Q: Clouds
Home Depot is creating and internal cloud, but Matt lamented that external clouds need standards to make it easier for enterprises to use, manage, and pay. Lars agreed that while clouds offer interesting possibilities, management tools are immature.
Karenann noted that for companies like Baxter, who completely outsource the management of their IT infrastructure, the development of a cloud strategy will be closely tied to their outsource partners. It isn’t clear yet how to combine the creation and use of cloud computing when your infrastructure sitting in managed services.
Takeaways:
- Established players should be busy forming standards bodies
- Entrepreneurs should be busy building cloud management tools
- Managed services providers should be forming and articulating their cloud viewpoint and strategy
Q: Virtualization- Is it still just for development and test?
Matt confirmed that virtualization has moved well beyond development and test environments. Home Depot uses it in production, and even though they had to build some of the management tools themselves, they are generally happy with it. Baxter uses virtualization of severs to handle unpredictable peaking. They are also looking at virtualization for the desktop in order to quickly bring PCs into and out of their systems. Lars agreed that virtualization offers valuable speed and flexibility.
Takeaway: Things are looking good for VMWare
Q: Collaboration and Web2.0
Karenann and Matt both agreed that Microsoft is getting huge mindshare in enterprise for collaboration with sharepoint, and their presence is more visible and their marketing more effective than either Google’s or Cisco’s. Karenann also applauded Microsoft for rising from a product-focused vendor to one offering end-to-end solutions.
All three CIOs agreed that to be adopted broadly in the enterprise, Web 2.0 needs to solve real business problems. An example that Karenann provided: Their researches gather once per year for a 5 day conference. “The gathering of ideas and talent creates magic. If (a third party) collaboration (product) can make magic the other 360 days, it will take off.”
I asked the group if the emergence of collaboration was driving systemic changes in their external approach to customers and partners. A telling reply from Matt was, “We are trying to understand HOW customers want to be collaborated with.”
Takeaways:
- Hiring enterprise marketing people (you know who you are) was a good idea, Microsoft.
- Google needs to get its enterprise act together fast
- LinkedIn may have already missed the boat. When I talked to them about enterprise market two years ago, the reply was basically, “yes, yes, we’re on top of it”. A survey tool isn’t it, guys.
- Big enterprises are struggling with external (customer and partner) collaboration, and it may be that the nature of existing tools (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) is constraining their understanding of what’s possible.
Q: An audience member representing a small software company asked for suggestions on getting the attention of CIOs.
Karenann says the best way to connecting with IT execs is at the “main events” to which they go to scout out new innovations or at which they speak. Which ones, exactly? She didn’t say. Other advice: Innovative marketing approaches work, but “you don’t get in by filling up my Inbox” warned Matt. Critically, “know how your product will work in my company” and “invest the time to understand my business.”
Takeaway: As always, do your research!
{ 1 comment }
Lilia,
Valuable input that you shared here. It is necessary to understand what is on the minds of CIO’s as we try to navigate in their organizations.
Thank you for the posting.
Deb
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