This list celebrates changemakers creating meaningful impact through leadership, innovation, fresh perspectives, transformative mindsets, and lessons that resonate far beyond the workplace.
As you know, Microsoft had their combined Ignite and Envision conferences in Orlando this week. As often before major user conferences, I tweet out my top 10 questions for the event (see here). And if I get to it - I answer them afterwards...
Microsoft Ignite announcements focus on giving customers options, including on-premises, cloud, operating systems, and ML and AI frameworks.
Microsoft is getting really serious about giving customers choices. That much was clear at this week’s combined Microsoft Ignite and Envision events in Orlando and, in particular, in announcements around databases, data-integration, machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI).
As if enterprises, press and influencers would not be busy enough with Microsoft’s combined user conferences in Orlando and the dawn or Oracle’s Openworld next week- SAP decided to do an acquisition (with Gigya, ok these things happen when they happen), with a product launch event (for SAP Data Hub in New York) and its developer conference, SAP TechEd (happening in Las Vegas).
Microsoft's largest combined event of the year, Microsoft Ignite and Envision, are currently the pre-eminent industry showcases for the sprawling breadth and depth of the technology giant's extensive portfolio of platforms, tools, applications, and other enterprise capabilities.
We had the opportunity to attend Microsoft’s combined Ignite and Envision events held in Orlando, taking place from September 24th till 28th2017. It was the first time Microsoft merged the two events, resulting in a conference that was attended by almost 30k people. As usual with Microsoft, analyst, influence and press attendance was massive.
SEPTEMBER 26, 2017 - SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF. - Constellation Research, Inc., the Silicon Valley-based disruptive technology research and advisory firm, announced its keynote speaker lineup for Connected Enterprise 2017. Kim Scott, Marco Tempest and Tricia Wang will take the main stage, setting the tone for this year’s theme of digital business in an AI-driven world. This exclusive conference for innovation and digital transformation leaders will take place October 24-27, 2017 at the Ritz-Carlton in Half Moon Bay, Calif.Headliners:
We had the opportunity to attend Zenefits’ Shift 2017 event in San Francisco, held at the Metreon on September 21st, 2017. The conference was well attended, though less in audience than the Z2 launch 12 months ago.
Google introduces 'zero-touch' enterprise deployment for Android devices: It's going to be easier and more secure to roll out enterprise Android devices, with Google's introduction of "zero-touch enrollment" capabilities.
We had the opportunity to attend Kronos’ very first analyst day, held at the vendor’s new headquarters outside of Boston. It was the first day at the office for many of the executives and employees, a very nicely remodeled older office building (the former Wang HQ), with many interesting and useful features and capabilities. Interestingly there are no rooms, corner offices etc. facing the windows. The idea is to allow as much possible day light to flood the building.
Even though we are almost only two weeks off Oracle’s OpenWorld conference in San Francisco - Oracle is pushing the gas pedal. Yesterday Oracle announced its Sparc M8 chip / architecture – today it was Chairman and CTO Larry Ellison’s turn: New pricing.
We had the opportunity to attend ADP’s yearly analyst day, held in New York on September 12th, 2017, at the vendor’s innovation lab in Manhattan (see my site visit report here). The analyst day was well attended with over 25 analysts and influencers in the audience.
John Chambers' legacy at Cisco: After more than 20 years as either executive chairman or CEO of Cisco, John Chambers is stepping back from his duties. Chambers will not stand for reelection this December to Cisco's board, which intends to name CEO Chuck Robbins chairman as his successor.
David Chou, CIO at Children’s Mercy Hospital Kansas City, and I wrote a paper “How Healthy is Blockchain Technology?” for the HIMSS Asia Pacific 17 conference in Singapore last week. The paper is a critical analysis of the strategic potential for current blockchains in healthcare applications, with a pretty clear conclusion that the technology is largely misunderstood, and on close inspection, not yet a good fit for e-health.
And we were awarded Best Paper at the conference!