
Rethinking IT Transformation for the Cloud
As cloud computing matures and success models emerge, enterprises are now getting serious about using cloud to drive IT transformation. JP Morgan Chase, Toyota, GE and other leading organizations are moving beyond incremental costs savings and are using cloud and next generation platforms to drive innovation, growth and competitive advantage. Unfortunately many CIOs and their […]

The Art of Riding the Bubble
People are increasingly asking whether there is a Bubble underway in the tech business. The answer is that by the time you know there is a Bubble it’s probably too late to do anything about it. But if all you’re doing is asking whether there is a Bubble, the Bubble is probably not here, yet. […]

Is platform or provider lock-in the future of cloud services integration?
Yesterday, Dell bought Cloud Services integration provider Boomi and cloud punditry (including myself) started speculating on Dell’s strategy with this acquisition. My take on the acquisition is that Dell will put Boomi along with Perot Systems in its efforts to reposition the company as a consulting company a la IBM. Today Phil Wainewright wrote a […]

Citrix’s Confusing Open Cloud Strategy
Early this week Citrix announced their Citrix Open Cloud framework and ever since I am confused both about their name and also their strategy. Part of my confusion is due to the vague information, without any specifics, on their website and seemingly arrogant response on Twitter by some of their top executives when asked to […]

Amazon Drops EC2 Prices. Can We Expect More Reductions?
Amazon today announced that they are dropping the on demand and reserved prices of High Memory Double Extra Large and High Memory Quadruple Extra Large instances from yesterday. Effective September 1, 2010, we’ve reduced the On-Demand and Reserved Instance prices on the m2.2xlarge (High-Memory Double Extra Large) and the m2.4xlarge (High-Memory Quadruple Extra Large) by up […]

Is Google App Engine Silently Gaining Traction?
When Google released its PaaS offering called Google App Engine, it attracted Web 2.0 developers in big numbers but it didn’t gain much traction like Amazon Web Services or Microsoft platform. In fact, in May 2010, Network World had an article quoting a Forrester Survey which put the percentage of developers using Google App Engine […]

Software Is The New Hardware
Today Intel announced that it is buying McAfee for $7.7 billion. This acquisition made people scratch their heads. Why McAfee? The obvious arguments are that Intel has hit the growth wall and organic growth is not good enough to satisfy the shareholders. But this argument quickly falls apart from margin perspective. Why dilute their current […]

ThinkPassenger Private Full Service Enterprise 2.0 Communities
ThinkPassenger’s red velvet rope approach is unique in the industry. It requires corporations to shed the megaphone approach to customer messaging and to connect with their customers one on one. They make it exclusive, fun and rewarding to both company and participant. It’s typically full service, private and very exclusive. Think “privileged”. It begins with […]

The Best Google Wave Gadgets, Extensions and Robots for the Enterprise
In large part Google Wave has been ignored by the enterprise due to many factors (I’ve listed them below). As you’ve probably read, Wave started as a huge splash but has been reduced to a ripple as of late due to the lack of a “killer app”. Yet there are some enterprise-worthy applications for Wave […]

Twitter is 4 today
A few months back on the 19th of November 2009 NESTA, as part of their Silicon Valley comes to the UK sequence of events, televised a discussion called “Social Media: A Force for Good?“. The panel was our very own national treasure, actor, QI master and twitterphile Stephen Fry, Biz Stone the Founder and Chief […]

Emergent Cloud Computing Business Models
The last year I wrote quite a few posts on the business models around SaaS and cloud computing including SaaS 2.0, disruptive early stage cloud computing start-ups, and branding on the cloud. This year people have started asking me – well, we have seen PaaS, IaaS, and SaaS but what do you think are some […]

What is the Right Amount of Money to Raise at a Startup?
This is part of my ongoing series on Raising Venture Capital. Recently I’ve been debating with a number of young startup companies that are raising money in the next few months, “what is the right about of capital to raise at a startup?” It’s a tricky question with no clear answer. There are trade offs. […]

Should you put "guru" or "thought leader" in your Twitter bio?
I’m a Twitter fan from the early days (which is only about 3 years – streuth!). For me it’s a key source of trusted information, a communication mechanism, and an important way for me to extend my various, overlapping networks of interest (amongst several other things). In recent weeks I’ve seen tweets from people worrying […]
Shift Happens! revisited
Way back in August 2006 a teacher called Karl Fisch at Arapahoe High School in Centennial, Colorado, USA created an 8 minute PowerPoint presentation with some music. It aimed to highlight the rate of change of the world we live in, and remixed content from David Warlick, Thomas Friedman, Ian Jukes, Ray Kurzweil and others. […]

The Google Buzz Guide for the Enterprise (with Buzz Matrix)
There’s been a lot of noise over Google Buzz this past week. I haven’t seen an article about Buzz’s impact on the Enterprise so allow me to chime in. First, the impact of Buzz has been tremendous. Compare Google Wave search results with that of Buzz: Buzz (B) and Wave (A) As you can see […]