deal architect

Middle Earth Leaders

In tech, we celebrate executives of big vendors and we celebrate entrepreneurs. We often do not recognize executives in the middle. Those that help entrepreneurs put their trajectories on the right path. those that shepherd companies from $ 100m to a billion.  On my trip to the Bay Area I had a chance to break bread with two executives who may never show up in the WSJ but in their own ways deserve their share of recognition.

I met Mike Laven in Paris in 1989. He was VP of Europe for McCormack and Dodge, which ended up becoming D&B Software. He then was then at ASK Ingres. Scopus. A string of financial and energy trading software start ups - Infinity,  Iris, KWI, now Traiana.  A truly global tech executive – he spends as much time in London and New York as he does the Bay Area. He has managed companies formed with Israeli and English entrepreneurs. Sequoia and Accel funded companies. Dealt with Indian and E. European vendors. He has negotiated deals with the Baan brothers and SunGard. It is delightful to spend time with him every few months. Our conversations, each time in a different city, invariably cover a wide range of global and technology topics  His kids have just as interesting careers and travel paths, though not in tech. But the key thing is he brings unbelievable "grey hair" and "wide lens perspective" to every company he has been associated with.

I then met up with Ashwani Rishi, who heads US operations for ITC Infotech. ITC is a professional conglomerate which runs Sheraton hotels in India, paper products, agri-business,  and has a growing IT and BPO services business – while diversifying from its traditional tobacco roots. Influenced by the analytical discipline of McKinsey associates and Harvard MBAs, it is always fascinating to hear Ashwani’s views which reflect a balance sheet focused POV on services so different from the way the Accentures and the Infosyses approach it. Another fascinating conversation – to hear him talk about the evolution of the Indian offshore industry – the personalities, the heady growth – he was there when Infosys crossed the $ 1 billion mark.

Both of them should write books about their respective experiences in technology. But both are too busy building companies. I am just grateful I can spend some time with them every so often – and get interesting peeks at life in the unsung middle – between the large vendors and the early stage small start ups.  There is a Tolkien series waiting to be written on this middle earth.

Oracle and the 29.92 factor

I had a flying visit to Oracle this week. Well, not quite. I did turn on my GPS as we flew over Oracle HQ and captured the coordinates.

I had boarded the flight after meeting with Seth Ravin and David Rowe of Rimini Street. Rimini offers third party maintenance to PeopleSoft, Siebel and JD Edwards customers. Business is growing nicely.

They are excited about a new relationship with AT&T – through its USi sub (AT&T acquired it a few weeks ago). As AT&T expands its application hosting services, it believes customers who sign up with them be even more willing to consider cheaper third party maintenance options, as they are now already a step removed from their Oracle interface. 

While a lot of attention is going to SaaS, as I wrote here SaCS is an even bigger opportunity in existing SAP, Oracle and other application vendor customer bases. The opportunity is screaming to help companies significantly lower their application operational and support costs.

I asked how Oracle views them. Seth was complimentary – he says they have been professional, “mature” about it. Oracle has so many revenue streams and product offerings to focus on that losing a few hundred customers is not about to distract them Losing a few thousand probably would. 

They were a little less generous about SAP, which through its TomorrowNow unit offers similar services They complained about the FUD the TomorrowNow folks spread about Rimini in competitive deals. We laughed about the irony that SAP does not offer a limited maintenance offering to its own customer base.

Back to the GPS – the pilot of this flight announced our cruising altitude would be 29,000 feet, but my GPS showed us around 30,000 for a while. As I left the plane I asked her if the FAA had allowed to cruise higher than planned. She looked puzzled but then said “Ah, you forgot the 29.92 factor we have to adjust to at 18,000 feet”. It is disconcerting when it sinks in that pilots do not know their exact altiiude, but because everyone is consistently misinformed the system works.

And I am just as disoriented about the software market. Oracle offering cut rate maintenance to Red Hat customers, but not its own. SAP offering cut rate to Oracle customers, but not its own. SaaS vendors ignoring that SaCS will keep many Oracle and SAP customers on those platforms for a long time, even if they are not supported by the OEM.  Everyone seems consistently misinformed with their own 29.92 adjustment. Meanwhile on terra firma, customers seek out reality based options like Rimini to extend their investments, but at much more affordable outlays.

Update: CFO Europe picks up on the theme

I'm not the maverick nonconformist I thought I was

Like the man says in the SAP SME commercial when he hears he is not alone running its stuff. I should ask  the same now that Thomas Otter of SAP has me as a poster child.

But wait a minute -  I want my photo to be on their version of the most wanted.  Because the best run bloggers should be running  SAP and Oracle and Accenture ...ragged! Instead of railing on each other....

It is good to see SAP as maverick and non-conformist with its humorous ads.  And they are really short too - I have tried to  click away or take a bio break and they are long done! Something for their implementations to compete for as they go after the SME space...

WaaS - Weather as a service

IBM has launched a new weather service called Deep Thunder that can predict the rain, the wind, and temperature conditions down to a one-kilometer resolution. In time, IBM researchers say they should even be able to nail the resolution down to individual streets.

Read more at MIT Technology Review.

IBM and Satyam

The rumors have been floating for a few weeks now. IBM plans to acquire Satyam (or at least a major stake in), the 4th largest Indian offshore player.

Satyam is strong in several manufacturing markets and has one of the better packaged application practices of the Indian firms. It has also done a poor job marketing itself compared to the other Indian firms and IBM would clearly turn that around. But IBM inconsistently positions its own growing India operations, so I suspect integration will be a challenge.  And IBM will have to quit the double speak to customers about not being in India for lowered costs and reluctantly passing those along. It will also pressure Indian firms to step up their own western acquisitions to accelerate market share growth.

If the transaction goes through, it would dwarf recent Indian investment by western technology firms - EDS with investment in MphasiS, Cap Gemini with Kanbay and Oracle with i-Flex.

But will Marc be as generous as Eric?

Dan Farber writes about salesforce.com's planned AppStore Checkout.

Should come in handy next holiday season. If it is anywhere as generous as Google Checkout this year.

Combined with Buy.com I have already received over $ 200 in savings at $ 10 or $ 20 an order - most with free shipping. I have stocked up on mini-SDs, USB and Bluetooth gizmos - after Google checkout and mail in rebates many of the items are free or close to. Sure a bit more typing and mailing...but thanks, Eric and gang for the gift.

Marc, your turn next year. Though you may have to hit Zach or Larry for some of the cash from NetSuite's potential IPO next year -)

The Wizard of Winter

Last year this was one of the most viewed videos around holiday season - but it also caused Carson Williams and neighbors a nightmare in traffic. Now an entrepreneur, he is helping more public forums share the magic as this in Denver.

Poor, Richer Gartner

I wrote Poor, Rich Gartner in February - and Gartner continues to get its shares of boos and brickbats.  But investors love Gene Hall, the CEO (including me - finally sold a few I had held on to for the last few years). And it recently announced plans to repurchase stock from Silver Lake.

As I wrote then, Innovation and Independence come way below Income on Wall Street.

"IT as revenue center"

I read Dave Margulius' article with some skepticism (btw - I usually enjoy Dave's wry commentay on the industry).

CIOs are my clients and much as I would love to see them generate revenue, I think they have a clearer short term path cut out for them. Crunch utility dollars, shield those savings from the CFO who wants to spend that on compliance, and invest in  many, small innovation projects. The entrepreneurial spirit Dave brings out in his examples should also show on innovation projects.

Once we get the internal IT spend balance more heavily skewed towards innovation versus KTLO, then we can start dreaming about revenues from IT. May be - if IT can show ability to get to overwhelming scale compared to the vendor community. Which is usually in small vertical or geographic niches.

The Dog and the Bone

I am blushing at the comments I have received on the blog and by email on my post saying I was not going to write much about SAP and Oracle going forward. Thanks , readers, for the encouragement - but it's that time of the year where this dog is salivating at new treats. The old bone has not disappeared, it is hidden away and sure to be brought back from time to time -)

BTW -  sorry I have been slow even with other posts. Little under the weather, with the kids at a chess tournament this weekend, and generally trying to climb from under a mountain of year-end administrative stuff.  For all you budding entrepreneurs out there, they don't tell you much about the administrivia!