Archive for September, 2011

News Analysis: Infor Launches New Era With Infor 10

Published on September 26, 2011 by R "Ray" Wang

After 11 months of behind the scenes work, CEO Charles Phillips and the Infor management team unveiled the launch of Infor 10 in New York City on September 13, 2011, to customers, industry analysts, media, and investment analysts.  The new Infor has kept busy with key management team hires, the $1.84 B acquisition of Lawson, the launch of Infor10 CloudSuite, and partnerships in CRM with Salesforce.com via Inforce.

Infor currently serves more than 75,000 customers in 164 countries. With combined revenues greater han $2.5B, Infor/Lawson is the third largest enterprise apps company. The Infor and Lawson combination brings deep industry presence in key industries such as aerospace, automotive, chemical, distribution, equipment service maintenance repair (ESMR), fashion, food and beverage, general manufacturing, healthcare, high-tech, hospitality, high tech, industrial equipment and machinery, industrial manufacturing, and public sector.

Key announcements from the September 13th launch event include:

  • Reintroducing ION as the ‘the heart of Infor10. Infor’s lightweight middleware solution provides an integration tool for Infor and non-Infor applications. The intent is to provide devices such as desktops, tablets, and other mobile devices to gain access to information in existing applications. Key components behind the technology infrastructure include a common user interface, workspace, reporting and analytics, workflow, event management, master data management, localizations, mobility enablement, and packaged integration.

    Point of View (POV):     Unlike Oracle and SAP who have spent billions addressing the integration problem through a comprehensive and heavy middleware strategy, ION take a more pragmatic approach. Through loose coupling, Ion gives the Infor family of products increased agility that matches use cases for a mobile, social, and analytical world. While ION aims to provide better integration, streamlined workflows and end to end business process integration, Constellation believes it will take at least 6 to 9 months before the first set of end to end processes span across the major product lines (e.g. Infor10 ERP Enterprise (LN) and Infor 10 Lawson M3).  The good news – Integration between Infor10 Lawson S3 and Infor EAM is planned for November, just 100 days after acquisition.
     

    On the management team side, customers and prospects will be reassured that both Infor’s second employee, Soma Somasundaram, senior vice president of Global Product Development and Dean Hager (i.e. originally from Lawson) remain key driving forces for carrying out this completed vision.

Figure 1. ION Plays A Key Role In Infor’s Long Term Strategy


Source: Infor

  • Delivering a consumer grade experience. Duncan Algove, President of Products and Support introduced Infor10 Workspace. With an intention of bringing consumer world experiences to the enterprise, Infor10 WorkSpace provides a fresh start to helping users “work the way they live”. Key elements of the ION experience include role-based screens, role-based workflows, in-context business intelligence, event management, activity streams, tasks and alerts, and consumer-like search capabilities).

    POV:     Existing customers and new prospects expect next generation applications to meet the Six S’s of Enterprise Class Consumerization of IT. Infor’s key design principles of flipping the structure of work to be data and event driven, contextual data at the point of decision, social computing metaphors, and design for mobile play a key role in making this a reality for Infor customers. This provides a compelling reason for customers to put their maintenance fees to use in an upgrade or purchase of Infor10 components.

Figure 2. Scenes From The New Infor User Experience

More…

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Executive Profiles: Disruptive Tech Leaders In Social Business – Daniel Debow, Rypple Software

Published on September 25, 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.

Daniel Debow, Co-CEO,  Rypple Software


Biography

Daniel is co-founder and co-CEO of Rypple, a social performance management platform that helps Facebook, Gilt Groupe, and other innovative companies recognize great work, run fast, efficient feedback loops, and coach employees to achieve their goals. A sought after speaker on how social media is changing the workplace, Daniel is a regular contributor to Fortune.com and the Huffington Post. He’s been widely quoted in Wired, the Financial Times, the Economist and Bloomberg Businessweek. He holds a JD/MBA from the University of Toronto and an LLM in Law, Science and Technology from Stanford University.

The Interview

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

Daniel Debow (DB): Ray, Social Performance Management (what we do) is changing the world for our customers because it takes a dreaded and ineffective process—the performance review—and makes it relevant again.

Over the last decade, the review process has become disconnected from real business performance. By delivering key feedback and information in real-time, rather than in six-month batches, we are helping managers and their teams work more effectively, efficiently, and collaboratively. At the end of the day, this is the core promise of any type of business software: improved business results.

More generally, social computing is effective because in many cases, it is more efficient. While it may seem like an oversimplification, large corporations have succeeded by standardizing the delivery of products and services as they scale. These large-scale standardizations of “process” work incredibly well when it comes to managing supply chains or product pipelines. But when it comes to the management of people, standardization of process has translated into enterprise applications that suck. They remove the “human” from the workplace, and are major contributors to the alienation of people from their work.

In order to get people to the next level, we have to bring the “human” back into the work place. A huge amount of value-creating work gets done outside standard process—through social interaction. Today’s enterprise applications don’t model the corporation this way. But social computing does.

Social computing is about taking the metaphor, modelling the reality, and moving faster. It recognizes that when it comes to people, companies are not simply processes moving mechanistically. Instead, the social computing metaphor reflects more accurately what companies actually are: groups of people talking—and coordinating—with each other to deliver productive goods and services in a highly non-standard world. By recognizing this more accurate representation of the corporation, social computing has the potential to make companies more efficient by optimizing the faster, more natural flow of information between people.

In our case, we’ve found that the interactions related to human performance and getting the most out of people are absolutely social. They involve helping people talk to each other in a more collaborative and real-time way: How do we recognize people in real-time? How do we help managers and teams collaborate on people performance. How do we recognize and account for the reality that managers aren’t omniscient about team performance? How do we get one-on-one’s with the boss to be high impact and frequent? How do we create agile goals that reflect changing business reality rather than reality as it existed six months ago? The answer is social computing, which views a company not as a static org chart and a number of interconnected process flows—but rather as a social network with ad-hoc and ever changing relationships and interactions.

This is the essence of social computing.

2. What makes social computing disruptive?

DB: As with all disruptive technologies it meets three key criteria:

  1. It attacks a problem in an orthogonal way.  Almost all social technology appears at first to be a toy.  Customers don’t asking for them, yet they spread into companies like wild fire.  Users say, “I’d never do this in the enterprise.”
  2. It breaks the price-performance curve on a different scale. In many cases, Rypple included, we make it cheaper to deploy than existing technology.
  3. It appears as an incomplete solution from the perspective of incumbents.  Incumbents will state you don’t have the 1000 features they have.

The telegraph, the phone, and email all changed the number of nodes of communication and improved the flow of information between people. Social technologies take communication to the next level. This isn’t just a technological shift; it’s a societal one. We are taking the same metaphors of openness and transparency that have been used to describe the web and applying them to organizations.

When you value results above internal politics and velocity over caution, you create a more innovative, less hierarchical—and ultimately disruptive—organization.

3.  What is the next big thing in Social Business software?

DB: Recently I was on a panel on the future of the workforce, where I talked about two huge developments on the horizon. The first is the shift from an economy of companies to an economy of individuals, as everyone’s reputation and personal brand moves to the cloud. It will be interesting to see what this means for consumer brands like Nike and Pepsi, and how people interact with them.

The second big shift is the ability of social media to create more meritocratic systems for rating true influence and power within organizations. Cloud-based social applications are asking people to rate one another and provide opinions based on far more objective data than the vague subjective impressions that often determine influence.

As that data migrates to the cloud and becomes portable, it will have profound changes on the labor market. It will transform how we look for talent, where the power resides, and potentially the very nature of the corporation.
As reputation becomes a more objective measure, it will force companies to become more fluid in their hiring practices and their operations.

4.  What are you doing that’s disruptive for Social Computing?

More…

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Press Release: Twenty-nine Protostars Recognized In The Constellation SuperNova Awards

Published on September 20, 2011 by R "Ray" Wang

First Inaugural Awards Designed to Celebrate the Explorers, Pioneers, and Unsung Heroes Who Successfully Put Technology to Work

SAN FRANCISCO, CA, September 20, 2011—Constellation Research, Inc., announces 29 Protostar winners, representing the 2011 SuperNova award semifinalists.  Chosen from a pool of more than 70 applicants, these individuals are recognized as among the few that have overcome the odds in successfully applying emerging and disruptive technologies within their organizations. SuperNova finalists will be recognized at a gala dinner on October 28, 2011 in Scottsdale, Arizona hosted by Constellation Research.

The Process of Picking Protostars

Most award programs recognize technology suppliers for advancements in the market. Few programs recognize individuals for their courage in battling the odds to effect change in their organization. The Constellation SuperNova Awards celebrate the explorers, the pioneers, and the unsung heroes who successfully put new technologies to work. Most importantly, these leaders have created disruptions in their market.

An allstar cast of judges have identified and selected applicants who embody the human spirit to innovate, overcome adversity, and successfully deliver market changing approaches. Applicants were subjected to a vigorous set of criteria that reflect real-world and pragmatic experience. The Protostar semifinalists were selected in five categories: social business, mobile enterprise, cloud computing, advanced analytics, and emerging technologies.

The ProtoStar Winners:

EMERGING TECH

• Imrana Ghani, Sales Operations Manager – ITS

• Mike O’Neill, CEO – Preferred Unlimited

 

ADVANCED ANALYTICS

• Charles (C.J.) Wehlage, VP Supply Chain Solutions – Sony Electronics

• Chris McLatcher, Director of Business Intelligence – Ultimate Software (NASDAQ: ULTI)

• Vernon Meyer, The Social Business Team for IT – AMP Pty Ltd

 

CLOUD COMPUTING

• Anthony L. Chirchirillo, CEO – Chirch Global Manufacturing

• Ben Doyle, Director of IT – Enterasys

• Christopher Johansen, Senior Marketing Communications Manager – Christiana Care Health System

• Daniel E. Retzer, Managing Director & Chief Technology Officer – XSP

• David Smoley, Senior Vice President & CIO – Flextronics

• Dennis Hodges, CIO – Inteva Producds

• Joe Drouin, SVP & CIO – Kelly Services

• Joe Palmer, CIO – Jefferson County Colorado

• Molly Hunting, Director of IT- Shape Corporation

• Phillip Tomczak, Vice President – Bordine’s

• Rick Parker, Cloud Architect, Activision (formerly IT Director, Fetch Technologies)

• Zahid Afzal, CIO, Huntington Bank

 

MOBILE ENTERPRISE

• Chris Perret, CEO – Nukona

 

SOCIAL BUSINESS

• Henry Ho, Partner – CORE4 Research

• Jeff Koski, Senior Director of IT – API Healthcare

• Joe Robens, IT Account Manager – Aristocrat

• John Quinn, VP of Engineering – Gilt

• Jonathan Brayshaw & Lee Hunt – Global Leader Digital Communications and Social Business & Digital Strategy Manager – Psion

• Liz Bullock & Amy Tennison, Dell Social Media Director & Dell Social Media & Community University – Dell Computer

• Matthew Ladin, Community Manager – Texas Instruments

• Scott Moore, Senior Manager College and University Initiatives – AICPA

• Vernon Meyer, The Social Business Team for IT – AMP Pty Ltd.

• Vincent Boon, Head of Community- giftgaff

“The judges have spoken and these are the best of the best among the 70 submissions”, noted R “Ray” Wang, Principal Analyst and CEO, Constellation Research, Inc., “The competition was fierce and the Protostars selected have what it takes to be the next stage – SuperNova.. Both judges and the general public will have a chance to vote and we look forward to recognizing the Finalists.”

REWARDS INCLUDE ACCESS TO INNOVATION, NETWORKING, AND RESEARCH

All Protostars will be awarded a 16th month membership in Constellation’s SuperNova Community for early adopters and innovators. In addition, Protostars will be invited to attend Constellation’s Connected Enterprise 2011 (#CCE2011), an invitation only innovation event in Scottsdale, Arizona from October 28th to 30th, 2011.

#CCE2011 is a three-day executive retreat will include mind expanding keynotes from visionaries and futurists, interactive best practices panels, The Constellation SuperNova Awards event, a golf outing, and an experiential spousal/partner program.

A select group of semi-finalists will be chosen to present on one of five best practice panels at the event. The panelists will receive one innovation retreat invitation and one spousal/partner experiential invitation.

SuperNovas (Finalists) in each category will win a one -year subscription to Constellation’s Research Library and complimentary tickets to the Connected Enterprise 2012 event, an estimated value of $120,000 per winner.

CONSTELLATION RESEARCH

Constellation Research (@ConstellationRG) is a research and advisory firm focused on disruptive and emerging technologies. This renowned group is a collection of prestigious analysts that bring real world experience, independence, and objectivity client solutions to span cross-role, cross-functional, and cross-industry points of view. Supporting a dizzying array of disruptive business models and technologies for middleware to software to services, the Constellation Research team advices the entire ecosystem of buyers, partners, solution providers and vendor clients. For more information about Constellation Research, please visit http://www.constellationrg.com.

***

Constellation Research, Constellation SuperNova Awards and the Constellation Research logo are trademarks of Constellation Research, Inc. All other products and services listed herein are trademarks of their respective companies.

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Executive Profiles: Disruptive Tech Leaders In Cloud Computing – Oscar Rodriguez, Extreme Networks

Published on September 15, 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.

Oscar Rodriguez, CEO of Extreme Networks


Biography

Oscar Rodriguez has served as President and CEO of Extreme Networks® since August 2010, providing strategic leadership for the company as it delivers high-performance Ethernet network solutions and services to enterprises, data center hosting companies and carriers. Oscar is an industry veteran with more than 20 years of executive leadership experience spanning sales, marketing and operations.

Prior to Extreme Networks, Oscar served as the CEO of Movius Interactive Corporation, a messaging, collaboration and mobile media solutions company. Prior to Movius, he served as Chief Marketing Officer for Alcatel-Lucent’s Enterprise Business Group. Prior to that, he served as CEO and President of Riverstone Networks, a network company focused on Metro Ethernet switching. Oscar also served as President of both the Enterprise Solutions division and the Intelligent Internet division at Nortel Networks. Oscar serves on the Board of Directors for EXAR Corporation, a Silicon Valley semiconductor company.

Oscar is on the Dean’s Board of Advisors for the College of Engineering at the University of Central Florida. He holds a B.S. in computer engineering from the University of Central Florida, and an MBA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The Interview

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

Oscar Rodriguez (OR): I’ve been in the network and computing industry for 25 years, and in my view, prior to the cloud, you had to buy all the hardware yourself, roll things up into the server, build your own data center, and figure out disaster recovery. Then you had to add your own capex and operating budget, staff up the team, and provision for more capacity. It’s insane. The cloud removes all these headaches.

Moreover, a large cloud provider can provide cost savings and lets a service provider amortize many tenants over months. Like traditional service providers in telecom, it’ll be very inexpensive for the large and medium enterprise to get extra network capacity in peak times. Not only do you get this with the cloud, but you also get opportunities to own less and turn capex to opex. You also limit the types of experts you need to have on staff. We’re turning the world upside down!

2. What makes cloud computing disruptive?

(OR): What is disruptive about the cloud is the close linkage it has with today’s increasingly mobile world. Take Netflix video being 49% of Internet traffic, delivered either to TVs over wireless or a laptop by someone at an airport. There is Apple iCloud too. All this is evidence that Computing is going out in the cloud. Users at the same time are mobile and can access their information and entertainment more flexibly.

What all this means is the capability to truly get access to information no matter where you are, with security considered. In the past you had to put a VPN in place and if you ran off the cell phone’s VPN browser, it was cumbersome. This limited users as to how, when, and where their information was accessible. Most of the time, the constraints were based on the type of device you were carrying. The client side of client/server app created limitations.

However, the Cloud is pretty much available wherever you are. You only need a broadband connection, wired or wireless. Cloud services, such as Virtual Desktop (VDI), are turned on its head. Adding to it, iPads and competing tablets are on the market and have introduced a whole new breed of apps, opening even more windows of opportunity.

What it means is that it doesn’t matter if you have personal or business devices. You can enable a personal device to access networks and services with security and full control of the IT department. You don’t dictate the device anymore, but you dictate the environment. The result is that all these things now make us more mobile.

When you look at where we are at Extreme Networks with our vision, we promote a world where mobility is more than just wireless. The network should be a key part of where people can move around. For instance, in the consumer space, you could be on vacation but easily access your work network with your iPad. Professional and consumer life allows for this blending. With the cloud, blending doesn’t mean you are tethered by a device.

The improved economics enable cloud services to amortize infrastructure over many users, with consumer devices accessing the enterprise, end-users owning the device as ‘prosumers,’ and the ability to provide these services regardless of device, is where we’ve evolved to. Now users can access corporate resources as they need to and they can use a collection of cloud services coming about as well.

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

(OR): I think this is fundamentally a disruptive situation. With Cloud computing, Disaster Recovery of information and resources that are easily available to consumers is really the next big thing.

I’m old enough to have used 3730 terminals and punch cards. Those were captive resources back then. You basically could only run a few applications. Apps were dictated by infrastructure ownership. A new service like iCloud is the tip of the iceberg.

With the network, we are enabling the content provider, or the business provider, access to information and services. Disaster Recovery like this usually sounds like an enterprise business thing, but imagine that in a disaster, such as the recent hurricane in New York, your personal, legal, and financial information can be provided post-disaster very easily and predictably.

The Cloud reinvents how people store their information and where it’s available to them, and you can make sure it’s secure and safe.

4. What are you doing that’s disruptive for Cloud Computing?

(OR): Extreme Networks is an infrastructure vendor. We really make the Cloud happen because we create the data and communications networks. This is our 15th year as a company and we’ve been public over 10 years. The space is catching up to what we are espousing – it’s really collapsing everything into Ethernet and IP. And the virtualized environment needs a virtualized network.

Today we create much faster networks addressing a range of customers, from the more specialized facilities such as cloud hosting companies all the way to really large data centers of the enterprise. Just as the cloud is more efficient, our network uses less people to operate it due to simplicity. We make sure the network is intelligent, and that it adjusts itself automatically, either inside a cloud data center, or in multiple data centers.

We make sure the customer has a network fabric that allows for interoperability, and that is open and provides control and visibility as virtual machines are moving from one data server to another. This is all in lockstep with what our end-users are demanding to improve their networks in the face of cloud computing.

Many are coming to watch videos on the cloud. More and more virtual machines are being served. As these are served up, the network has to react and adjust itself on its own. It needs to be automatic, virtualized, and also to have the physical characteristics. Extreme Networks enables the first two.

5. Where do you see technology convergence with Cloud?

(OR): Virtualization, with storage and switching, is an important inflection point. Before HyperV, we had banks of servers storing data, but very inefficiently. You almost grew customers with every data center. Now with the virtualized cloud model, you can balance CPU cycles. Storage is virtualized so every server is working harder.

The other inflection point is mobility. It changes how we work. We sell network gear, and we know people are doing this. No longer do we just have plug in wired ports. Mobility is about you being able to have anywhere access to information. We see an environment where we have to make mobility seamless. The network should recognize the users and help them with accessing resources regardless of how they connect. When the network recognizes one person, it recognizes each one of us with different attributes and levels of access.

Just as importantly, our vision includes that the network, from the edge to the data center, through features like QoS, bandwidth shaping, and policy, should know what your preferences and needs are for mobility and cloud services. Security and access to services will all go with a user into the cloud no matter where you are on the planet.

6. if you weren’t focused on Cloud Computing what other disruptive technology would you have pursued?

(OR): I think one of the things that’s a coming disruptor is the concept of machines becoming aware – the Internet of Things (IOT). Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communication will take off. There are more machines than humans. Smart grid is a subset of this. Eventually in the consumer space, this type of communication and volume in network connectivity will outstrip what’s happening today. Even though it’s still nascent, we should pay attention to it.

7. What’s your favorite science fiction gadget of all time?

(OR): I have to say the Star Trek Transporter.   Not only do you avoid the security line, it’s disruptive on travel.

Your POV

What do you think? Got a question for Oscar?  Add your comments to the blog or reach me via email: R (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com or R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) com.

Additional interviews will be added and updated!  To be considered for the series, please reach out to Elaine (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com.

Reprints

Reprints can be purchased through Constellation Research, Inc. To request official reprints in PDF format, please contact sales (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com.

Disclosure

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

Copyright © 2011 R Wang and Insider Associates, LLC All rights reserved.

 

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Executive Profiles: Disruptive Tech Leaders In Cloud Computing – Sudhakar “Rama” Ramakrishna, Polycom

Published on September 14, 2011 by R "Ray" Wang

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

Sudhakar Ramakrishna, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Unified Communications Solutions, and Chief Development Officer, Polycom

Biography

Ramakrishna joined Polycom in 2010 as senior vice president and general manager of unified communications solutions, and chief development officer. Ramakrishna was promoted to executive vice president in February 2011. He is responsible for defining and delivering best in class unified communication products and solutions and driving revenue growth and profitability.

Ramakrishna brings a wealth of strategy and execution experience to Polycom. Before Polycom, Ramakrishna was Corporate VP and GM for Wireless Broadband Access Solutions and Software Operations at Motorola. Ramakrishna was instrumental in scaling the 4G (WiMAX and LTE) and Software business, and led large multi-function teams of more than 2300 employees, and businesses across the globe. Previously, Ramakrishna held senior management roles at Stoke Networks, 3Com, U.S. Robotics and other companies.

Ramakrishna has extensive experience working with enterprise and carrier/operator customers. His areas of technology focus include wireless, MoIP/IP telephony, data networking, security, and IP convergence-related technologies and services. Ramakrishna has significant experience in organization development, strategic planning and execution, incubating and scaling new businesses, and was involved in strategic partnerships with Huawei, Siemens, and several mergers, acquisitions and divestitures.

Ramakrishna earned a Master’s of Science degree in Computer Science from Kansas State University. He received his Master’s Degree in Business Administration from Northwestern University’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management. Ramakrishna holds and has filed several patents in the areas of IP telephony, soft switching and load balancing.

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

Sudhakar “Rama” Ramakrishna (SR): The cloud helps separates the core from the chore. Customers for whom IT is not their core business can save enormous time, energy, and resources by leveraging Cloud based infrastructure and solutions. With cloud computing becoming more and more accessible, it allows enterprises to divest themselves from the infrastructure build outs and focus on what they do best; i.e., their core business. By freeing up precious resources, customers can invest more effectively in their core business and drive improved business results and growth.

2.  What makes cloud computing disruptive?

(SR): The key disruptions come from two areas: 1) The superior economics and 2) The velocity of innovation and application deployment. The underpinnings of cloud computing are not new. However, this is now the right time to make it happen. Why? Bandwidth is faster, cheaper and more ubiquitous AND the security issues and barriers to adoption have been eliminated. Companies are leveraging “Cloud Platforms” to develop innovative applications in a variety of fields in a scalable, secure, and economic fashion.

Cloud based solutions are also accelerating the adoption of Unified Communications (UC). Our customers are eager to deploy UC in the cloud. Service providers can drive and monetize assets more effectively in the cloud.

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

(SR): Cloud will evolve to include more applications and create more effective ways for people to communicate, collaborate, and be productive – all while leveraging superior economies of scale. Cloud solutions can be deployed in a variety of configurations – Private, Public, and Hybrid. In addition to delivery models in the cloud, companies will evolve in how they adopt the cloud. We can expect better B2B and B2B communications where Cloud solutions are delivered to enable Unified Communications in a secure, scalable, interoperable, and cost effective manner. I also believe that Cloud computing platforms will foster a new breed of application developers that work across organization and geographic boundaries to greatly increase the speed of innovation and bring new services to market.

4.  What are you doing that’s disruptive for Cloud Computing?

(SR): As we address the needs of new segments such as SMB, we are enabling cloud through service provider partners. Our Polycom RealPresence Platform supports carrier-grade UC with the reliability, universal bridging, and massive scalability required for cloud-delivery. This platform delivers the industry’s only universal bridging software that supports up to 75,000 device registrations and 25,000 concurrent sessions. This platform will enable the roll-out of ‘video-as-a-service’ offerings to SMB and enterprise customers.

We are also focused on driving interoperability as service providers roll out video cloud services. In June, we announced with 14 major service providers – including Verizon, AT&T, Airtel, Telefonica, and BT – the Open Visual Communications Consortium, to bring together a diverse set of architectures and standards. We can then leverage these standards to improve integration and interoperability to avoid technology islands, and make video conferencing as easy as making a phone call, across all devices and networks. This will drive significant adoption and help us drive faster innovation. We are serving as the catalyst that brings all of these service providers together. How quickly we can accomplish this is a testament to the importance and impact of the cloud. Polycom and the OVCC organization expect to begin bringing open video exchange cloud services to market as early as mid-2012.

5.  Where do you see technology convergence with Cloud?

(SR): Ray, I see tremendous possibilities. The web and various versions of mobile technologies will be more ubiquitous. One of our recent innovations is to integrate our UC applications to a wide range of mobile devices. We are actively serving the need for users to Bring Their Own Devices (BYOD) to enterprise settings – CIOs are increasingly enabling applications on devices of their users’ choice, which drives improved user satisfaction, lowered costs and greater productivity! Via our device and cloud innovations, we are extending the boundaries of the enterprise and giving users more choices to communicate, collaborate, and be more productive regardless of their location! Our RealPresence Platform, which is Cloud ready, enables us to do so.

6.  If you weren’t focused on Cloud Computing what other disruptive technology would you have pursued?

(SR): Ray, if I were not working in the technology field, I’d be studying real time behavioral economics. In an increasingly converged world where there is almost no information asymmetry, I’ve been wondering how macro and micro economic theories change and how they impact human behavior. In this context, how might traditional economics change or be relevant? What do we need to learn and do to make effective decisions in this world?

7.  What’s your favorite science fiction gadget of all time?

(SR): Teleportation of course. Like others, I am a big Star Trek fan. I grew up watching and reading about StarTrek. It’s hard not to like any of the gadgets from the PADD (personal access display device) to the communicator. Just think of the impact – taking an idea and making it real, more importantly, taking an idea that is fictional and making it real!!

Your POV

What do you think? Got a question for Rama?  Add your comments to the blog or reach me via email: R (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com or R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) com.

Additional interviews will be added and updated!  To be considered for the series, please reach out to Elaine (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com.

Reprints

Reprints can be purchased through Constellation Research, Inc. To request official reprints in PDF format, please contact sales (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com.

Disclosure

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

Copyright © 2011 R Wang and Insider Associates, LLC All rights reserved.

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Press Release: Alexandre Mesquita To Lead Constellation Research’s Entry Into Spain, Portugal, and Latin America

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

Monta Vista, California – September 12, 2011
10:21 AM (GMT -8:00) Pacific Standard Time

Constellation Research Inc, an emerging and disruptive technologies research and advisory firm, announced that Alexandre Mesquita has joined as a Vice President of Sales for Spain, Portugal and Latin America.  Mesquita brings over 15 years of experience in sales, consulting, and marketing.  Specifically, he has proven experience in selling independent research and end user advisory services in this region to support strategic business decisions at US$1B+ organizations.

Mesquita will engage with both buy side and sell side clients. His responsibilities will include:

  • Managing business development and sales efforts in Spain, Portugal and Latin America
  • Establishing partnerships between companies and Constellation’s expert knowledge base
  • Helping organizations accomplish their business objectives around Mobile, Software, BI, SCM, ERP, PBS, CRM, Collaboration, Analytics, UC, Gov 2.0 and Social.

Prior to his current role, Mesquita was a Sr. Consultant at Saleforce.com, where he supported the direct sales team at organizations with more than 1,000 employees in Latin America.  Before that, he was a Regional Director for this region at Forrester Research, where he built a team of Country Managers (Brazil, Argentina, Colombia and Mexico) and Associates, managed marketing actions, the P&L and finally, worked with the vertical and horizontal research teams to incorporate the local knowledge.

“I’m looking forward to working with one of the most renown and experienced collection of disruptive technology analysts.  Building out Constellation’s presence in the Spain, Portugal, and Latin American markets won’t be easy but I’m up to the challenge.  We’ll be partnering with our buy side clients to craft the right mix of research and services that meet the local requirements.  As a global organization, our goal is to meet the local needs, not dictate an arrogant and specific regional view that many legacy analyst firms often enter the market with.”

Before Forrester, Mesquita was an Alliance Manager at IBM, the same position also held at PwC Consulting, where he managed strategic alliances with Intel, Oracle, Siebel, SAP, HP, Microsoft, and other IT service vendors like Stefanini. Mesquita holds a master’s degree in Organizational Leadership from Nichols College in Massachusetts, and a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from the University of Brasília in Brazil.

“Alexandre’s ability to bring a cross-cultural point of view will help us find the right mix of disruptive technology research and pragmatic advice for this rapidly growing region.  Mesquita’s legendary ability to craft long-term strategic relationships with buy side clients will help us grow the business and I’m looking forward to his operational expertise to help take us to the next level. ” noted R “Ray” Wang, Principal Analyst and CEO.

As part of the Constellation Customer Experience, Constellation works with clients to collaboratively design Research-as-a-Service solutions and partner on crafting the appropriate advisory solutions.

Please join us in welcoming Alexandre Mesquita to the Constellation Research family!

COORDINATES

Twitter: @amesquit
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandremesquita
Geo: Miami, FL, USA
Phone: +1.786.564.4246
Email: Alexandre (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com.

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.

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