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Press Release: Veteran Technology Industry Expert Michael Dortch Joins Constellation Research

Published on July 12, 2011 by R "Ray" Wang

Santa Rosa, California – July 12, 2011
7:30 AM (GMT -5:00) Pacific Standard Time

Constellation Research Inc, a next generation research analyst and advisory firm helping clients achieve business value from emerging and disruptive technologies, announced today that Michael Dortch has joined as a Vice-President & Principal Analyst.  With over 30 years of experience as an industry analyst, Michael has helped to empower information technology buyers, sellers and users by translating technology developments and trends into actionable business advice

Most recently, Michael has served as Principal Analyst and Managing Editor at DortchOnIT.com, “an independent voice for technology-dependent people.” His clients have included disruptive technology purveyors such as FatWire (recently acquired by Oracle) and YouSendIt. Previously, Michael was Director of Research at Focus.com, an online community for the sharing and exchange of business and technology expertise. While there, Michael helped to expand the Focus Expert Network to more than 5,000 affiliates serving more than 850,000 members, making Focus.com a “Top 10 Business Web Site” as chosen by Crain’s “B2B Magazine.”

Michael is one of the top analysts in the fields of:

  • Cloud computing, including software as a service (SaaS), cloud-based storage and cloud security;
  • Marketing enablement technologies, including online experience optimization and customer relationship management (CRM) solutions;
  • Sensor-enabled networking technologies such as radio frequency identification (RFID) and the evolving “Internet of things;” and
  • Integration of legacy and disruptive business technology solutions and the processes used to manage them.

“I have spent my entire career helping business decision makers to succeed with modern, disruptive technologies from word processing and voice/data integration in the 1970s to social media and cloud computing today. I am thrilled to be able to add my experience, expertise and passion for user success to Constellation Research Group’s formidable research and advisory resources, and to make those resources available to my own clients”, said Michael Dortch

“We’re building on a tradition of bringing analysts who can serve executives in dealing with the pace of change and pragmatic solutions to disruptive technologies.  Michael brings a wide range of skill sets that help craft the holistic picture for clients”, stated R “Ray” Wang, Principal anslyst and CEO.

One of the “top 500 analysts using Twitter” as tracked by Technobabble 2.0, Michael has been a senior analyst at leading technology research firms Aberdeen Group, Robert Frances Group (RFG), and Yankee Group. In 1990, he wrote “The ABCs of Local-Area Networks”, a book published internationally in three languages.

Please join us in welcoming Michael and DortchOnIT.com to the Constellation Research Family!

COORDINATES
Twitter: @DortchOnIT
Blogs: www.DortchOnIT.com
Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/michaeldortch
Geo: Santa Rosa / Sonoma County / California

About Constellation Research, Inc.
Constellation Research is a leading research analyst and advisory firm guiding organizations and their leaders through the hype and buzz of the latest disruptive technologies.  Constellation takes a holistic approach in achieving business value for board members, marketing, technology, operations, human resource, and finance executives.

The firm’s analysts deliver pragmatic, creative, and impactful research focused on business value, profitability, and market differentiation.  Research analysts bring real world experience, independence, and objectivity to our clients.  Most analysts bring over 2 decades of hands-on experience in working with senior leaders in enterprise organizations.

Constellation serves the needs of buyers and end users who seek insight, guidance, and advice in dealing with a dizzying array of disruptive business models and technologies.  The firm provide the bridge between legacy optimization and future innovation.  Constellation also advises sellers from both the buyer‚s point of view and how to deliver value to their customers.

Constellation builds partnerships with its clients.  The client and their organization’s success is Constellation’s only mission.

Press Contacts:

Contact the Media and Influencers relations team at press@ConstellationRG.com for interviews with analysts.

Sales Contacts:

Contact David Stanley, Vice President of Business Development and Sales for more information on how to engage with Constellation Research, Inc.
• Email: David (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com.
• Office: 719.357.7826
• Twitter: @kiwigate

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Executive Profiles: Disruptive Tech Leaders In Cloud Computing – Bob Kelly, Microsoft

Published on July 7, 2011 by R "Ray" Wang

Welcome to an on-going series of interviews with the people behind the technologies in Social Business.  The interviews  provide insightful points of view from a customer, industry, and vendor perspective.  A full list of interviewees can be found here.

Bob Kelly – Corporate Vice President, Microsoft’s Windows Azure Marketing, Microsoft


Biography

Kelly began his career with Microsoft in 1996 with the Windows NT Server 3.51 marketing team. He later transitioned to group manager of Windows NT Server and Windows 2000 Server marketing. Following the launch of Windows 2000 Server, Kelly helped to form the company’s U.S. subsidiary. He has held a series of marketing and product management roles, both in the field and corporate offices, such as general manager of Windows Server Product Management and general manager of infrastructure server marketing. Recently, Bob was named CVP for Windows Azure Marketing focusing on Microsoft’s cloud platform execution.

A Massachusetts native, Kelly earned his master’s degree and doctorate in English literature from the University of Dallas. In addition to enjoying spending time at home with his wife and four children, he’s active in local civic organizations.

The Interview

1. Tell me in 2 minutes or less why Cloud Computing is changing the world for your customers

Bob Kelly (BK): At the end of the day, enterprises (business, government, non-profits) want to reach more customers to grow their revenue or expand their influence. For many of these enterprises, IT has gotten in their way because of how computing is managed. Cloud allows management to focus on the things that differentiate them to unlock potential and focus on what they are good at; growing their business.

2. What makes cloud computing disruptive?

(BK): Cloud changes the fundamental economics of how an enterprise thinks about IT. Large capital expenditures (capex) are a burden. Cloud flips capex into an operational expense (opex), meaning enterprises only use the resources needed when they need them. This helps enterprises to focus on the things they care about. In the past, 70% of IT was spent on maintaining its capability and 30% was bringing real value. Cloud fundamentally flips this around by disrupting the cost structure and drives cost down. Cloud allows enterprises to differentiate on who they are instead of focusing on IT.

3. What is the next big thing in Cloud Computing?

(BK): Cloud will become core to everything we do in computing and will allow enterprises to go in directions that have not yet imagined. Just thinking about my own situation, the cloud creates the opportunity for me to expand my customer base and shift my focus from developers and IT operations to include end users. We move from an $80B software category to a $1T services category. That’s exciting!!!

Cloud is an easy ramp for start-ups. We can take a new idea for a business or service and act overnight. Cloud creates acceleration from insight to reality which results in a torrid pace of new innovations that get access to these capabilities. This creates a real transformation of how enterprises work, and how quickly ideas come to fruition.

More…

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Monday’s Musings: The Three V’s of Big Data

Published on July 4, 2011 by R "Ray" Wang

The Three V’s Traditionally Define Big Data

Traditionally, big data describes data that’s too large for existing systems to process.  Over the past three years, experts and gurus in the space have added additional characteristics to define big data.   As big data enters the mainstream language, it’s time to revisit the definition.

  1. Volume. This original characteristic describes the relative size of data to the processing capability. Today a large number may be 10 terabytes.  In 12 months 50 terabytes may constitute big data if we follow Moore’s Law.  Overcoming the volume issue requires technologies that store vast amounts of data in a scalable fashion and provide distributed approaches to querying or finding that data.  Two options exist today: Apache Hadoop based solutions and massively parallel processing databases such as CalPont, EXASOL, GreenPlum, HP Vertica, IBM Netezza,  Kognitio, ParAccel, and Teradata Kickfire
  2. Velocity. This characteristic describes the frequency at which data is generated, captured, and shared. The growth in sensor data from devices, and web based click stream analysis now create requirements for greater real-time use cases.  The velocity of large data streams power the ability to parse text, detect sentiment, and identify new patterns.  Real-time offers in a world of engagement, require fast matching and immediate feedback loops so promotions align with geo location data, customer purchase history, and current sentiment.  Key technologies that address velocity include streaming processing and complex event processing.  NoSQL databases are used when relational approaches no longer make sense.  In addition, the use of in-memory data bases (IMDB), columnar databases, and key value stores help improve retrieval of pre-calculated data.
  3. Variety.  A proliferation of data types from social, machine to machine, and mobile sources add new data types to traditional transactional data.  Data no longer fits into neat, easy to consume structures. New types include content, geo-spatial, hardware data points, location based, log data, machine data, metrics, mobile, physical data points, process, RFID’s, search, sentiment, streaming data, social, text, and web.  The addition of unstructured data such as speech, text, and language increasingly complicate the ability to categorize data.  Some technologies that deal with unstructured data include data mining, text analytics, and noisy text analytics.

The Bottom Line: Start With Your Business Objectives

In Stephen Covey’s book, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, he starts with a saying, “Begin with the End in Mind”.  For big data projects, ask the key questions.  What patterns will you uncover that will change how you go to market or address fraud?  Can you apply sentiment and location to create new customer experiences.  What additional insights can help you create new and disruptive busienss models?  Big data is just a technology and tool.  How you apply this tool to your business models and objectives will determine whether big data is a luxury or a necessity.

Your POV

What business problem will require you to start with Big Data?  What are the key outcomes?  Where do you expect to move the needle?   Add your comments to the blog or send us a comment at R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) org or R (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com

Resources

Reprints

Reprints can be purchased through Constellation Research, Inc. To request official reprints in PDF format, please contact Sales .

Disclosure

Although we work closely with many mega software vendors, we want you to trust us. For the full disclosure policy, stay tuned for the full client list on the Constellation Research website.

* Not responsible for any factual errors or omissions.  However, happy to correct any errors upon email receipt.

Copyright © 2001 -2011 R Wang and Insider Associates, LLC All rights reserved.
Contact the Sales team to purchase this report on a a la carte basis or join the Constellation Customer Experience!

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Product Review: Google+, Consumerization of IT, and Crossing The Chasm For Enterprise Social Business

Published on July 3, 2011 by R "Ray" Wang

Timing of Google+ Bodes Well For Enterprise Users And Google

Lately, one could say Google’s been a bit absent from the social business party.  The premature launch of Google Wave exposed a canvas looking for a masterpiece painting.  Failing fast and learning from the Google Wave lesson, Google’s latest offering, Google+ shows promise in bringing similar disruptive technology concepts to market, yet packaged in easier to adopt metaphors such as activity streams, walls, hangouts, and circles (see Figure 1).

As part of Google’s aspirations to deliver enterprise offerings, it’s flagship Google Apps continues to gain traction in enterprises despite a market position that places the product between a very strong pro-sumer play and an almost enterprise app.  The good news – a constant stream of incremental changes shows an evolution to an enterprise class offering built from a strong consumer bent.  As of this posting, Google Apps isn’t integrated with G+, but Google’s enterprise ambitions have been strengthened with the new offering.

Figure 1.  Logging Into Google+

Convergence And Shift To A P2P World Enables GooglePlus To Go After Both Consumers And Enterprises

Google+ launch comes at an exciting time of convergence among the mega trends for the decade: social business, mobile enterprise, cloud computing, and unified communications.  The five pillars of Consumerization of IT (CoIT) fall in Google’s favor as consumer users rapidly seek to bring these innovations into their enterprises.  Subsequently, Google+ already takes advantage of Google’s assets to:

  • Unify the communications channels. Enterprises spend millions trying to get their fragmented communications systems to work, let alone integrate.  Google+ takes chats, emails, tweets, voice, mobile, and video and rolls it all up neatly into one offering.  More importantly, it works off of one login and its integrated.  Key video features such as Hangouts allow for impromptu video con calls without the hassle of most other video conferencing systems.
  • Provide an initial alternative to Facebook for the enterprise offerings. Procurement managers and line of business buyers face Cloud/SaaS best of breed hell as a flurry of purpose built solutions attack the enterprise IT landscape.  Should Google stream line convergent offerings for the enterprise, it will be poised to dethrone many incumbents.  Google can only succeed if they can match functional parity over the next 12 to 18 months.  Keep in mind, the long-term goal goes beyond Facebook for the enterprise.
  • Aggregate the user’s social sphere. Facing near term social networking overload, enterprise users can’t possibly fathom another social networking service.  Aggregation by a major player makes sense from a market position and user convenience. Google’s initial list allows users to notate key services in their profiles through connected accounts from Facebook, Yahoo!, Flickr, LinkedIn, Quaora, Twitter, Yelp, Hotmail, and Plaxo (see Figure 2). A quick look into the codes shows that these connection services potentially can support a Microsoft Outlook email, an SAP feed, or Salesforce.com Chatter stream and may potentially support direct integrations in future road maps.

Figure 2.  Google+ Delivers Social Sphere Aggregation With Ease

Adding Connections on GooglePlus

More…

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