
Who are you, Cloud Broker?
Cloud brokers were recognized and described by Gartner analysts as the `Intermediary services that support fast cloud adoption`. From their customers’ perspectives cloud brokers are the system integrators (SI) or the `cloud enablers` that support fast adoption and maintenance of cloud technologies. For example, the independent software vendor (ISV) can benefit greatly from a cloud […]

2004-2011 financial analysis: Non-traditional SI (Indian players and IBM)
Yesterday I published my financial analysis of 4 traditional system integrators: Accenture, Atos Origin, Capgemini and Logica. In a conversation I got asked why IBM wasn’t on the list, and my answer was somewhere along the line of “it’s not a pure player”. Also, I hadn’t published my Indian friends yet, so here are another […]

Traditional system integrators 2004-2011 financials
Traditionally, 31st of March is the date that all my favourite system integrators (SI) have released their annual report for the previous year. Oddly, however, I’ve seen some strange changes this year – for the first time. I could -and will- even say that traditions have been broken with I had to look hard and […]

Real Profitability Part II: classical System Integrators
In my previous post I gave away financial stats on The Big Three and The Big Four, showing their revenue, profit and R&D – for the company as a whole but also calculated relatively for each employee. As Wim Rampen marvelously noted, the real drooling stats would be in measuring all that by customer, rather […]

Whose Life are You Going to Change?
Many of us have the ability to change the trajectory of other people’s lives. I’ve think I became self aware of this even back in college. This is a story of one person who had the power to change my life – and did so in a big way. It’s the story of persistence in […]

Only in California: Electronic License Plates May Turn Your Car Into a Billboard
Here’s proof that Governments’ creativity in finding new revenue sources is unlimited, reports The Merc: The California Legislature is considering a bill that would allow the state to begin researching the use of electronic license plates for vehicles. The move is intended as a moneymaker for a state facing a $19 billion deficit. The device […]

Accenture Survey Identifies Companies’ Innovation Improvement Opportunities
Accenture released a survey of 630 executives at large U.S. and U.K. companies, Innovation: a Priority for Growth in the Aftermath of the Downturn. The report discusses enterprises’ view toward innovation during the Great Recession. This information in general is useful for anyone following the field. Just as interesting are the nuances that come out […]

KashFlow Scores SE Asia and Moves Locations
Lots of exciting news for KashFlow this week – a shift of location and a new partnership. Firstly they’re announcing a shift from Essex to London (that’s in England for the US readers ;-)), at the same time they’ve appointed two new directors to the board. Lord Young, (yes, that’s a real Lord) a major […]

Business sees value in the Cloud; yet security remains a concern
I spoke with Avanade CTO Tyson Hartman on Friday, ahead of the company’s publication of results from their Cloud Computing survey this morning. This study, conducted for Avanade by Kelton Research, interviewed 502 senior executives in seventeen countries. It found that 65% of those surveyed internationally (and 80% in the US) believe Cloud Computing to […]

Services, The Very Critical Part of the On Demand Ecosystem – Appirio
Yesterday I had a great conversation with one of the founders of Appirio, a new age services organization founded in 2006. They are an 80-person company with an additional 20 people offshore through a partner. Their original investors include Salesforce.com along with a couple of angels. More recently Sequoia capital invested in them. Appirio is […]