target market. 

Put More Feet on the Street

Blessing also indicated that he intends to beef up Plex's sales efforts, which to date have been concentrated largely in the Great Lakes region. This has left many sales opportunities poorly supported in other US geographies, such as the southern states (home to many automotive suppliers) Southern California (home to many aerospace suppliers), and other parts of the country that are home to many food and beverage companies. Increased sales presence in international markets is also needed.

This is a step long overdue. When my firm Strativa short lists Plex in ERP selection deals, Plex is often flying in presales resources from across the country, which does not sit well with most prospects. Opening regional sales offices, like Plex has now done in Southern California, will help put more feet on the prospects' streets.

Move Up-Market

Historically, Plex's system architecture is oriented toward single-plant operations. There is some logic to this approach. As Jim Shepherd, VP of Strategy, points out, most of the information needed by a user is local to the plant he or she is working in. However, even small manufacturers often have needs that include multiple plants, cross-plant dependencies, and central shared services. Plex does have some multi-billion dollar customers, but these are primarily companies with collections of plants that are relatively independent of one another.

In response, Plex is building out its cross-site and multi-site capabilities while keeping its primary orientation around the single plant. In my view, this will be a key requirement in Plex moving up-market and serving larger organizations.

Build Out the International Footprint

The bulk of Plex's sales are to US companies, but if Plex is to grow more aggressively it will need to better support the international operations of these companies. It will also need to sell directly to companies outside of the US.

In his keynote, Shepherd pointed to the new ability for Plex to print reports on A4-size paper, commonly used in parts of the world outside North America. The fact that Plex is just now getting around to formatting reports on A4-sized paper shows just how US-centric Plex has been. To be fair, Plex does support multiple currencies and has support some international tax requirements, such as in Brazil, India and China, although some of this is done through partners. Nevertheless, Plex has much it could do to improve its appeal to multinational businesses. In this day and age, even small companies--like those Plex targets today--have international operations. Building out its international footprint is another prerequisite for Plex to achieve more rapid growth.

Venture Outside of Traditional Subsectors

Plex sees its current customer base primarly as three manufacturing subsectors today: motor vehicle suppliers, aerospace and defense, and food and beverage. Blessing indicates that by Plex's calculations, these three sub-sectors account for about 25-30% of the manufacturing ERP market. Surprisingly, however, Plex currently has no plans to expand outside of these sub-sectors. Blessing believes that simply by increasing Plex's sales execution in its current markets it can continue its compound annual growth rate of nearly 30% for the next several years.

Count me skeptical. First, as indicated above, Plex no longer has exclusive claim to the cloud manufacturing ERP market. Plex is going to have to fight a lot harder than it has in the past for new customers. Second, why is 30% growth the benchmark? I understand that there are risks in more aggressive growth. But aiming higher might be needed in order to meet the 30% goal.

In my view, Plex is not far off from being able to address the needs of manufacturers that are adjacent to its existing markets. These would include industrial electronics, medical devices, and industrial equipment. Plex already has some customers in these sub-sectors, so it's not like the company is starting from scratch. Hopefully Plex will formally target these industries, sooner rather than later.

Target the Customers You Want Not Just Those You Have

Over the past 10+ years , Plex has let customer requests drive its product roadmap. In fact, much of Plex's development has been funded directly by customers or groups of customers who desired certain new features. This worked well to minimize Plex's up-front costs of new development and also led to high levels of customer satisfaction. However, it had one major drawback: if you only have customer-driven development, everything you build will by definition only be of interest to the type of customers you have today. In addition, a single customer or group of customers are not able to fund major new development that are more strategic in nature.

Here Plex is on the right track. Recognizing this need, Plex is now allocating product development funds for strategic initiatives, including a revamp of its user interface, cross-browser access, business intelligence and reporting capabilities (Inteliplex), as well as other major initiatives. In conversations with customers at PowerPlex they expressed these as welcome developments, although they have, apparently, diverted Plex resources from some of the customer-requested enhancements they also wanted.

The Way Forward

There's plenty that I admire about Plex: its zero-upgrades approach, its broad functionality, and the fact that it proves manufacturing companies have been ready for cloud computing for many years, contrary to the claims of on-premise ERP providers. Most of all, Plex allows me to roam around its user conference and speak informally with customers. Nearly without exception, everything I hear is positive. Not a single customer has told me they made the wrong choice with Plex, although with any ERP implementation there are always bumps in the road. 

But none of this guarantees that Plex will thrive in the future. Like proverbial sharks, software vendors must continue to move forward, lest they die. The management team at Plex has some new blood, including the CEO, and a new perspective. They understand the opportunities ahead, but will they fully rise to the challenges? We'll be watching.

Related Posts

The Simplicity and Agility of Zero-Upgrades in Cloud ERP 
Plex Online: Pure SaaS for Manufacturing

Why IBM acquired SoftLayer

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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On the morning of June 4th 2013 we learned that IBM announced its intent to acquire SoftLayer – a strategic acquisition for IBM in their quest to reach 7B of cloud revenue in 2015. Financial terms were not disclosed – but the street says the deal is valued around 2B US$.

IBM is serious about cloud

IBM has been much more active with respect to cloud since the spring of 2011 with the debut of “IBM SmartCloud” and activity has further increased in the last 6-12 months. With the endorsement of OpenStackas a standard IBM opted for the standard route of the new IBM, which is to use standards. But the pool of OpenStack vendors has become pretty crowded in the last months – basically leading to the question, how to differentiate between all those vendors endorsing OpenStack.At the same time IBM backed up their cloud ambition with the commitment to the 7B US$ goal – with the target year of 2015 coming sooner in sales cycles than one would think. A traditional route through hardware differentiation was not in the books and also not fast enough – so IBM more recently took the route of an acquisition.

Why SoftLayer makes sense for IBM

Amongst the potential acquisition targets IBM could choose from, SoftLayer makes a very good fit. Given IBM’s legacy on the hardware side, private cloud and cloud business solutions (analytics, Smarter Cities, etc) and conservative clientele – it needed a cloud player that would both be strong on the private and public cloud. That SoftLayer was building their own machines may sound counter intuitive at first – but if you take in account the recent rumors that IBM may sell their commodity server business – it starts making sense again. And while IBM has very talented hardware architects, the 8 years of experience SoftLayer has gathered building cloud hardware and vital support technology (IMS) is an asset that Constellation Research is glad IBM will leverage – one way or the other.

Moreover IBM needed the capability to let customers operate hybrid clouds – may it be to wait to write down existing on premise hardware, may it be for security and compliance reason as some part of their enterprise applications needed to remain on premise. SoftLayer is an excellent choice for this capability.

Finally SoftLayer has invested into a very robust and performing data center and network infrastructure – proven in point by SoftLayer signing up 60 gaming companies the last two quarters. Gaming is a very demanding space a vendor would only be successful in, when understanding the infrastructure requirements and being able to address them successfully and SoftLayer now has the track record to prove it.  

IBM and OpenStack – business as usual

SoftLayer has been very active in the OpenStack Swift community, especially for Swift. SoftLayer does not change IBM's strategy with Openstack at all. In the contrary we would expect IBM to make more contributions to OpenStack in the short term future. On the flip side IBM needs to differentiate in the OpenStack field – so it will be interesting to see how that will be played by IBM in the next quarters.

SoftLayer and IBM SmartCloud Solutions

IBM’s SmartCloud solutions now have an even more viable platform to be deployed on –across the different flavors of the cloud – on premise, in the cloud and hybrid. This combination has the potential to bring IBM really back to the place where IBM once was over half a century ago – the essential standard choice as a hardware and services vendor for whole categories of customers.

For IBM Cloud customers

This is an exciting announcement and while it maybe a distraction in the short term, it solidifies and validates IBM’s commitment to the cloud. The flexible deployment options that SoftLayer has proven in the marketplace, are a big benefit to customers, so wait and see, how this will develop in the next few months.

For SoftLayer customers

Carefully evaluate, if you are in a customer segment where IBM wants to be in business. E.g. as a gaming company make sure you get the commitments from IBM to keep maintaining and investing in SoftLayer. IBM has stated that it plans to invest significantly in SoftLayer’s technology and grow that business and model.

For Competitors

This acquisition notches up IBM's capability and makes IBM an even more serious contender. This will definitively be felt by all the hardware vendors dabbling in cloud - e.g. HP and Dell. But it may also give some food for thought to thecloud purists at AWS and Google - as they do not offer anything private and hybrid. It definitively gives IBM a leg up against AWS in the battle for where the enterprise puts their cloud application. 

For IBM

MyPOV

A very good move by IBM, other vendors recently claimed to be fully on the cloud – well IBM made clear they are in the game for real and mean to make this a multi-billion business.  The next months will be interesting to see how IBM will integrate SoftLayer and tune their new go to market for the new IBM cloud products and offerings.

We will know the cloud has completely arrived at IBM, when the company will announce a cloud division – that will encompass not only the services but everything needed for a successful cloud solution – including the hardware and software. Constellation Research does not expect this to be too far out.

Is Your Customer Service Efficient or Effective? Wanna Find Out?

A premise of moving from company-centricity to customer-centricity is to become more effective at delivering customer service.

As a result of the many years that we admonished customer service organizations to become better and more efficient at what they do, to save more money in their operations, and to reduce the costs of servicing customers we  ended up at the opposite end of where we needed to be.

As it turns out, becoming hyper-efficient is contrary to listening to the customer.

As we grow into the “age of the customer” we see more and more than we need to not only listen to them but also to act according to their needs and expectations.  We are on our way to do that, slowly, but we are lacking a guide on how to get there.

I have written a simple, one question guide to becoming more effective that I’d like to share.  As you (hopefully) recall, I use a “sponsored research model”; the research for the move from efficiency to effective (which was done by talking to several customers and reflecting on their collective experiences) can be found at Coveo’s blog as part of the ongoing series on how Knowledge Management is changing.

Please, hop over there and read the link-bait-named “The One Thing That You Must Do To Ensure Your Customer Service Solution Is Effective” and let me know in the comments what you think if you can. I promise you the content is better than the title…

Thanks for reading.

WebRTC Integration with Enterprise and Public Communications Infrastructure

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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Some WebRTC-enabled sites will likely need to connect with enterprise communications systems and to the PSTN. Here we discuss architectures for how this can be done.

This is the second in a series of articles from Brent Kelly offering a primer on WebRTC; Part One can be found here.

Because the barriers to entry are small, we are likely to see numerous websites that are "WebRTC-enabled". As a consequence, there will be thousands, and perhaps millions of websites, that become WebRTC islands in which communications is only between those users with browsers connected to the same Web server. However, some WebRTC-enabled sites will likely want to connect WebRTC clients to enterprise communications systems and to the public switched telephone network (PSTN). In this post we discuss architectures for how this can be done.

The Need for Border Controllers
Organizations that deploy WebRTC and wish to integrate with existing communications systems should expect to deploy border controllers. A border controller is a device that sits between the WebRTC world and a) another WebRTC domain, b) SIP communications infrastructure, or c) the PSTN. Border controllers may provide a number of capabilities including:

1. Signaling gateway--The WebRTC draft standard does specify that signaling must occur when establishing a communication session; however, it does not specify what kind of signaling or the parameters in the signaling protocol used. Each web developer can use what they want for signaling connections and call parameters.

If a WebRTC application does not use SIP signaling, then there must be some type of translation between how the WebRTC application establishes and controls a communications session and how the SIP or PSTN world does communications. Even if the WebRTC application uses SIP, there are so many different "SIP-compliant" implementations that a signaling gateway may still be required.

2. Media gateway--WebRTC may not use the same voice and video codecs as are found in an enterprise or public communications system. If this is the case, then media transcoding will be required to enable communications between these disparate systems.

3. Flash gateway--It may be necessary to support Flash for some time until it is fully displaced by WebRTC. A Flash gateway will assure that browsers that are not yet WebRTC-enabled can still be used in an "always works" service offering .

4. Security and compliance--WebRTC uses cryptography to provide security, by encrypting both the control data and the media. A border controller may be required to decrypt WebRTC control and media flows before they can be integrated with another WebRTC domain or the SIP/PSTN world.

5. NAT and firewall traversal--Most browsers reside behind both firewalls and network address translation (NAT) devices. These devices tend to block real-time voice and video.

WebRTC uses a protocol called ICE (Interactive Connectivity Establishment) for traversing NATs and firewalls. ICE in turn relies on STUN (Session Traversal Utilities for NAT) and TURN (Traversal Using Relay NAT) protocols and servers. A WebRTC deployment will probably need to establish STUN and TURN servers to provide higher likelihood that voice and video packets will traverse the network boundary. As an alternative, for securely allowing WebRTC voice and video traffic to traverse NATs and firewalls, an organization can place a WebRTC-compliant session border controller in the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone); in this model, the SBC handles the ICE/STUN/TURN dialogs for NAT traversal.

Session border controllers can be purchased that handle only one, some, or all of these border traversal issues. Several session border control companies make WebRTC-compliant border elements, including Acme Packet, Genband, Sansay, Mavenir and others. At least one PBX vendor has plans to integrate WebRTC into the PBX fabric so that no SBC is required.

Integration with SIP-Based Infrastructure
Interoperability with SIP infrastructure will usually require some type of a session border controller to decrypt the WebRTC control and media flows, and it may also be necessary for transcoding between WebRTC codecs and the codecs found in enterprise phones and video units.

When a gateway is involved, the WebRTC voice and video peer connections are between the browser and the border controller (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. Integrating WebRTC with the Enterprise Communications System

Integration with the PSTN
There are several different ways in which WebRTC can connect to the PSTN. In the figure below, the PBX could be connected to the PSTN, which is the most likely scenario in the enterprise. Alternatively, the WebRTC-to-SIP gateway could connect directly to a carrier, which in turn has a gateway to the PSTN. The WebRTC-to-SIP gateway function could reside in a session border controller (SBC), or it could be a separate enterprise network element (see Figure 2).

Figure 2. Integrating WebRTC with the PSTN

Conclusion
While some WebRTC-enabled sites will function well as a communications island, others will wish to federate with other WebRTC domains and with the SIP, PSTN, and mobile worlds. This is clearly possible as illustrated in the figures above.

When designing WebRTC into a Web site, it will be important to decide how WebRTC clients will integrate with these other domains. Using a signaling protocol like SIP or Jingle when implementing WebRTC will make it easier to interoperate between WebRTC domains and enterprise and public communications domains.

This article is an excerpt from Dr. Kelly's recently published report titled, "Ten Things CIOs Should Know About WebRTC."

News Analysis: The Vibe On Informatica's Virtual Data Machine

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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EVENT REPORT: Informatica Launches Vibe, A Virtual Data Machine For New Business Models

At Informatica World 2013 in Las Vegas, Informatica announced the Vibe Virtual Data Machine (VDM).  The VDM consists of 4 parts and an SDK (see Figure 1):

1. Transformation library contains pre-built libraries for actions such as combine, transform, cleans, match and mask.
2. Optimizer enables effective resource usage and efficient run-time.
3. Executor is the run-time execution engine.
4. Connectors provide access to multiple upstream and down stream data source.
5. Vibe SDK enables a partner ecosystem.

Figure 1. Inside Vibe, the Virtual Data Machine

Source: Informatica

The VDM release is significant because Vibe:

• Keeps run-time implementation changes agnostic to technology. The Vibe data machine continues the Informatica tradition of separating the development from the run-time environment while maintaining a metadata-driven approach.  Informatica believes that an individual knowledgeable about data integration may not necessary have the same skill sets required for run-time implementation.  The separation is a core part of Informatica’s design philospophy.
  
  Point of View (POV): Users on Vibe will not have to worry about massive changes in data technologies and the impact on integration patterns.  By mapping once and deploying anywhere, the move to keep separation allows for customers to design integration without having to worry about the underlying technology shifts in run-time.    The VDM is code-less and allows for graphical integration mapping without manually modifying code. This is a powerful advantage compared to traditional code generators.

• Harnesses the data in applications, business processes, and connected devices. The tool provides the ability to access, aggregate, and manage data regardless of type, source, volume, compute platform, or user without recording .
  
  (POV): Informatica attempts to simplify data infrastructure with Vibe.  The result – users can easily serve up large amounts of data, convert this to information, identify patterns, and address decision making in all form factors.

• Addresses four critical use cases. Informatica identifies the automatic bridging of virtual and physical data movement, development of Hadoop integration jobs without knowing Hadoop, enablement of hybrid IT with cloud and on-premise integration, and embedding of data quality in side the application.
  
  (POV): The use cases deliver time saving automation and  improved user productivity.  Automatic data quality tasks can be embedded in the application.  Data virtualization with Vibe VDM require no coding.  Integrations in hybrid environments can be scheduled and managed using on-line wizards.  A direct port of Vibe to run on Hadoop makes Hadoop development more economically scalable.

The Bottom Line: Vibe Changes The Data Integration Landscape Forever

The confluence of big data, mobility, cloud based deployments, and massive end point proliferation requires a solution like VDM to support the shift from data to decisions.  Data integration must be seamless and agile.  In fact, future big data business models require easy to deploy and manage solutions that process vast quantities of data and increase the speed of decision making.  As these requirements change how data integration, data quality, tie back to the information life cycle, expect competitors to create VDM like solutions.   For now, Informatica appears to have the upper hand in this emerging market.

Your POV.

Do the use cases for VDM seem compelling?  Are you ready to apply a big data business model?  Does this change your view on Informatica? Let us know your experiences.  Add your comments to the blog or reach me via email: R (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com or R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) com.

Resources

• Polls and Surveys: Who’s Missing in our 2013 #BigData landscape?
• Tuesday’s Tip: Focus On The Business Outcomes, Not Technology With Big Data
• Tuesday’s Tip: Why Context Matters – Forget Real-Time, Achieve Right-Time
• Monday’s Musings: Beyond The Three V’s of Big Data – Viscosity and Virality
• Monday’s Musings: The Three V’s of Big Data
• Research Report: Rethink Your Next Generation Business Intelligence Strategy
• 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!

Meet the Connected Enterprise Speakers: Jane McGonigal, SuperBetter Labs

This is the first in a series of blog posts in which we will introduce you to this year's Connected Enterprise (#CCE2013) speakers. This year's list of speakers is comprised of a group of revolutionaries that will challenge you to reevaluate your approach to standing business models.  

And now... something completely different

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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After spending more than 25 years building enterprise applications, and realizing that I will have probably another 25 years to work, I took some time to reflect, on how I want to spend the rest of my working years...

Short Version

Longer Version

Reflection needs some time off, so I was lucky that my last position gave me some good time off, on this beautiful construct British HR calls the garden leave. I used my time in the garden to get some things off the bucket list. Seeing the US Olympic track and fields trials live in Eugene, was something I always wanted to do since watching them on TV as a little boy in Germany and Italy. Running a (very slow) marathon came off the list, too - and it was so much fun I ran another one (faster) and 4 half marathons during that time, too. I would never have thought 3 years ago that I could / would be a runner and enjoy running to the point of a healthy addition. Also took of a great Caribbean sail trip from St. Lucia to Grenada. Spend a lot of time with the kids, helped the USYVL as clinician and IT advisor - and most notably, avoided travel. Done enough of that.

Looking back the enterprise software industry has been very good to me - right from the start where my first internship got me to test and document SFA software. Lucky me, Kiefer & Veittinger would become the largest European CRM vendor, and having been something like employee #2, I was very lucky to be taken on the ride and help making it a great ride. And I will forever be thankful to Georg Kiefer and Klaus Veittinger for a tremendous level of trust and empowerment, that I have never seen before and later. I learnt a lot, was able to do a lot and most importantly had a lot of fun helping to build a pretty unique company. The approach to generate uniquely configured enterprise software based on standard objects, inherit an information model into this construct and only allow break points (today APIs) to customize the system - has been unparalleled so far.

And when the time came, first through a partnership and then through step wise investment, Kiefer & Veittinger became part of SAP as their first acqHRired (the term didn't exist then) company, I was blessed with luck again. Not only was I charged to lead the pre-cursor of SAP's CRM (FoCus) - but Hasso Plattner also insisted that I would be part of the product development team - and the team developed the first installments of SAP CRM with Marketing Analytics, on top of SAP BiW (how it was called then). Laying out the 5 year roadmap for SAP CRM was a great learning opportunity and till today gives me a sense of ownership in regards of SAP CRM. And I was equally lucky to later work in the Office of the Chairman, directly for Hasso Plattner and Henning Kagermann on special projects. An amazing leadership duo. The Vorstandsassistent job is a fantastic opportunity to get to know a company inside out.

I was lucky to work on very interesting projects, combining some of the business consulting skills we used as a differentiator at Kiefer & Veittinger with SAP internal projects. Can't mention too much, but e.g. verticalizing the sales force, getting marketing more consumer company style and more about perception than technology, were two of the projects that became public. But I wanted to build software again and along came Oracle, which wanted me to help build CRM applications.

Working for Oracle during the dot.com boom was a thrill. I was familiar with Silicon Valley from long stints with SAP's Lab in Foster City and then in Palo Alto - but the pace was even more frenetic. And getting the first version of the Oracle e-Business Suite out of the door in 2000 was a major accomplishment. I am still very proud of the team, that through hard work and very long hours managed to ship the OLAP and BI CRM applications before the respective OLTP apps. And soon after the first PRM product of an enterprise vendor. I learnt a lot from my then managers Mark Barrenchea and later John Wookey. Weekly meetings with Larry Ellison were a unique, challenging and exhilarating experience. I will be forever thankful for all the help, guidance, support directly and behind the scenes by Judy Sim, Charles Philips, Sergio Giacoletto and Sonny Singh. Getting a global sales force to do what is not intuitive - is a huge and fun challenge. But I wanted to build software again and along came Fair Isaac, now FICO - looking for a head of products.

Working for FICO (then Fair Isaac) was an amazing experience. I joined in time as the company was overdue to create their new platform and products for enterprise decision management, an analytical area that is still very near and dear to my heart. I am very proud of the team that managed to keep the lights on in many critical customer situations and select a new platform to build the next suite of products on. But the timelines for the new platform weren't realistic to pursue, which I was pretty clear about and that ended my short time with FICO. I am very thankful to my then boss Bernhard Nann for a lot of guidance, learning and support. And likewise to a great team where I learnt the most from Carlos Serrano-Morales and had the best operations director ever with Stachia Clancy.

So I had some time on my hand, was stuck in beautiful San Diego and took my first sabbatical. I was tired of creating, fixing and turning around enterprise software - so when SAP was looking for a Chief Application Architect in Palo Alto, a position where you had to manage no one but could work on interesting architecture projects - that looked like a perfect job to me. And a great job it was - I learnt more in the time at SAP Labs then ever in my career about technology - since for the first time I had the time to research, learn and design things - as my main job. Before anything like this was always time constraint and to a certain point a luxury. I remember very insightful conversations with Ike Nassi, Rainer Brendle, Karl-Heinz Roggenkemper, Kay van de Loo and Larry Cable. And I am very thankful to Frank Samuel for the best crash course on my SAP know-how gap of 9 years. I had the privilege to work on very exciting projects - but saw too many good ideas and concepts not finding uptake in Walldorf. Having worked on both sides of the Atlantic, that was particularly troublesome to me - and I missed building products that would make a difference in a few quarters and not - maybe - in years.

So along came NorthgateArinso, which was very interesting to me as I could learn beyond CRM not only with a new area of enterprise automation with HCM - but also, that the life as a BPO provider is different to life at an enterprise software vendor. When your weekend update has an issue Monday morning as a BPO provider, you end up loosing money by paying penalties for missed services levels by 8 AM... And a lot of credit goes to the former Arinso team that figured out to make R/3 multi-tenant and enable a powerful and cost effective BPO platform. I was lucky to have a very strong team of executives working for me, with Muhi Majzoub taking care of the UK and leading it to the start of a new ResourceLink product, with Eric Delafortrie to show me the ropes around HCM and making the euHReka product a success, two gifted managers with Christine Morris-Jones and Sam Xydias, who ensured a 0 escalation period from down  under and Tony Whitehead who managed a business unit successfully on the very challenged ProIV product.   It was also my first experience working with private equity and I am thankful to Dhruv Parekh as a great confidante in these terms. But NorthgateArinso wanted to de-emphasize products for the benefit of services, a risk which was there all along - so I found myself in the garden.

I know I mentioned some former colleagues here - and I know I have missed tons of great, challenging and inspiring colleagues. Management by wandering around is something I love to do and I think is essential for a product team's success. Software is build by people and you need to know them, give them time and attention, listen and learn first and foremost... so to the many unnamed former colleagues I have had in Mannheim, Bangalore, Reading, Boston, Foster City, San Mateo, Palo Alto, Redwood Shores, Herndon, Los Angeles, Geneva, Munich, Milan, Paris, Stockholm, Dubai, Singapore, San Diego, Atlanta, San Ramon, San Jose, Irvine, Brussels, Bristol, Peterborough, Hemel Hemstead, Manila, Adelaide, Sydney (and sorry to the locations I forgot) - I have not forgotten you and the many things I learnt from you. 

Through my garden leave and sabbatical I realized, that maybe I don't want to go back at fixing, creating and making enterprise software successful again. There were good and interesting opportunities, but somehow I could not muster the excitement these opportunities would deserve. I knew Ray Wang from our time at Oracle and he has been coaxing me towards analyst work since a long time. I always enjoyed conversations, meetings and briefings with analysts. 

All my contacts in the analyst world I talked to told me, that the toughest thing for an analyst is all the writing. And so I put myself through the a post a day routine - and you see the results of that on this blog. And while I am far away the writer I would like to be - I started to enjoy it - even having withdrawal syndrome, if I didn't post something for a day or two... And I am thankful to all the readers of this blog, all the great feedback I have received, encouragement and great criticism.

From the little I know about it - the analyst world is changing, away from the large firms, the medium size firms have disappeared or have been acquired and I wanted to be part of something, that was changing the way how analyst services are presented and consumed. So Constellation Research looked like a good fit, and I am thrilled to have started there this week, covering the basics of the enterprise software transformation that we are witnessing, with IaaS and PaaS, with forays into what makes these successful, SaaS, analytics, social, mobile and BigData.

So please follow me along the way, I look forward to hear from you and I promise I will give my best and try to make and keep it exciting and fun - as it has been so far!

The Participatory Revolution

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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As part of the Vivid Ideas Festival, innovator, Michelle Williams (founder of Ideaction) curated a knock out event designed to transform the thinking of business, creative and innovation professionals. The resulting one day conference brought together an eclectic mix of speakers, audience members and yes, active participants. If you were like me and could not make it in person, this Storify stream is the next best thing. And Michelle promises a video stream some time in the future.

Holger Mueller Joins Constellation Research as VP and Principal Analyst Covering Cloud Services and HR Technology

Enterprise software veteran joins Constellation Research to provide coverage of cloud services with an emphasis on applicability to practitioners.

SAN DIEGO, California– Constellation Research, Inc., the award-winning research and advisory firm focused on disruptive technologies today announced the addition of Holger Mueller to the research team as Vice President and Principal Analyst. Mueller’s research will add depth to Constellation’s business research themes: Technology Optimization & Innovation, Data to Decisions, Consumerization of Technology & The New C-Suite, and Future of Work.

Mueller’s research will focus on the fundamental enablers of the cloud, IaaS and PaaS, Big Data, Analytics and SaaS development with an emphasis on applicability to the practitioner. Mueller will also cover HR technology for Constellation. The addition of Mueller bolsters Constellation’s ability to provide its clients with the most comprehensive analysis of disruptive technologies.

“I am thrilled to join Constellation Research and to contribute to the success of our clients with my upcoming research and work” noted Holger Mueller, “My teams have been building products on the forefront of innovation with cloud, mobile, wireless, analytics, next generation UIX and architecture for 25 years for companies like Oracle, SAP, FICO and NorthgateArinso”

Mueller recently served as the Global VP of Products for NorthgateArinso.  Previously, Holger worked as Chief Application Architect at SAP; and VP, CRM Development and for Hasso Plattner in the Office of the Chairman.  Mueller’s other roles include Global Product Development and App Development roles at FICO and Oracle Corporation.

“I’ve had the pleasure of working with Holger and admiring his attention to detail and client focus” noted R “Ray” Wang, CEO of Constellation Research, “What I’m most impressed with Holger is his ability to call it like it is.  Holger easily identifies the long term risks while balancing the short term requirements.   Few people can hone in on, both, the problem and solution so quickly.  Most importantly, clients will appreciate his candor and his forward looking approach”

COORDINATES
Twitter: @holgermu
Website: constellationr.com/users/hmueller
Linkedin:  http://www.linkedin.com/in/holgermueller
Geo: San Diego, CA

Holger Mueller Biographical Information
Prior to joining Constellation Research, Mueller was VP of Products for NorthgateArinso, a KKR company. There he lead the transformation of products to the cloud and laid the foundation for new Business Process as a service (BPaaS) capabilities. Previously Mueller was Chief Application Architect with SAP, working on strategic projects and next generation product capabilities. Mueller was also VP of Products for FICO, creating the foundation for the current Enterprise Decision Management Suite.

Mueller has a Diplom Kaufmann from University of Mannheim, with a focus on Information Science, Marketing, International Management and Chemical Technology. As a native European, Mueller speaks six languages. 

VP Global Product Development, NorthgateArinso, 2010-2012
Chief Application Architect, SAP, 2009-2010
VP Products, FICO, 2007-2008
VP Application / CRM Development, Oracle 1999-2007
Office of the Chairman, Special Projects, FoCus Leader, 1997-1999
VP, Kiefer & Veittinger 1988-1997

Holger Mueller 2012 Research Agenda
Research will focus on IaaS, PaaS, software creation and forays into Analytics, BigData and SaaS.

• Trends in IaaS
• Trends in PaaS
• Market overview IaaS
• Market overview PaaS
• How AWS is moving the cloud to the enterprise
• Oracle’s course to the cloud
• SAP’s course to the cloud

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