When Oracle announced its intention to acquire Sun Microsystems in April 2009, CEO Larry Ellison proclaimed the acquisition, “transforms the IT industry, combining best-in-class enterprise software and mission-critical computing systems.”

Although he was not ready to use the term at the time, it didn’t take long for Oracle to refer to its combined capabilities as a Cloud Computing solution set, which it recently put on full display at its annual OpenWorld conference.

The event was also a coming out party for its new President, Mark Hurd, the high flying former HP CEO who departed in disgrace only a month earlier. Hurd’s appointment wasn’t hard to understand given his hardware experience at HP and NCR, and now gives Oracle’s move into the system business even more significance.

HP has retaliated by announcing the appointment of Leo Apotheker as its new CEO, along with Ray Lane as its non-executive chairman of the board. Apotheker comes to HP … Read More »

There have been a series of acquisitions over the past few weeks which clearly illustrate how the competitive landscape in the tech industry and beyond is being fundamentally changed by the rapidly evolving cloud computing phenomenon.

The two most recent examples came this week. The first was CA Technologies’ acquisition of 4Base Technology, a virtualization and cloud infrastructure consulting firm, which CA plans to use as a cornerstone of its expanded cloud computing professional services capabilities. This is the latest in a series of acquisitions which CA has made to transform the company from a software-only to a multi-dimensional corporate portfolio which personifies its new CA Technologies company name. CA’s transformation echos the moves of other players seeking to become one-stop shops for hardware, software and services. The most significant of these was Oracle’s acquisition of Sun Microsystems.

Intel made an even more dramatic acquisition … Read More »

Mark Hurd’s sudden resignation as HP’s CEO has opened a floodgate of speculation regarding who the company will select to succeed him.

Because his departure wasn’t anticipated, there are no clear-cut internal candidates. And, because Hurd himself was a surprise selection for the post in 2006, it is possible that another little-known industry executive may be tapped again for the position this time around.

So, this creates a wonderful opportunity for anyone with a passing interest in HP’s future, and the future of the technology industry as a whole, to throw a few names in the hat.

The HP CEO position is particularly intriguing in part because it has grown to become the largest IT vendor in the industry through a series of acquisitions of Compaq, EDS and others. More importantly, HP like the rest of the IT industry is at a pivotal crossroads … Read More »

Nothing sells the value of a product or service better than demonstrating its utility in the context of a popular social cause. This marketing tactic not only illustrates the functional capabilities of the product or service, but also helps the vendor build goodwill in the marketplace.

This isn’t a new idea. Companies have been giving away their products and services in support of popular causes for years.

Now, the ‘on-demand’ and ‘cloud computing’ industries are using this marketing technique to illustrate how their solutions can be utilized in real-world situations. One of the most prominent examples is Salesforce.com’s 1/1/1 model which dedicates 1% of the company’s employee time, software licenses and corporate equity to social causes, including nonprofit agencies.

The most recent example to cross my radar-screen was Axeda’s “Where’s Leslie?” promotional campaign in association with this past weekend’s Pan Mass Challenge (PMC) bikeathon.

Many … Read More »

THINKstrategies  announced today that Right90 has been named the latest winner of the Best of SaaS Showplace (BoSS) Awards program, which is aimed at promoting the measurable business benefits being delivered by today’s Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions.

The BoSS Awards is an ongoing program which recognizes SaaS companies that are producing tangible business benefits for specific user organizations. These benefits can include increased sales, lower costs, higher customer satisfaction, faster operations and greater profitability.  

Right90’s SaaS-based sales forecasting solution enables companies to quickly and accurately generate more accurate unit and revenue forecasts. And, by integrating with leading customer relationship (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, Right90’s solution helps companies to achieve higher revenue, greater operating efficiencies and increased margins.

Click here to read more about Right90’s award winning business benefits.

Click here to read more about the BoSS Awards program and to apply for an award.

Based on the success of … Read More »

Today’s announcement of a new OpenStack consortium, led by Rackspace and NASA, could help the cloud  computing movement quickly overcome user concerns regarding vendor lock-in by establishing a open-source platform to encourage industry standards for cloud interoperability.

While there will always be cynicism and debate about the feasibility of creating industry-wide technology standards, this initiative appears to have ‘legs’ for a number of reasons,

The initiative promotes the use of generally accepted Open Source stack technologies and approaches which are already popular in the cloud computing industry,
The strength and diversity of the ‘charter’ members of the OpenStack consortium represents a powerful group of technology vendors, service providers and enterprise users.

Although vendor/service provider deployment of the OpenStack code and technology may still vary based on the proprietary interpretations of the standards by specific companies, this initiative will still have a positive impact on the overall … Read More »

For the past two weeks, I’ve been debating whether to respond to a commentary in InfoWorld by Neil McAllister which asked, “Is the SaaS Experiment Finally Over?”

But, I couldn’t hold back any longer when one of the many online publications where I’m a contributor, eBizQ, posed the question in a more provocative fashion, “Is SaaS Dead?”

I couldn’t bring myself to respond to McAllister’s column when it was first published because his argument was so ludicrous. He alluded to a variety of past SaaS and cloud vendor service outages to raise concerns about the overall viability of these rapidly expanding markets. And he used a series of Gartnerisms to warn against developer migration to the SaaS model.  

Yet, McAllister ignores the pervasive failures of traditional on-premise software which has inspired organizations of all sizes to explore and increasingly adopt SaaS alternatives to better meet their corporate needs.

The … Read More »

THINKstrategies announced today that Post Vision Technology’s Project Portfolio Office (PPO) has been named the latest winner of the Best of SaaS Showplace (BoSS) Awards program, and the first company based in Africa to be recognized by the program which is aimed at promoting the measurable business benefits being delivered by today’s Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions.

Project Portfolio Office is a web-based application designed, developed and supported in South Africa to assist organizations to manage projects and project portfolios in various industries. It is offered on SaaS platform, and is an enterprise solution capable of bringing together all the elements necessary for typical projects.

Click here to read about the measurable business benefits which Project Portfolio Office delivered to the the Development Bank of South Africa (DBSA), in conjunction with National Treasury, which launched the Siyenza Manje Programme, an initiative aimed at providing hands-on support to distressed municipalities … Read More »

THINKstrategies announced today that EasyVista Inc., member of the Staff&Line Group, has been named the latest winner of the Best of SaaS Showplace (BoSS) Awards program, which is aimed at promoting the measurable business benefits being delivered by today’s Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions.

EasyVista.com IT Service Management and IT Asset Management solution covers all ITIL v3 processes in a single, integrated yet modular product. EasyVista.com has been designed for quick and easy deployment and enables users to extensively customize their application through a totally codeless interface. EasyVista.com also reduces recurrent costs making it significantly more affordable than conventional on-premise solutions.

Click here to read about the measurable business benefits which EasyVista produced for its customers which earned it a BoSS Award.

Click here to read more about the BoSS Award program and to apply for an award.

Based on the success of the BoSS Awards program which focuses on … Read More »

A commentary on InfoWorld’s website today caught my attention and compelled me to quickly respond in this space to try to once again set the cynics straight about the viability and business benefits of cloud computing.

The author of the commentary entitled, “Confessions of a cloud skeptic”, suggests that the only thing new about cloud computing is the false promise that you can move an entire data center operation to a third-party hosting facility.

I believe the author of this column got the newness re: cloud computing entirely wrong. It is the opposite which makes cloud computing special.

Specifically, it is the hyper-elasticity and self-provisioning capabilities which make cloud computing disruptive. Amazon has pioneered and dramatically changed the way compute power is packaged, priced and delivered.

As a result, organizations and even individuals can now purchase compute power in tiny increments to meet their specific … Read More »