deal architect

Salesforce.com and Model Metrics

One distinctive feature of Salesforce.com from other application vendors (on-premise and SaaS) has been it has smartly encouraged for years now a group of smaller, cloud savvy systems integrators – as different from large outsourcers, Indian firms or resellers. That includes Appirio (in which Salesforce has a minority investment), Astadia, Bluewolf, Model Metrics and others.

So, I wondered if its announced acquisition of Model Metrics was a change in strategy. I asked Narinder Singh, co-founder at Appirio, and as he has blogged “Since early this year, Salesforce has aligned their entire company and all of their considerable marketing might around the social enterprise…..By adding Model’s mobile development and UI capabilities to their team, Salesforce will be able to make the social enterprise vision tangible for customers.”

In other words it extends Salesforce’s push on Chatter and acquisitions like Radian6.

Narinder adds “We are somewhat relieved to know they will be focused on driving the social enterprise and mobility for Salesforce (and therefore with us), instead of being our most worthy competitor.”

While wishing both the Appirio and the Model Metrics teams well, I hope Salesforce  customers continue to have plenty of choice and implementation costs stay close to the ground and not reach for the clouds.

More New Renaissance

on the innovation blog

Feed world and sustain planet?

The BMW electric i3

The Assault on Science

Consumer Report’s Top Products

Industry events – Depth versus Diversity

Before he went to TechEd Madrid last week, I asked Dennis Howlett how many SAP in-person events/briefings he had been to this year. 7-8 he seemed to recall. He is a lot deeper man than I am. I am more about diversity – I measure each year against how many “new” events I have been to. That’s new to me not necessarily to the event.

I am headed today to HCL’s Unstructure which  is described as “An invite only conference to celebrate ideas, big and small, for generating positive change in the world, our companies and our lives”. I appreciate them inviting me – I have come to know HCL’s product engineering and innovation capabilities much better over the year through a couple of client situations and for their helping profile the Boeing 787 case study in my next book.

In 2011 I had the good fortune to go to a wide number of new conferences as a speaker on The New Polymath, my last book. I also enjoyed SuiteWorld, NetSuite’s first ever global event after being in business for over a decade. I enjoyed IBM Lotusphere - “new” because I had been to one over 15 years ago. I enjoyed Oracle Open World this year because it was “new” in the sense of much more open access to executives and customers particularly around Fusion. I always enjoy Dreamforce – because Benioff always has something new and colorful. I always enjoy Cognizant Community because they present big trends and ideas not focus on their products/services. I enjoyed Tibco’s Tucon because they always set up interesting one on ones with new (to me) customers. I wish I could go to HP Discover later this month, but cannot due to a conflict.

In 2012, I expect I will similarly get to go to several new conferences to present on my next book. And hopefully get invited to 1-2 impactful SAP events. Not 7-8.

My next book

As you may notice, the book badge on the left now has a blue cover – Amazon just announced it is taking pre-orders for my next book (due in February according to Wiley, my publisher)

In the meantime, I am excerpting on a regular basis from the 20 chapters and 21 case studies/guest columns in book on the New Florence blog. This link shows the excerpts so far and those planned through February. Enjoy the excerpts now and the book in the New Year!

The power – and problem - of data

One of my favorite chapters to research and write in my last book was on Analytics – Big Data, Visualization, Pattern Recognition, storage implications and several other angles. And in my next book, I touch on data driven business model innovation, growing privacy concerns as smart devices of all kinds generate an even bigger mountain of data. And, I really enjoyed the recent special issue of Popular Science focused on data. Some great case studies and examples.

But I also feel for CIOs. They are being bombarded by all kinds of analytical propaganda – SAP HANA this and IBM Watson that, Office 365 cloud spreadsheets, digital marketing optimization and master data management. Frankly,we are about to enter a new battle zone of land mines -  a proliferation of tools and a scattered, breach-susceptible data landscape.

Most organizations need a data czar. Actually an Alladin of the famous tale from the 1001 Arabian nights. Someone adept at protecting the lamp with the powerful Genie, and knowing how to coax him to good use. That’s a good way to look at the data challenge.  And the vendor silver bullet barrage challenge.

Mr. Candidate…..

Rick Perry in a brain freeze during the Presidential debate last night could not remember which federal agency he would cut. I was surprised he did not blurt out NASA (of course not, given how big NASA is in Houston in his home state) or some other science/technology oriented program.

As  Shawn Lawrence Otto points in his new book, way too many politicians, on the right and left, are “assaulting science”. As he says “Absurd comments are now not only politically acceptable, but passionately applauded.”

As he did in 2008, he will be leading the charge in 2012 to get the candidates to take explicit positions on various science and technology issues. Expect more brain freezes.

More New Florence

on the innovation blog

massive Asteroid 2005 YU55 passes us Tuesday

Lowes commercial decomposes many of our everyday possessions

30 Technologies through the ages that changed everything

NetSuite’s nice quarter

Nice earnings call yesterday – record numbers across 8 metrics

Just as good was the mainstream publicity through the movie Moneyball  which was released in most US and Canadian cities on September 23 and which features the Oakland A’s stadium and NetSuite’s logo as in photo below of the dugout.

Another factoid - Brad Pitt plays Billy Beane who is on the board of NetSuite

Not bad for a quarter, eh?

Photo Credit

More innovation

On the New Florence blog

Popular Mechanics Breakthrough awards

The Android Barometer

Walt Isaacson’s Steve Jobs

Dennis Howlett’s kitchen upgrade

Saving Private Steve Jobs

In a touching scene in the movie, a much older James Ryan asks his wife “Tell me I have led a good life”. “Tell me I am a good man”. Earlier in the movie, when Captain Miller (Tom Hanks) is given orders to risk his men and go find Private Ryan he says “He better be worth it. He better go home and cure a disease, or invent a longer-lasting light bulb.”

I say this because Steve Jobs invented much more than a better light bulb, but we seem afraid to say he was a “good man”. I spoke to someone yesterday who called him an “assxxxx”. Time magazine reviewing Walter Isaacson’s recent biography paid him a left handed compliment “The strange, sad, triumphant life of Steve Jobs”. This Business Insider blog gives 16 examples from the book of Jobs being a “huge jerk”. I asked my 18 year old son as he was flipping through Isaacson’s book if he had a preconceived view of Steve and he said “he was an assxxxx. Not very nice to people around him”.

So, I told my son to also write down positive stuff about Jobs as he read the book. And I have written below some of the things I found admirable in the man.

To start with even though there is plenty of Apple in my next book, I am far from an Apple “fan-boy.” I was scarred in the mid 90s. My employer, Gartner was an Apple shop but because it was then considered a dying platform, our hardware and applications were old and un-flattering to the Apple of today. I was also unimpressed that Apple, so fussy when it comes to design and other operations, had tolerated its partner, AT&T’s poor network around its iPhone and its onerous roaming, early cancellation and other economics.

But credit where it is due:

Jobs as a management philosopher: No he did not pretend to be Peter Drucker or Jack Welch, but the more we learn about his philosophies, the more he will see his influence on corporate executive behavior. His emphasis of good design driving engineering regardless of the economics, his unwillingness to let deadlines compromise excellence, his ability to cut through silos. The last point is particularly poignant. Think of Sony – even with its Walkman, its studios and labels, and so many other Hollywood connections could not get organized even after years to cut through its silos to challenge the iPod and iTunes. Think of Microsoft and how its infighting prevented it from leveraging a multi-year lead in tablets compared to the iPad.

Jobs and his insatiable curiosity: Against the lily-white, hypocritical politicians of today, it is refreshing to read about Job’s weird diets, his interest in Buddhism, his experimentation with drugs. He may have been opinionated but he knew more about music, movies, publishing, even marble and glass from designing his stores and office complexes than even many experts in those fields  (I thought it was hilarious in an episode in the book the CEO of Corning had to tell him to shut up and listen to someone who knew a bit more about glass)

Jobs and long-term relationships: If he was so difficult with people, how come he managed to work with some of the most talented people in the world for 5-10-15-20-25 years? Jonathan Ives, John Lasseter (now with Disney), Ron Johnson (now CEO  of J.C. Penney), Tim Cook, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, John Doerr and more. Most of us would give a limb to have a fraction of his rolodex. And then there was a marriage for over 2 decades, While his wife Laurene Powell deserves more than half the credit there in a society where the average marriage barely lasts a decade. let’s give the man credit.

Jobs as amazing fighter: The remarkable thing about his last 8 years was how productive he was in his innovation while undergoing so many invasive surgeries and debilitating treatments. As I have gone through my own recovery I sent him an email earlier in the year saying I was inspired by his zest for life. Whatever his faults, at least from a distance, I think he inspired many like me with health hiccups.

I don’t expect my son even after he reads the book to say “Steve was a good man”. But when he reads that his iPod like Steve’s was filled with Dylan and The Beatles, I hope he at least says he was a “cool dude”.