Cloud
We've heard it now for years. We have to go to the cloud. It's all in the cloud. Companies are blindly getting on the bandwagon that cloud is necessary for everything. I've met with several executives that simply set goals like,"By 2020 we'll have 50% of our workloads in the cloud. We have a cloud-first approach."
"Why am I spending my time and money on this investment?"
I don't necessarily disagree with the cloud-first approach as a management philosophy to force stale IT organizations to…
The Opening of AWS in Canada, Innovation and how Digital Technologies Can Change the world
On December 8, 2016, AWS rolled out its Quebec (Canada) region, called Canada Central.
Today’s opening of an AWS region on December 8, 2016, and the recent investments such as in-country delivery of Microsoft’s Azure, could kick start the innovation engine in Canada. For too long, Canada has scored poorly and lacked much of the influence and technology resources of other countries. Recent moves by the federal government to make Canada a more favourable immigration destination; allowing more fluid deployment of out-of-country workers; the emergence of hubs such as the Waterloo…
SMB’s and SaaS Solutions – Improving time-To-Value with Domain Expertise Teams
I’ve written previously about how our firsthand interviews with SaaS buyers have revealed a mixed bag of user experience, and satisfaction with long-term results. The problems mostly stem from the implementation: even with significant input from 3rd party implementation partners (VARs, SIs), unforeseen challenges (the complexities of the SLA, difficulties of bulking up from trial to full deployment, and the process change required for users to map to the new solution), the journey can be daunting. Some of the fault for this situation is due to the whole IT supply (software services vendors, resellers) and demand (all sizes of IT organizations but especially mid-sized and smaller), because they are prone to selling, installing, and deploying subscription services just as they’ve done for years with packaged applications. Sometimes frustration with this regime inspires innovators. Recently I attended a briefing by the CEO of a cloud solution provider (one of NetSuite’s largest resellers) who after 100+ cloud deployments recognized a recurring problem in the SMB space: a lack of highly-experienced functional expertise that was slowing the pace of new SaaS HR/HCM deployments. Many of the problems stemmed from poor domain expertise, not lack of IT skills – there are plenty of talented admins and sysops around. The CEO is Brenda Brinkley, head of Epiphany, who is launching a new company in Q2 2014 called Elysian Field Software.
It's been interesting watching customer uptake of SaaS applications, and in particular the interest from SBM customers. In IDC's Fall CloudView survey (n= 3462, 19 countries) IT buyers from firms with <500 employees stated they'd devote 23% of IT spend to SaaS, up 4% from the 2013 survey, and smaller firms (<250) were up even more - 6%, to 24%. This is not a shocker to those of us who believe in future where startup employees get a tablet, 4G and a bunch of websites as their IT…
On September 23, 2014, IBM brought together the top IT services and outsourcing advisors in Canada
On September 23, 2014, IBM brought together the top IT services and outsourcing advisors in Canada. In a concerted effort to be more engaged and transpent about its strategy, IBM, led by its new North American GM, Brian Whitfield, reached out to this particular group that holds strong sway with how and where IT budgets flow. Third Party Advisors help in properly defining buyers' requirements, setting their expectations and guiding them through the transition to an outsourced environment.
IBM…
More Focus on SMB by SAP and Others -- Will Millennials Drive Tech Adoption? Not Yet.
Millennials (born between 1982 and 2000) are attractive prospects in three ways: 1) Interest in leveraging technology; 2) Comfort with advanced mobile capabilities and resources available on the cloud; and 3) A genuine interest in doing things better and more efficiently to improve business outcomes, and also enhance the quality of life they enjoy. But only 6-9% of SMBs have them at the top. In ten years things will be different!
In keeping with springtime and a time for renewal, a number of major technology companies are rethinking their SMB strategies and planning game-changing moves. This is especially true for SAP, which has announced a number of tactical steps to support "profound" advances in the SMB market.
Like other Europe-based firms, SAP refers to the small and midsize business segment as "SME." While adhering to the basic definition of SBs as firms with <100 employees and MBs as firms with 100-999…
On January 17th IBM announced a $1.2 billion cloud expansion program to expand its worldwide footprint for IaaS and other as-a-service offerings. With IBM's earnings announcements a day later as well as its decision to sell its x86 business to Lenovo, the Softlayers acquisition last year and now this expansion take on new significance as a key part of IBM's own business transformation strategy. In this post, IDC's leading datacenter, cloud and IT financing analysts highlight some of the most important elements of the IBM's Softlayer efforts and their impact on the types of solutions IBM will be providing to customers.
IDC's chief analyst, Frank Gens, blogged earlier today about IBM's recent earning announcement and discussed how IBM is and needs to react to its changing market landscape. Two of the major moves Frank mentioned were:
- Putting a "Real" Cloud Foundation in Place. IBM's $2 billion acquisition of SoftLayer last Summer has given IBM a highly competitive cloud services delivery infrastructure platform, one architecturally capable of competing with Amazon, Microsoft and others.
- Massively (and…
IBM 4Q2013 Earnings: Big Motivation for a Year of Accelerating Transformation
IBM's 4Q2013 earnings - which showed another quarter of disappointing revenue growth - have observers wondering: what's happening at IBM? Will they be able to successfully reorient around the emerging, high-growth "3rd Platform" IT, built on cloud, mobile, social and big data technologies and solutions, or will they become the next DEC or Wang? In this post, IDC Chief Analyst discusses a massive mobilization within IBM - one that started to accelerate 6 months ago - to position the company as a leader in this new IT era. Significantly increased investment scale, a faster pace, and a flurry of moves are underway in 2014; the question is now: how well and how quickly can IBM execute?
On Tuesday, IBM announced its financial results for the fourth quarter of 2013, and the results were disappointing - with revenues down 5% (3% in constant currency), driven by a 26% drop in hardware sales and 14% drop in sales in the BRIC countries. In spite of this top line dip, IBM financially engineered - through share buy backs, a lower tax rate and cost reductions - a 14% increase in operating earnings per share, to $6.13, 14 cents above financial analyst expectations.
CEO Ginni…
IDC recently completed a research effort looking at software publishers with roots in the perpetual on-premise world that are transitioning to subscription and Cloud models. Most of these companies profess to be driven by the desire to offer customers flexibility and choice. To the software publishers, choice means that the customer can choose the deployment model and payment structure that works best for them. To the software publishers, flexibility comes naturally with this strategy: by having a variety of options, they are giving the customer the flexibility to choose. However, choice and flexibility are two very different things.
In the context of software licensing, choice means the ability to select how to buy and deploy software from a few good options. (It isn't choice if one of the options is so inferior to the other that no one would consider it). Choice can be very beneficial to customers, and without it today's software customers will be dissatisfied (even if they would only ever buy or deploy one way). Choice can also be a hindrance if there are too many choices, and it is becomes difficult to assess the…
On September 21st Rogers Communications continued the stream of acquisitions that have reshaped the Canadian hosting market. Following close on the heels of transactions including Cogeco's purchase of Peer 1, the Bell-led consortium buy out of Q9 and its own purchase of BLACKIRON's assets from Primus Telecommunications, Rogers announced a double acquisition of Granite Networks and Pivot Data Centres. In less than 6 months, Rogers Business Services has gone from a non-entity to the number 5…
Regardless if you are deploying your ERP solution on premise or in the cloud, business change is a constant and not all solutions support it well. A new survey that focused on this issue illuminates how this impacts both end users and vendors.
It is important that vendors, who sell IT solutions to vertical industries, don't lose sight of what IT is supposed to accomplish for the end user. The goal is not about having the latest or largest database or the most elaborate and encompassing enterprise applications system. While IT is important, end users have more practical goals for spending and implementing technology solutions.
The ability to adapt to business change- whether financial and regulatory, merger and acquisitions, or…
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