Digital transformation: CIO / CMO and the crisis of confidence
A few years ago, Gartner analysts predicted, “by 2017, the CMO will spend more on IT than the CIO.” As you can see from the opening slide on their presentation (registration required) about the topic, Gartner trumpeted this prediction loudly: Although Gartner phrased its prediction to gain attention, the detailed explanatory presentation offers vague and rather inconclusive data to support the core […]
Research: CIOs and the ‘digitalization’ of business
New research from Gartner and CIO Magazine describe the shift from infrastructure to digital transformation. But, not all organizations are ready to change.
Mobile Shows That The World is Not for Dummies
It’s far too easy to hate statistics and use them to make a point simultaneously. Let’s use them to show that the world is not comprised of dummies and idiots. Beginning with the trends published by Mary Meeker about mobile adoption. She shredded some statistical constructs about the PC industry and its projected growth by […]
The Machiavellian CIO: Morality versus reality
The discrepancy, or gap, between doing and achieving is a persistent problem in business. Although every experienced leader knows that functional success is fundamental to sound management, doing a good job doesn’t necessarily lead to career recognition or personal reward. Niccolo Machiavelli, one of the most intriguing political philosophers in Western history, focused relentlessly on […]
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 […]
CxO Talk guest Hinchcliffe proclaims, ‘IT is dead’
During the latest episode of CxO Talk, my weekly video talk show with co-host Vala Afshar, social business expert Dion Hinchcliffe made provocative assertions about IT. Dion is chief strategy officer of consulting firm, Dachis Group, an experienced enterprise architect, book author, and fellow ZDNet columnist so we should examine his comments carefully. In our discussion, Dion […]
Gartner: CIOs and CMOs must ‘turn sparks into flame’
In the most recent episode of CxO Talk, Vala Afshar and I asked Gartner group vice president, Mark P. McDonald, to advise CIOs who face declining IT budgets despite higher overall technology spend in their organization. Mark’s comments shed light on reformulating IT strategy to reflect changing corporate needs and the evolving relationship between the CIO and […]
Blueprint to Re-Cycle the much Hyped MagiK Kvadrant
Fellow Enterprise Irregular and HfS Research Founder Phil Fersht introduced their new Blueprint with an appropriate title: Step aside Magic Quadrant, hello Blueprint. I think such a milestone warrants a historical overview of Gartner’s Magic Quadrant, Hype Cycle, Magic Cycle, Magic Hype, Hyped Magik… or any other variation you prefer. And since it’s just a few […]
Moving PaaS Beyond the Sound Bites in 2013
Most of the discussion around PaaS these days tends to focus on the rapid application deployment capabilities. That’s the easiest thing to demo in a 3-minute video so it tends to get the headlines. I believe that in 2013 we will move on from this eye candy and dig into some of the higher value […]
On Organizations’ Real Requirements Around BigData
Every time another vendor takes the “big data” moniker and applies it to some legacy system a cat somewhere on the internet dies. Like “cloud” a couple of years ago, big data has become the term de jour – and vendors seem to think that simply using it will give them some magic power to […]
Enterprise Software Needs Flow And Not Gamification
I don’t believe in gamifying enterprise applications. As I have argued before, the primary drivers behind revenue and valuation of consumer software companies are number of users, traffic (unique views), and engagement (average time spent + conversion)…
BMC Launches MyIT – Bridging the IT/Business Divide
Cross posted from the BMC blog. I spend most of my time talking to technology vendors, IT folks and business people all in an effort to drive organizational benefits through the use of technology. Over years of doing this, I’ve noticed a stark divide that exists within an organization between
Gartner’s Latest IaaS Magic Quadrant Released–Meh With a Bit of Interesting
I’m not usually big on Gartner’s crystal-ball-gazing Magic Quadrant methodology – some people claim it’s pay-for-play writ large. I don’t know about that, it just seems to be a somewhat hokey, albeit scientifically-based, prediction of what might occur or, more often, hat already is. Anyway – with that said, the latest IaaS MQ is pretty […]
It Takes at Least 7 Years in SaaS: Can You Do The Time?
I was recently at a dinner with a founder of a pretty successful web company, and he asked how long I had worked on EchoSign, and he nodded his head, and he said “Yeah same for me. It takes about 7 years”. People know SaaS takes longer than consumer web to scale. But it’s not […]
On Open Source Cloud Adoption
Last week Lydia Leong from Gartner published an analyst report with some opinions on Open Stack. I’ve been critical in the past about traditional analyst firms and I’ve also gone on record as being positive about open source (and, for full disclosure, the CloudU program I run is sponsored by OpenStack member Rackspace) but notwithstanding […]
