DevOps is speeding towards the IT world like a freight train and the hype around it is deafening. There is no reason to be afraid of this change as it is the natural reaction to the agile movement that revolutionized development just a few years ago. By definition, DevOps is the natural alignment of IT performance to business profitability. The relevance of this has yet to be quantified but it has been suggested that the route to the CEO's chair will come from the IT leaders that successfully make the transition to a DevOps model. If this still seems foreign to you, I recommend reading up on DevOps Blog from IT Revolution, the OpsCode Blog, and check out The Phoenix Project. Despite all the talk around simple monitoring tools, breaking through the walls between Dev and Ops still poses a real challenge. This is because of a misunderstanding around Operations real pu... (more)

Cloud Computing, Big Data & Smart Mobile Apps to Drive IT Spending in 2014

Big bucks continue to be spent on hardware and software, with a marked increase in cloud services, according to a new report. Forrester released the data of its annual survey on IT spending worldwide and detected areas with higher spending, including apps and tablets. Forrester Research's annual report on worldwide IT spending split the amount of $2.06 trillion spent this year from businesses and governments between hardware, software and services related to the IT world. CIOs and IT decision-makers plan their biggest software spending increases in mobile applications and middleware, analytics, security, and collaboration software, according to an article on CloudTimes.org. Software registered the largest share of tech spending in 2013 and companies will continue to spend in this segment particularly on smart and cloud computing in 2014. While investment in legacy a... (more)

Success, Arrogance, Rise and Fall

New Media on Ulitzer Last week we were accidentally copied in on an internal e-mail from a software company with a market cap in excess of five billion dollars. As I read through this long e-mail thread, which included references to our company, I couldn't help but reflect on the past. I forwarded this e-mail to their CEO and he acknowledged its receipt. History is repeating itself, I realized, and I wanted to share my thoughts with our readers and with the CEO of this software company. In 1985-86 I worked at IBM as a market research analyst in White Plains, NY, at the company's Information Systems and Communications Group headquarters. Our big boss then was Mike Armstrong. He often held staff meetings in our building at 44 South Broadway. On the day we found out from the Wall Street Journal that he had been appointed the head of IBM Europe, he held his last staff... (more)

Sixteen Ways of Thinking in Web 2.0

Thinking in Web 2.0: Sixteen Ways With apologies to Bruce Eckel, I sat down this afternoon and put together a draft list of the first-order elements of Web 2.0 thinking.  It's not that I have the hubris to consider this list official in any way but it should be a serviceable starting point for debate, discourse, and reference.  I'd also like to give credit to Jeremy Zawodny for his write-up pointing me to Tom Coat's excellent presentation notes from his Future of Web Apps talk which partially inspired this effort.  I think both of them have really solid source material.  But they still don't quite capture a complete high-level picture of the ingredients, forces, and decisions that have to go into thinking about, using, and building complete Web 2.0 software experiences. That simple fact is that creating software of any kind is hard work.  And creating good software is... (more)

Wikipedia Nixes "Enterprise 2.0"

(August 19, 2066) - This week's remarkable deletion, from Wikipedia, of the useful colloquy "Enterprise 2.0" coined by a Harvard Business School professor (Andrew McAfee, pictured) and popularized by Web 2.0 Journal editor-in-chief Dion Hinchcliffe - has set the cat among the pigeons. When someone as eminent as Prof. Andrew McAfee, who first coined the term in March 2006, is writing articles in the MIT Sloan Management Review entitled "Enterprise 2.0: The Dawn of Emergent Collaboration", then it is surely an odd time for Wikipedia, of all reference sources, to be suggesting that there's no consensus on the value or meaning of such a term. McAfee is an associate professor with the Technology and Operations Management Unit at Harvard Business School, so he is no lightweight. His HBS faculty blog gave an early account of the nixing on Thursday. The most insightful view o... (more)

Did Microsoft Over-pay For Facebook?

The i-Technology Blog When Microsoft parted with $240M for a 1.6% stake in a company with $140M in revenues and $30M in profits, was it over-paying? Conspiracy theorists were quick to say that the move was deliberate, to inflate the overall value of Facebook to $15BN and thereby prevent anyone else from buying it outright. TIME commented: "The dotcom bubble just got bigger than ever." Typical of the reaction to the news last week that Microsoft was taking an equity stake in Facebook were the comments that quickly began appearing on Slashdot: "they put Facebook's value at $15 billion to discourage others from investing in Facebook and make Facebook beholden to them.' (gbulmash) "Absolutely correct. Not only will others potentially stay away, but it poisons Facebook themselves and creates a strong risk of complete implosion, which MS can use for leverage. Once a line is ... (more)

Web 2.0 - Web 3.0 - The "Social Web"

Jeremiah Owyang, of the popular Web Strategy by Jeremiah blog (and now an analyst at Forrester), wrote a post several months ago entitled The Irrelevant Corporate Website. And in typical Owyang style, it is thought-provoking and has been translated into several languages, including Greek, Swedish, and German. As one of the owners of a digital marketing and communications company, I'd like to extend Owyang’s argument that the corporate Website is irrelevant, and present a framework that just might make it more relevant than ever. Let's consider the pages of a traditional corporate Website. They include an “about me” page, a contact page, a careers section, and probably a page with news and press releases. The words look good on paper, and, more than likely, a committee gave the final sign-off on the site's content. Visitors frequented these pages... (more)

NPR Asks: Will Cloud Computing Work in the White House?

"The Internet IS cloud computing," according to a holiday-time broadcast on National Public Radio. The program, called 'Will Cloud Computing Work in the White House' aired December 21 on NPR's All Things Considered and involved NPR's Andrea Seabrook discussing with security and technology experts how the White House computers should run under incoming President Barack Obama. The program focused on how cloud computing technology can potentially be used to improve government services - a much discussed topic as the new administration moves into the White House. Experts consulted included Google's Vint Cerf (a.k.a.'The Father of the Internet') and Dataline's expert on Cloud Computing Security, Kevin Jackson. Jackson discussed how cloud computing can make data and computing more secure than traditional systems. Cloud computing would also improve collaboration, an area that... (more)

Mobile TV Gets Social: Axel Technologies' Fuugo™ Comes to Android

NAB 2010 visitors can experience first-hand how Fuugo is making TV social again Las Vegas, USA, 12 April 2010 - Axel Technologies, a pioneer in mobile TV software technologies, introduces Fuugo™ to the NAB 2010 audience in Las Vegas this week. Since its launch in February, Fuugo™ has been updated with ATSC-M/H and Android capabilities making it more suitable for the US market. Fuugo™ is the first TV application for personalizing a content stream by blending content choices from broadcast TV, mobile TV, Internet videos and social media. Fuugo™ is optimized for a range of mobile and portable devices enabling consumers to enjoy personalized TV content on-the-go. Fuugo™ has been designed with the end-user in mind making it the most user-friendly TV and Video application in the market. Fuugo™ utilizes social media, recommendations, user metrics and various content sourc... (more)

Issues Facing Businesses in An Accountant’s Perspective

International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) After the Enron debacle, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) assumed a leadership role in the rush toward an international set of accounting standards (IFRS). The long and proud independent standard setting process in the United States of America is being phased out in favor of an international standard setting process with an international governing body, the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB). So what’s the big deal? Confusing Standards? So will we have a single, simple, principles-based global set of accounting standards? Not so fast, my friend! Initially, public companies will be required to convert to IFRS while private US companies could choose to adopt IFRS for small- and mid-sized entities or could, along with not-for-profit organizations, continue to report under g... (more)

My Next Adventure

A funny thing happened on my way to my 11 year anniversary at Xiotech…. For those of you that are new to my blog, here is a little background information.  I started with Xiotech back in January 2000 and embarked on a remarkable ride.  The past 10+ years were amazing, with tons of professional and personal opportunities but as they say, all great things must eventually come to an end and this ending is especially difficult. Xiotech is a FANTASTIC company, and Alan Atkinson and his team of rock stars are bound and determined to take this company to great places. I think in the pure storage space, there are very few that can go head to head with Sicola’s ISE technology.  It’s just solid.  Although this is an end to my Xiotech career, it’s an absolutely awesome start to the next chapter in my life and has me vibrating with excitement (my A.D.D is in OVERDRIVE). What wou... (more)