Posts Tagged ‘last mile solutions’

Research Report: Constellation’s Research Outlook For 2011

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

Organizations Seek Measurable Results In Disruptive Tech, Next Gen Business, And Legacy Optimization Projects For 2011

Credits: Hugh MacLeod

Enterprise leaders seek pragmatic, creative, and disruptive solutions that achieve both profitability and market differentiation.  Cutting through the hype and buzz of the latest consumer tech innovations and disruptive technologies, Constellation Research expects business value to reemerge as the common operating principle that resonates among leading marketing, technology, operations, human resource, and finance executives.  As a result, Constellation expects organizations to face three main challenges: (see Figure 1.):

  • Navigating disruptive technologies. Innovative leaders must quickly assess which disruptive technologies show promise for their organizations.  The link back to business strategy will drive what to adopt, when to adopt, why to adopt, and how to adopt.  Expect leading organizations to reinvest in research budgets and internal processes that inform, disseminate, and prepare their organizations for an increasing pace in technology adoption.
  • Designing next generation business models. Disruptive technologies on their own will not provide the market leading advantages required for success. Leaders must identify where these technologies can create differentiation through new business models, grow new profit pools via new experiences, and deliver market efficiencies that save money and time.  Organizations will also have to learn how to fail fast, and move on to the next set of emerging ideas.
  • Funding innovation through legacy optimization. Leaders can expect budgets to remain from flat to incremental growth in 2011. As a result, much of the disruptive technology and next generation business models must be funded through optimizing existing investments. Leaders not only must reduce the cost of existing investments, but also, leverage existing infrastructure to achieve the greatest amount of business value.

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Research Report: The Upcoming Battle For The Largest Share Of The Tech Budget (Part 2) – Cloud Computing

Published on August 9, 2010 by R "Ray" Wang

Welcome to a part 2 of a multi-part series on The Software Insider Tech Ecosystem Model.  Part 2 describes how the cloud fits into the model.  Subsequent posts will apply the model to these leading vendors:

      The aggregation of these posts will result into a research report available for reprint rights.

      Cloud Computing Represents The “New” Delivery Model For Internet Based IT Services

      Technology veterans often observe that new mega trends emerge every decade.  The market has evolved from mainframes (1970′s); to mini computers (1980′s); to client server (1990′s); to internet based (2000′s); and now to cloud computing (2010′s).  Many of the cloud computing trends do take users back to the mainframe days of time sharing (i.e. multi-tenancy) and service bureaus (i.e cloud based BPO). What’s changed since 1970?  Quite plenty — users gain better usability, connectivity improves with the internet, storage continue to plummet, and performance increases in processing capability.

      Cloud delivery models share a stack approach similar to traditional delivery.  At the core, both deployment options share four types of properties (see Figure 1):

      1. Consumption – how users consume the apps and business processes
      2. Creation – what’s required to build apps and business processes
      3. Orchestration – how parts are integrated or pulled from an app server
      4. Infrastructure – where the core guts such as servers, storage, and networks reside

      As the über category, Cloud Computing manifests in the four distinct layers of:

      • Business Services and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) – The traditional apps layer in the cloud includes software as a service apps, business services, and business processes on the server side.
      • Development-as-a-Service (DaaS) – Development tools take shape in the cloud as shared community tools, web based dev tools, and mashup based services.
      • Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) – Middleware manifests in the cloud with app platforms, database, integration, and process orchestration.
      • Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) – The physical world goes virtual with servers, networks, storage, and systems management in the cloud.

      Figure 1. Traditional Delivery Compared To Cloud Delivery


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      Research Report: The Upcoming Battle For The Largest Share Of The Tech Budget (Part 1) – Overview

      Published on July 27, 2010 by R "Ray" Wang

      Welcome to a multi-part series on The Software Insider Tech Ecosystem Model.  Subsequent posts will apply the model to these leading vendors:

      • Overview
      • Cloud Computing
      • Cisco
      • Dell
      • HP
      • IBM
      • Microsoft
      • Oracle
      • Salesforce.com
      • SAP

      The aggregation of these posts will result into a research report available for reprint rights.

      Business Models Converge During Recessions

      Is your technology provider a hardware vendor or a software vendor? Does your System Integrator now provide solutions in the cloud? These questions will continue as models converge.  Hardware, software, and system integration vendors must reinvent new models of revenue.  The economic recession has forced business model shifts at the major technology companies.  The goal – own the largest share of both the business and IT technology budget,  As these sellers attack new profit pools, buyers can expect continued convergence of business models because:

      • Hardware companies seek higher margins. Most hardware vendors face single digit margins in their core business.  To bolster margins, many vendors acquired system integration firms.  For example, HP purchased EDS and Dell acquired Perot Systems.  The next logical step requires the hardware vendors to get into software.  Software margins hover from 10% to 50% depending on the market.  Expect a hardware vendor such as Cisco, Dell, or HP to acquire a SaaS based company to move into the software business.
      • Service providers build differentiated intellectual property (IP) using the Cloud. Service providers should go on the SaaS/Cloud offensive if they want to deliver rapid innovation to customers and break the cycle of dependence on packaged apps vendors.  Service providers can take market share through SaaS by investing in white spaces in the solution road map with verticals and other pivot points that have not been well served.  In addition, expect forms of SaaS BPO to emerge as clients seek best of breed SaaS and hybrid deployments.
      • Software companies use Cloud to transform into information brokers. SaaS and Cloud deployments provide companies with hidden value and software companies with new revenues streams.  Data will become more valuable than the software in the Cloud.  Three areas of growth will include benchmarking, trending, and prediction.
      • Companies by-pass software vendors for competitive advantage. Roper Industries acquisition of iTrade Networks on July 26th, proves a key point.  Smart and innovative companies will put custom development in the cloud to meet last-mile solution needs that packaged apps vendors or system integrators fail to deliver.  Companies may also acquire software vendors if they can’t build the solution.

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