Pattern Finder

I'm Now Blogging at the Gartner Blog Network

Discerning readers will have noticed that I haven't been blogging much recently. (Even my mother and teenage daughter commented on it).

That's due to a combination of (1) me being busy and (2) Gartner policy. Gartner analysts blog on IT issues at the Gartner Blog Network, not in personal blogs. Until today, I didn't have a logon to the Gartner Blog Network. Now I do. So follow my postings at http://blogs.gartner.com/guy-creese/.

We'll Be Talking About Microsoft 2010 and Its Alternatives at Catalyst

For those of you pondering whether to attend Burton Group's Catalyst Conference in Prague (April 19-22), you should know that we will be spending half a day on a track called: Microsoft 2010: Pros, Cons, and Alternatives.

Microsoft customers have always had to deal with forklift upgrades: "OK, let's see, the new version of Exchange is out. How does that impact the versions of Windows Server and Outlook that I'm running? Also, there's a new OS; should I refresh Office as well or leave it be?" So it's always been complicated. Now it's become extra complicated because of two new delivery options: virtualization and SaaS. So it's not just, "Should I upgrade to the new version of Exchange?" it's also, "Should I run Exchange as a virtual machine or should I run it in the cloud?" A complicated set of decisions had morphed into a three-dimensional complicated set of decisions.

Furthermore, it's not just the Microsoft products that makes it difficult to figure out. Enterprises now have more options. A number of our clients are looking at using Google Apps Premier Edition (GAPE) or Lotus Symphony. Add those options into the mix, and CIOs are now staring at a Rubik's Cube of decisions.

We're going to spend half a day walking through the alternatives. For example,

• Is it worth upgrading to Exchange 2010?
• Is it worth upgrading to Office 2010?
• Is it worth upgrading to SharePoint 2010?
• I'm looking at BPOS--how strong or weak is that, compared to running it in house?
• Can I run Exchange as a virtual machine? If so, which hypervisor should I use?
• I'm looking at alternatives to Office--which ones should I investigate and which ones should I dismiss out of hand?
• Is moving to GAPE worthwhile?

If you're like to hear the answers to those questions and get into a dialogue about your specific situation, we'd love to see you in Prague.

Iron Mountain Buys Mimosa Systems

On Monday, February 22, data archiving specialist Iron Mountain announced that it had acquired Mimosa Systems for $112 million in cash. Mimosa Systems brings with it 1,000 enterprise customers and an on-premise solution that archives e-mail, SharePoint data, and other unstructured data. This allows Iron Mountain to offer both on-premise and cloud-based archiving.

For a sampling of news stories, see:

• Chris Preimesberger, "Iron Mountain Acquires Data Archiver Mimosa Systems," eWeek,February 22, 2010.
• Chris Kanaracus, "Iron Mountain Buys Archiving Vendor Mimosa", PCWorld, February 22, 2010.
• Jeffrey Schwartz, "Iron Mountain Acquires Mimosa," Redmond Channel Partner, February 22, 2010.

A SaaS Downside: No Forklift Upgrades

Part of the sales pitch of a Software as a Service (SaaS) solution is that updates and upgrades are included in the pay-as-you-go price. There's no separate support fee to pay (for software, the annual support fee is typically around 20% of the license fee) and you don't need to pay for major upgrades (e.g., from version 3 to version 4). You pay your monthly or annual fee and the solution just runs. This is in contrast to software, where every couple of years there's often a forklift upgrade--there's a new major release, it's usually expensive, and you need to buy new hardware or go through a painful migration process to get on the "new and improved" version. Compared to software, what's not to like?

Actually, the fact that there isn't a forklift upgrade. Think about it. The pain and cost affiliated with a forklift upgrade is usually what causes an enterprise to reevaluate the value of the solution. "They want $2 million to upgrade, and it's going to take us a year to do it? Geez, that's a lot of money. Is it worth it? I mean, are we really going to get our money's worth? Maybe we should look at competing solutions."

To take a real world example, some enterprises move from Lotus Notes to Microsoft SharePoint when confronted with the cost and complexity of moving from Lotus Notes 6 to Lotus Notes 8. The upgrade was going to be painful anyway; those companies seized the opportunity to move to a competing solution.

In other words, the forklift upgrade is what causes an enterprise to step back from the daily grind and decide whether to continue with a solution. It's a discontinuous function that grabs the business's attention. There's no corresponding attention-grabbing blip on the SaaS side--and that's a problem. Many businesses will continue with a suboptimal SaaS solution because they pay a relatively small fee every month and will never ask themselves several years down the line, "Is it still worth it?"

So here's the lesson. Enterprises that are using SaaS need to create their own artificial forklift upgrade moments. Every once and awhile, they need to ask, "Over the next three years, we will spend n millions on this SaaS solution. Is it still worth it?" Otherwise, they may end up going with the flow when they shouldn't. 

Google Buzz: For Most Enterprises, Much Ado About Nothing

Image via CrunchBase

Here we go again. Google announced a new product, Google Buzz, and the media is all agog about it:

• Miguel Helft and Brad Stone, "With Buzz, Google Plunges Into Social Networking," The New York Times, February 9, 2010.
• Ashley Vance, "Google Gets More Social with Buzz," Bits Blog, The New York Times, February 9, 2010.
• Jessica Vascellaro, "Google Adds 'Buzz' to Gmail," The Wall Street Journal, February 9, 2010.
• Tony Bradley, "Can Google Generate Buzz in the Enterprise?" PC World, February 9, 2010.

Google Buzz is a service that allows users to share updates, photos, and videos within the Gmail e-mail interface. As such, it's a competitor to social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

So while the media at large is blogging and writing about what this means for Facebook and Twitter, how about the bread-and-butter enterprise? What does it mean for an enterprise, trying to keep its e-mail up and make its information workers more productive? Not much.

First of all, the enterprise would need to switch to Google Apps Premier Edition (GAPE)--and very few large enterprises have done so. Some are thinking about it, but there's a big difference between thinking about it and doing it.

Second, Google Buzz isn't available on GAPE. In typical Google-speak, Google is refusing to say when it will turn up in GAPE, other than saying it will be "soon." (That certainly helps an enterprise plan [sarcasm intended]).

Third, Google has linked Buzz to largely consumer-oriented sites, such as YouTube and Flickr. Does an enterprise really want to have its employees conversing with/looking at those sites? As a general rule, I would argue no. The enterprise conversation universe should be centered within the company itself--what are other employees and and divisions doing and thinking? This isn't always true--a Marketing Communications Specialist very much wants to watch and participate in external conversations--but that's the exception, rather than the rule. Enterprises looking for a more social software orientation while keeping an enterprise focus should look at the forthcoming Microsoft Outlook Social Connector rather than Google Buzz.

However, I'm not convinced Google Buzz will be a total bust for organizations. In certain contexts, it may be quite useful. For example:

• Colleges and universities: Google Apps Education Edition has done well at some universities (being free for students has helped), and Google Buzz adds functionality for those who already use Gmail. Within universities, that's usually students, who like the web orientation of Gmail and have disdain for Outlook (it's their parents' e-mail system). Faculty and staff, however, typically stick with Outlook, and probably won't be that interested in the Google Buzz features.
• High tech startups:  A lot of high tech startups use Gmail or GAPE. It's cheap and it keeps them from having to build their own internal IT infrastructure. Furthermore, using Gmail is a style thing--it proves you're cool and cutting edge. Google Buzz adds to the functionality of Gmail, and keeps users from having to bop out to Facebook and Twitter to see what's going on.

It will be interesting to see how this all plays out. Once again, I think Google is doing a service to the market by offering up a new work paradigm, as it did with GAPE and Google Wave. However, I'm not convinced Google Buzz will ultimately win in the enterprise space.

Oracle Announces Oracle Cloud Office

Image via CrunchBase

Although the details are sketchy, it appears that Oracle will be coming out with Oracle Cloud Office, a SaaS-based productivity suite based on OpenOffice.org. See the following articles:

• Eric Lai, "Oracle will boost MySQL, release Cloud Office suite," Computerworld, January 27, 2010.
• John Rath, "Oracle Outlines Integration with Sun," Data Center Knowledge, January 28, 2010.

This adds Oracle to the list of vendors who already offer an online productivity suite (Google, Zoho) or will soon (Adobe, IBM, Microsoft).

I didn't hear Oracle's presentation yesterday because I was out of the office consulting, but based on these and other news stories it sounds as if Oracle has a grand vision here--certainly one more expansive than Sun ever did. It will be interesting to watch this play out over time.

Initial Observations from Lotusphere 2010

After listening to the initial keynote, here are my observations:

• It’s well attended; but since Lotus didn’t make any announcements about growth or “the largest ever,” attendance is probably stable or down slightly.
• Lotus finally talked about “hybrid solutions”—that is, integrating both software and services (SaaS) so they’re seamless. This is a mantra that Microsoft has been chanting for several years now. Although IBM has been slow to catch on, if they do make it so that enterprises can’t tell where Notes or Quickr or Connections are running, they will be offering what customers want.
• There were several announcements about planned enhancements to LotusLive, and they will bolster the service—a big improvement from its initial incarnation, when it lacked e-mail.
• Project Vulcan is Lotus’s vision for the future. It’s a good vision—it’s not technology-centric but rather user-centric. However, the next question is when Lotus will deliver it. Are we talking one year or four years?
• Some general swipes at Microsoft SharePoint, but no acknowledgement of its fast growth or how Lotus Notes can integrate with it.

Some Stats from Tom Jenkin's Presentation

Image via CrunchBase

Today I'm attending the Open Text Analyst Day in Boston, an annual event where Open Text goes over the past year and talks about its plans for the future. Tom Jenkins, the Chief Strategy Officer, started things off, and he served up some interesting statistics. At this point, he says there are:

• 100,000+ original films
• 40 million+ original books
• 1 million newspapers
• 1.5 billion e-mail users
• 3.5 billion texters
• 4 million+ original songs

A Twitter Traffic Example: Gartner Buys Burton Group

The recent purchase of Burton Group by Gartner (purchased on December 30, announced on January 5) offers the perfect opportunity to watch how an announcement travels through Twitter. Below is a chart from Trendistic that shows the rocket ride of tweets that occurred Tuesday morning (the search is for tweets that included both "Gartner" and "Burton Group"):

 

You'll notice that the height of tweeting was around 9 AM ET, when the deal was announced; it then took five hours to subside to a steady, low buzz.

Gartner Acquires Burton Group

It just went out over the wire that Gartner Group has acquired Burton Group. The FAQ on the Gartner web site is here; all analysts will be retained.

I'll Be Talking at Lotusphere About Alternatives to Microsoft Office

For those of you attending Lotusphere 2010 (Orlando, FL, January 17-21), you may want to stop by to see my presentation on alternatives to Microsoft Office. It's session INV108 within the Futures and Innovations track, entitled, "Microsoft Office Alternatives: Considerations and Best Practices."

For those of you who have read my Market Insight: Productivity Suites 2009 or Productivity Suite Proliferation: Is It Time to Ditch Microsoft Office? reports (note: Burton Group subscription required for access), the session's findings will not be surprising.

However, it will be my latest thinking, which continues to evolve as I talk to more clients about their productivity suite strategy and issues they worry about. For example, as time goes on, I've become convinced that segmenting your users is not only key, but required. I've always said you have to segment your users (e.g., casual users, expert users, Twenty Somethings used to the web, veteran workers wedded to Microsoft Office) to figure out where it makes sense to displace Office--or if you can even do it. But at this point, I think you need to put a permanent process in place where you continually segment users. You can't get away with thinking that segmenting your users is a one-off deal. Instead, you must create a feedback loop that ensures that you're fielding a set of productivity suite options that map to your workers' evolving needs. If you don't do that, you'll fail.

In the past, enterprises ensured that workers didn't bump into any feature constraints by overbuying--by buying all the features for everyone. Today, if you can successfully segment your users, you can buy different sets of features for different segments, and save money in the process.

In any case, I think it will be an interesting session, and I hope to see you there.

Proof That Microsoft Is Worried About Office's Competition

Image via CrunchBase

Actions speak louder than words. Microsoft is staffing to compete against OpenOffice.org, according to this job posting on the Microsoft Careers site: https://careers.microsoft.com/JobDetails.aspx?ss=&pg=0&so=&rw=1&jid=9914&jlang=EN. Since the posting will probably go away at some point, here's the text of the posting:

Job Category: Marketing
Location: United States, WA, Bellevue
Job ID: 700901 9914
Division: Marketing

Linux and Open Office Compete Lead, US Subsidiary (CSI Lead)

If you’re looking for a new role where you’ll focus on one of the biggest issues that is top of mind for KT and Steve B in “Compete”, build a complete left to right understanding of the subsidiary, have a large amount of executive exposure, build and manage the activities of a v-team of 13 district Linux & Open Office Compete Leads, and develop a broad set of marketing skills and report to a management team committed to development and recognized for high WHI this is the position for you!

The Commercial Software Initiative (CSI) Lead plays a pivotal role for the Subsidiary GM, the BG leads and the BMO by building a discipline within the US that is focused on competing against. The core mission of CSI is to win share against Linux and OpenOffice.org by designing and driving marketing programs, changing perceptions, engaging with Open Source communities and organizations, and drive internal readiness on how to compete with Commercial Linux and participate with Open Source Communities.

The CSI Lead owns three core objectives for the Area (and Subsidiaries) as follows:

1. Drive compete Strategy. The CSI Lead is responsible for providing a 360 degree view of the US compete environment (directly to the Compete lead and BMO) and ensuring plans are in place to help drive healthy, balanced, and sustained growth. Ability to win share and ensure growth faster than the market (Servers, IW, Web, HPC)

2. Be a Perception Change Agent. The CSI Lead needs to drive perception across a number of key audiences (IT Pros, Government Elites, BDMs, IT Journalists, etc.) Ability to implement programmatic marketing that will CHANGE THE WAY PEOPLE think about Microsoft, specifically those with a ‘hostile’ or negative perception of the Microsoft platform.

3. Build ‘Compete Muscle’ in the US. The CSI Lead owns ensuring that the region and subs are fully ready to compete against Linux and participate with Open Source Communities. This includes everything from training to being the subject matter expertise, where needed. Ability to diagnose and share problem, find root causes and pull together a team that will PLAN / DO / CHECK / ACT in the right direction.

•  This includes developing PR, marketing, sales, communication and readiness infrastructure for executing competitive strategies and executing perception changes.
• You will educate our field and partners to compete and win. Work with EPG and other field organizations to profile Linux in key accounts. Drive Linux and UNIX compete content.
• Support competitive sales situations where Linux is a key competitor to help drive marquee wins and grow your US evidence. Work with your account teams and develop growth plans.
• Start a productive and positive culture of ‘Loss Reviews’ Look at the competitive pipeline regularly to see where Linux Server and OpenOffice challenges arise.

The right candidate will have a great blend of strategic, marketing and analytical skills coupled with tenacity for execution and delivery. You must be action and detail oriented with experience in the high tech marketing industry including solid experience working with cross-organizational teams to achieve superior results. The ability to multi-task and manage projects under pressure along with an unwavering persistence, commitment, passion and optimism for this work is essential. When successful, you’ll be looked to as the key expert for the Windows Server business by the entire field sales force, marketing, & executive organizations. Experience with server marketing and an MBA are pluses.

Given the slew of mystifying Microsoft abbreviations and acronyms (e.g., KT, Steve B, CSI, v-team, WHI, BMO, BDMs) within the posting, I suspect they'll only get applications from within Microsoft--and that will be a mistake.