deal architect

VMForce: accelerating the move to 100% in the cloud

Last week I wrote that while some companies still cannot make it past the starting line, a number of early cloud adopters are pacing themselves towards 100% in the cloud.

Now, let's be realistic - you cannot get there with a completely packaged application portfolio. There has to be a healthy dose of custom development.

Enter VMForce being announced today - courtesy of salesforce and VMWare (via its SpringSource division)

"VMforce provides out-of-the-box Java deployment in the cloud that is pre-integrated with a relational database, full-text search engine, reporting and analytics, user and identity management, as well as all the services that are needed to build, run, and manage an enterprise-grade business application."

BTW, I also posted excerpts from my upcoming book on the case study on salesforce.com on the New Florence blog.

Awesome book endorsements

The New Polymath, my upcoming book, got some nice blurbs this week from execs and authors - Maynard Webb, ex eBay; Ben Fried, Google; author Don Tapscott; Daniel Hamburger, Devry; Dave Duffield, Workday; Linda Avey, co-founder 23andMe; author Tom Davenport; Andy Mulholland, Capgemini; Caroline Watteeuw, PepsiCo; Chris Curran, Diamond and Shawn Otto, ScienceDebate.

Details here.

Very grateful to all the reviewers for taking the time and for the kind words.

More New Florence

On the innovation blog

Indonesia and volcanic power

Hubble at 20

MIT Tech Review – Top 10 technologies

More innovation from left field (from Egypt and Togolese Republic)

“100% in the clouds”

It is such a contrast to see some folks still debate about whether clouds are “secure” and “scalable” when at the other end of the spectrum I talk to clients who talk about “we are 60% in the cloud, and will be at 70% at the end of the year”

Even that’s not fast enough for Chris Barbin, CEO of appirio. He wants everyone to be at 100% – like his own firm is. As my upcoming book describes his team

“Most of his team comes from old-world computing, with experience at SAP, Borland, and Accenture. And like most converts, they are passionate—and impatient.”

This morning, they introduced an incentive to accelerate the move  to 100% – at least around IT infrastructure

“  guarantee at least $1 million in annual total cost of ownership (TCO) savings for qualified companies that cloudsource their entire IT infrastructure to Appirio and the public cloud -- or Appirio will make up the difference. ”

Next Tuesday, I will be in San Francisco listening to the salesforce.com/VMware announcement. I want to confirm what I have speculated in my book. If it is what I think it is, it will make Chris’ job so much easier. People who are at 0% today will fight clouds a lot less. And those at 60% will accelerate their move to 100%.

NetSuite and Scenario 3 Outsourcing

Last year I wrote about the BPO market:

1. If Oracle/Accenture BPO is a cost factor of 100
2. Oracle/Wipro would likely be a factor of 75
3. Wipro/SaaS vendor like Workday would likely be a factor of 50
4. SaaS vendor/Cloud Outsourcer/Nextgen SI like appirio would likely be a factor of 25

At its partner meeting this week, NetSuite announced a BPO relationship with Genpact and a systems integration/application management relationship with Wipro

This move to Scenario 3 is great news for the market. Of course, SAP, Oracle and other on-premise ERP customers looking at BPO will have to objectively evaluate the NetSuite solution, not just insist Genpact take over the current environment. Given a fair chance for most customers it should be a no-brainer even after transition costs to justify the move to NetSuite.

Both Genpact and Wipro will need to watch their larger SAP/Oracle/other on-premise ERP practices from stalling this new initiative. It’s their version of the “innovator’s dilemma” – incumbent cash cows invariably feel threatened by new initiatives.

The two service providers will also need to keep optimizing their own practices – and evolving their own delivery to Scenario 4 before a set of hungry new SIs does.

Being pulled kicking and screaming across the chasm

More over Geoffrey Moore. John Hagel and his colleagues have a powerful new book out “The Power of Pull”. 

HBR in its review of the book says “In a ferociously dynamic world, what happens if we can’t plan but can only adapt? We must move, say the authors, from push to pull. At the center of the pull strategy is an individual (not a corporation) who has access to knowledge flows, takes advantage of porous boundaries and serendipitous interactions, and occupies new creative spaces to achieve a novel order of performance.”

John’s research is not new – as he says, the book is based on trends they have been watching now for a decade. (correction - the research is new, the trend is not - see comment from John below) ) My question is how long will enterprises say all kinds of nice things about how right John and co. are, while continuing to resist the pull.

Three exhibits in technology:

• John has been citing Li and Fung for a while now – how it leverages a vast, scalable network of suppliers with deep specialization. In contrast in IT, in analysis for my upcoming book, The New Polymath, I found we spend over 50% of our budgets with the top 25 infotech and telecom vendors. The imbalance between buyer and vendor concentration is acute – top 25 buyers in contrast barely make up 5% of that same spend - and yet we persist with vendor consolidation and lock-in. Time to exploit more “exotic” and “arsonist” vendors I cite in my book in spades. Let them pull you to a better world
• John cites SAP as an example of benefiting from “pull” by leveraging its social networks and communities. No question, in its outreach to bloggers and “mentors” and SDN and other communities SAP has been a pioneer. I have complimented them several times for that. I would suggest, though, that SAP has primarily used these assets for marketing advantage – old school push thinking. There are so many ideas and recommendations SAP has heard from these groups – for years now - about how its ecosystem has been out of control, how low value its maintenance pricing is, how little of the innovation in its labs is making out to the field etc. Very little of that has been acted upon. We will get a chance to listen to the new management team at Sapphire next month, but I am betting it will be a sugar coated version of longing for the good old days – of push.
• Twitter announced yesterday “Promoted Tweets”.  As Jeremiah blogged “Brands can now purchase CPM based ads to promote these popular tweets at the top of a Twitter search term –even in categories they aren’t well known in, influencing awareness”.

More push which vastly undermines the pull gold mine that Twitter should be. At a conference last year, I heard a lady from WalMart basically tell Biz Stone, the co-founder of Twitter

“I know you are searching for a business model. We may have one for you if you can help us analyze more finely Tweets that mention Walmart. Separate those that reflect customer sentiment from others triggered by a Walmart news item or other more casual mentions of our brand.”

Twitter is this generation’s much more expanded version of Nielsen ratings. It should be helping companies understand how world events, competitor and their own moves affect customer perceptions. It is a critical barometer of “pull” and yet they have come out with a revenue model meant to pander to the old marketer’s version of push.

John’s book cover has a great visual - iron filings forming a field around a magnet. Instead of fighting that law of physics, I have a feeling way too many companies will try to shield themselves with mu-metal to resist the pull.

Acquired - and squandered - assets

I went into a Kinkos recently (remember those? )– rebranded Fedex Office now. No wi-fi (used to be reason I went into Kinko’s often on the road), copies at 10c a page, shipping twice what the US Postal Service ended up charging for the same delivery date.

No wonder it was empty. Why exactly did Fedex acquire Kinkos and then let that brand and customer base just dwindle?

Someone pointed out how Gartner has bled talent around its acquisition of AMR Research. Bruce Richardson, the face of the brand, is at Infor and several other analysts have left. Apparently they have more salespeople than analysts – as if Gartner was hurting for salespeople. Why exactly did Gartner acquire AMR especially since there is plenty of vendor revenue overlap likely to be consolidated by customers? 

Against that lens. you have to admire Oracle’s acquisitions. Safra Catz squeezes more revenue, and cuts SG&A to the bone in the companies they acquire.

Well, admire it as an investor, anyways. As a customer, you really should walk out and head to the equivalent of the US Postal Service.

Weekend Stuff: Join us for a good cause – Doctors without Borders

Craig Cmehil is once again hosting FridayMorningReport (FMR) 24 Hour Marathon in aid of Doctors Without Borders.

He has an all-star cast presenting on a variety of topics today and tomorrow. Dennis Howlett provides a roll-call here.

I am presenting today at 3 pm et from my upcoming book on healthtech and innovation far from Silicon Valley – in keeping with the Doctors without Borders theme.

Please join us for the sessions and please consider donating to the group which “…is at work right now saving the lives of women, men and children in more than 60 countries where people would otherwise not have access to medical care.”

iPad in the Enterprise

OK, so more lines at Apple stores and more consumer excitement – but how will the iPad do in the enterprise?

Marc Benioff thinks it will usher in “Cloud 2”  - he says “cloud + social + iPad—will inspire a new generation of wildly innovative new apps that will change entire industries.”

Floyd Teter, a power Oracle user, lays out his thoughts here : “I even took a shot this evening at running Oracle APEX on my iPad (the web-hosted flavor)...so far, so good”

John Dean, ex CIO of Steelcase, loves tablets and has used one since 2003. But he points to one cultural change which would really catapult enterprise adoption if we can reduce the stranglehold of MS Office. We need to get used to passing along notes and doodles as intermediate documents and only use Powerpoint and Word as “finishing tools”

What do you think?