Enterprise hits & misses - July 14
- Summary:
- Jon's cheeky weekly review of which enterprise software articles hit (or didn’t) on diginomica & beyond - for week ending July 13, 2014.
Enterprise hits & misses - a cheeky weekly review of which articles hit (or didn’t) on diginomica and beyond.
diginomica hit: DataStax co-founder: “We will get Cassandra into 100% of the Fortune 100” by Derek du Preez
quotage: 'When talking to Pfeil I don’t get a sense that he’s delusional, or that he’s driven by marketing hype. When he’s talking about the benefits of Cassandra and DataStax for the enterprise, he simply talks about why it makes better economic sense (cheap hardware, cheaper software) and that the “computer science” behind the system is less constrained for those that want big, powerful online applications.'
myPOV: Derek has a knack for getting his interview subjects to spill bold claims. He did it again with DataStax co-founder Matt Pfeil. When you consider that DataStax already runs in 25 percent of the Fortube 100 in some capacity, perhaps Pfeil's claims are not so grandiose.
Though DataStax's infestation of 1/4 of the Fortune 100 is nothing to scoff at, the interesting question is how core RDBMS systems will fare as new challengers come in from all sides, be it DataStax, SAP HANA, other NoSQL upstarts like MongoDB. or the Hadoop enterprise flavors du jour. So far, even the brash Pfeil would concede that RDBMS systems aren't going to be ripped out overnight. Nor will they stand still while their revenue empires crumble. But, Pfeil adds: 'a lot of the traditional players over the long term will begin to suffer.' I'd say that's 'game on.'
diginomica pick: A stake in the ground – six hurdles to reversing ESN failure by Den Howlettquotage: 'My mantra here is that content without context in process is meaningless. Just because an ESN exists doesn’t mean it will deliver value, even when it is used.'
myPOV: Riffing on news of another underwhelming Enterprise Social Networking (ESN) project hitting the skids, Den takes the convo in a constructive direction by identifying six hurdles ESN must overcome to be enterprise-relevant. Enterprise social is a frequent whipping post of Den's; even those who disagree with his anti-social stance will find his six ESN hurdles worth pondering, and, hopefully - addressing.
Customer use cases:
- Jessica looks at how data informs Netflix's predictive approaches to television production in Forget orange; for Netflix, Big Data is the new black.
- Derek shared the thinking behind an Oracle customer's cloud moves in dunnhumby aims for vanilla in preparation for full Oracle cloud rollout.
- Stuart analyzes UK retailer Marks and Spencer's multi-channel struggles in When will Marks and Spencer’s approach to digital retail get some magic and sparkle?
Vendor coverage: Den dumped some cold water on Microsoft memo hype in Microsoft CEO’s yawnathon adds little new, and he took a hard look at Box's latest maneuvers in Box snags $150 million in last chance saloon funding round. As I head to press, I see that Stuart has also filed on Salesforce.com's biggest acquisition since ExactTarget in Taking out the upstart early shows why Marc Benioff is no Tom Siebel.
Don’t miss
- Dennis did an eight point takedown analysis of cross-posting on LinkedIn (and LinkedIn's blog promotional schemes) in If I pay LinkedIn will they come? Our eight point verdict.
- Stuart posted several pieces with geopolitical relevance: Is the Senate Intelligence Committee deliberately giving more powers to the NSA?, Russia calls on US for political equality, but wants special treatment on the web, and Britain pledges to fight Europe’s Right to be Forgotten bad law (tell us how you really feel Stuart).
- Phil posted another keeper on 'frictionless enterprise' themes in Moving core IT into the enterprise fast lane.
Best of the rest
No 'special accolades' piece this week, but here's some standouts:On Microsoft: Most of the pieces on the Microsoft memo frenzy were either superficial or borderline fanboy, but I liked Information Week Michael Ender's consecutive pieces, starting with Nadella Charts Microsoft's Future: 5 Key Points and then Microsoft Partners Conference: 3 Things to Watch - an event which kicks off today and should add more context to the news flurry. One notable shift - less emphasis on devices (Surface, Xbox) and more on platforms. But as for 'reinventing productivity', is Nadella saying that we're not productive now? Last time I checked most of us were getting things done, often in spite of Microsoft.
- On IBM: re/code reported on one of the more compelling vendor stories of the week, IBM Makes $3 Billion Bet on Life After Moore’s Law. Gist: chips can only get a few nanometers smaller before they run into a non-negotiable wall. IBM is sinking big bucks into alternatives, with a 'fail fast', mantra. Me: better make that 'fail really fast.'
- On IT spending: two different angles: Doug Henschen examined Gartner's mixed view of flat IT spending with enterprise software on the rise. Meanwhile Chris Kanaracus took an (occasionally) snarky look at IDC's conclusion that apps will drive public cloud spending to double digit growth. Noting that Oracle cloud spending came in fifth in IDC's findings (in contrast to Oracle's own self-awarded second place finish, Kanaracus write: 'An Oracle spokeswoman declined to comment on IDC's ranking.' Plunk.
- In one of the strongest pieces of the week, Trident Capital's Evangelos Simoudis looks at the trend of innovation by acquisition - why it works, and the pitfalls many have fallen into. I was glad Simoudis noted retention/cultural challenges, something #ensw companies have learned about the hard way.
- Brian Sommer dropped trou on his latest research in The talent businesses really need (and HR software might not deliver) and The trajectories of great software companies.
- Good week for multi-media: Tom Raftery's guest on Technology for Good was GE CTO Jeremiah Stone. This Fireside chat with Google co-founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin hit on some important topics (e.g. the future of work), and podcast veteran Michael Cote of 451 Research has launched a new podcast series, Under Development, that hones on developer and design issues.
Whiffs
I thought this dude who spent $500K Turning His Basement Into The Bridge Of The U.S.S. Enterprise was a study in whifferama, but as I read further, I learned that his wife was not only on board, but thinks it's 'wonderful'. If your wife cheers you on while you blow 500K on a souped-up man cave, that's the opposite of whiff. Just so long as he didn't drain the college fund...
But this got me thinking about the culture of weird, and how sick I am of pieces that glamourize how the Internet splinters the mainstream, as in The Great Fragmentation: We are all Weirdos Now. To which I ask the author: if being weird is suddenly so acceptable, why do we see surveys showing high school bullying at an all-time high? Frequent stories of bullying suicides still hit the wires. So much for weird being cool.
Look - the Internet is a great place for finding like-minded 'tribes'. It's also a handy place to post anonymous (or not) tweets congratulating Germany for World Cup victories evoking Hitler and/or the Holocaust. Let's not get carried away with the Internet-is-wondermuss eulogies, that's all I ask.
On the enteprisey front, less than 24 hours after Satya Nadella's memo, CNN Money puked out some opportunistic linkbait entitled 5 Ways Microsoft Employees (and You) Can Prep for Layoffs. Nothing wrong with advice on layoffs, given layoffs are always in season, but the piece teeters perilously close to fiction on the Microsoft front. Could there be layoffs? Sure. Will there be? Probably, at some point.
CNN Money's advice to Microsoft employees? Follow their checklist 'when rumors start swirling.'
In other words, pretty much be preparing for layoffs all the time. Stress out about your company's exit policy and frantically exchange business cards with co-workers. Yup, that's good livin'. To be fair, the piece closes with some good common sense advice: basically, kick ass and focus on doing great work. A welcome message amidst the FUD.
Officially off-topic
On the subject of real reporting, it looks like a bakery in Ohio beat out CNN Money this week by actually breaking a news story (Lebron James' return to Cleveland, which was posted on their Facebook page).
Regarding James, I don't know if he's a good guy - probably he's a real piece of work given his entourage. But his letter on returning to Cleveland showed an admirable maturity sorely lacking in years' past. Forgiveness may be convenient, but burying the hatchet is still refreshing in this eye-for-eye age.
On the other hand, I hope Francine McKenna never gives the corrupt financial players a break, seeing her take frauditors to task warms resolve. George Martin isn't going quietly either - his 'fuck you' to fans who think he'll die before the Game of Thrones books are finished was the pic of the week.
Another American hero? The pilot who ordered 50 pizzas for his passengers as they gritted out weather delays on the tarmac. And no, I didn't forget about the World Cup - this contrast between how Germany and Argentina called the winning goal is all you need to know about the highs and lows. I'll miss that welcome distraction from my mediocre Red Sox. See you next time...
Which #ensw pieces of merit did I miss? Let us know in the comments.
Most of these articles are selected from my curated @jonerpnewsfeed. “myPOV” is borrowed with reluctant permission from the ubiquitous Ray Wang.
Image credits: Cheerful Chubby Man © RA Studio, Happy Children © Anna Omelchenko, Waiter Suggesting Bottle © Minerva Studiom, Overworked Businessman © Bloomua, Man © Dudarev Mikhail - all from Fotolia.com
Disclosure: Salesforce.com, Oracle and SAP are all diginomica premier partners as of this writing.