LSQHA Blog Reviews

This SAP story is getting a bit more interesting. Today we sat in in on a call with its team over at StreamWork , the new collaboration, SaaS service, previously known as 12Sprints. Dave Meyer lead the discussion. For the first time, at least for us, he helped crystalize how SAP will extend its relevancy. Meyer and his team were joined by StreamWork partners -- a curious mix of companies that include Scribd, Evernote and Box.net , not exactly the trio you'd expect to show up as partners with SAP. Sponsor The story is not entirely without its bumps. We found a few but that's not so surprising. We had trouble accessing the platform using a Google Chrome browser. It worked fine in Firefox. You can make fixes bit easier in a SaaS environment. Feedback comes in, the code gets a touch up and a new change is made. That's a bit of a different approach for SAP. It leads to the possibility that SAP is shifting its efforts by using a SaaS platform as a window to its deep back end, specifically Business Objects. SAP is taking an open-source approach. It integrates with Google Open Social and can pull in data from third-party source using RESTful web services. Google Open Social serves as a platform for tools that can be used within the framework of the StreamWork product. For example, an OpenSocial gadget to do polls may be used to get quick answers for team members. That's one way to be relevant n a new age of web-oriented technologies and continued emergence of forceful, open-source competitors, both on-premise and the cloud. The direction does seem right. the StreamWork platform could serve as a front end to the enormous SAP program libraries that companies keep on-premise. For now, though, the integration is relatively simple and not yet really defined. We received this statement from SAP after the call when we asked about access to SAP applications through StreamWork: "People will begin to see some initial integrations SAP's Developer Network, which should preface some additional capabilities to come. While we can't share granular plans, SAP has full intentions to integrate StreamWork into existing business applications. Users should see these developments over the next year. It also is up to customer feedback to prioritize which comes first, SAP has many integrations in the works and will determine which to pursue based on customer need." But the philosophy seems correct. But how do Scribd, Evernote and Box.net fit in? In a web-oriented world, static files can be a glut, obstructing the work flow. Scribd serves as viewer for accessing those important documents that may be deep in the enterprise but are still largely relevant. Evernote is one of those products that is pretty much designed for the individual, not the enterprise. It's for taking notes, pictures or any item that a community member wishes to post into a StreamWork activity. Box.net provides the storage capabilties for documents that can be shared with different groups. Folders store documents that can be uploaded and shared within a real-time environment. We spent some time using the StreamWork platform today. It is designed to drive business decisions. It's not for playing around. This is definitely its differentiator. You can see as a collaborative service and the potential deeper SAP environment. The story is coming together. The product is in its early stages. We'll now see how it does fits with the rest of the vast SAP applicaton suite. Discuss

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Does StreamWork Give a Picture of SAP's Future?

Another Earth Hour has passed by this weekend. Electrical systems across the globe were shut down to observe, for an hour, that energy is precious. In this moment, we also acknowledge that as humanity, we have the power to do better for ourselves. One great thing about Earth Hour is the photos. If you haven't yet, check out the brilliant photo essay at Boston.com on Earth Hour 2010 . If you haven't taken initiative to shut down your computer yet, read on to get a refresher on how better computing resource utilization creates a better world. Sponsor Earth Hour Translates to Megahertz The link to energy and efficiency is clearly evident in the data center. Where electricity is bundled in time units, processing is calculated in megahertz. We can see how important the work is at Intel and others (AMD, IBM, Apple) to get higher processing per energy consumption at the core. In the data center, applications and processes drive resources, as well as flows of traffic from users. In a way solving the challenge of energy efficient data centers is where information management and physics collide. Higher utilization is the promise of server virtualization. However, like in many things, scaling up is harder than scaling down. The tricky part is the linkages across the network, storage. These configurations are where further opportunity exists to abstract the workload, infrastructure, and energy to orchestrate a flow of resources that turn off and on when needed. In this way, we wonder, will find ways to connect energy consumption to workload - and cost. Is Energy Social? We see a time in the future where personal computing is a utility, and the plug knows who we are. With smart homes, mobile computing, and personal health records, it has to be so. One thing that struck a note with us about Earth Hour is how easy it is to do locally. All you do is turn off the switch. In California, there is a very lively discussion on automated, or "smart" meters from the default electrical company, PGE. See (some) of the dialog on PGE's smart meter site on Facebook. On one hand, having computerized meters gives the needed management to observe consumption in real-time and optimize the grid. On the other hand for many users, this type of oversight needs to be tied to consumer privacy and pricing. As shown with Earth Hour, there is an important social component and to giving back to the world, not just the shareholders. People question the intentions of a monopoly and as people we seem to get a better win with a simple, "Turn it Off" where we get a chance to contribute by ourselves. For us, Earth Hour represents people rallying for the future. Around the world, from Sidney to Singapore, Buenos Aires to Boston people are doing it because we are a people - not to support the systems. Here's to hoping that someday we can all check in to Earth Hour in a way that turns off our gear, lights, and grids - if only for a moment. Location Matters. Huddling Up to Where its Warm Oregon's has a lot of natural resources. From salmon, honey, and redwoods, to mobile technology, the state is blossoming like spring. One interesting trend are the massive data centers popping up out of the ground (like Facebook and Google ) that have been placed close to energy resources. In several small towns in Oregon, modern high-density computing environments are being deployed next to the oldest technology for generating power, the dam. These services show that tariff's and pricing do matter when it comes to energy and how it converts to the bottom line to the leaders in cloud computing. Computing Matters: A Few Green Guides Resources to Consider Intel : Seeing the Sensitivity of Server Refresh is an Intel internal review of ROI of pulling in newest versions of server technology and doing technology refreshes. Density does matter. VMware : This energy efficiency analysis walks us though the concepts of energy efficiency by pooling servers as virtual resources. The Gartner quote below us how serious energy is ties to computing costs. "Gartner estimates that over the next 5 years, most enterprise data centers will spend as much on energy (power and cooling) as they do on hardware infrastructure." Even if all of the technology was free, energy would still a very significant expense in running a data center operation. VMware also shows that energy saving can be viral , or can expand into other areas of the corporate environment. Earth Hour is a Question, Not an Answer One of the best aspects of Earth Hour is that we know it won't work for the real-time web. We aren't ready to shut down the Internet, or data center. Instead, as technology leaders, we may be able to design systems that react and become more efficient. With time, perhaps the Internet at large will "go dark" for an hour or so per year in celebration. For us, Earth hour was a trigger to consider the impacts of energy and look at it as a system, instead of a free resource. We compiled a few questions for enterprise managers considering how to tie global movement and questions into the day job: Earth Hour has a .9% difference in the electrical grid in some areas. We know virtualization offers more. What number are you using in your enterprise for virtualization energy savings? How long will it take for electrical grids and computing grids merge? Will it happen in our lifetime? Would your company be able to take down your network down for an hour with the flip of a switch? What part of the infrastructure would you be the most concerned about? How high of a priority is it for your organization to reduce it's energy footprint? Photo credits: demorganna & xshamx Discuss

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Earth Hour: Is it Time to Virtualize the Electrical Grid?

In our poll last week, we asked: "Does it Really Matter How Cloud Computing Is Defined? " This week, we want to know: "Is Oracle a cloud company?" The questions have some relationship as how we defien cloud computing has some impact on the way we view a company and its overall vision. As for the overall debate, most of our respondents to last week's question agreed with the RedMonk team on this one. The number one response : "It's simple. Just think of cloud computing as servers, middleware and apps." The interest in this topic is shifting. About 100 or so people responded to the poll, compared to past polls that have had more than 1,000 votes. Maybe the more legitimate question should be: " Does it NOT matter at all how cloud computing is defined?" Sponsor

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Weekly Poll: Is Oracle a Cloud company?

I started doing my free Online Strategy Roundtables for entrepreneurs in the fall of 2008. Based on this work, I've been able to draw a few conclusions. First, a good percentage of entrepreneurs don't bother validating their ideas. Another percentage are immediately interested in raising money. Raising money without validating the business is pretty much impossible. If we can address some of these patterns we have a chance at significantly reducing infant entrepreneur mortality. At this morning's roundtable I worked with four new entrepreneurs, and this is what I learned. Sponsor Sramana Mitra is a technology entrepreneur and strategy consultant in Silicon Valley. She has founded three companies and writes a business blog, Sramana Mitra on Strategy . She has a masters degree in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her three books, Entrepreneur Journeys , Bootstrapping, Weapon Of Mass Reconstruction , and Positioning: How To Test, Validate, and Bring Your Idea To Market are all available from Amazon. Her new book Vision India 2020 was recently released. Mitra is also a columnist for Forbes and runs the 1M/1M initiative. Mel Marten presented ClaroConnect , described as being like a match.com for financial advisors and clients.  There was a discussion about the best way to monetize the business, whether charging an annual fee is preferred to monetizing every lead. Then the conversation turned to affiliate marketing. Albert Santalo with CareCloud was next.  This Internet-based service simplifies the many tasks of the modern medical office. While this business has been validated by a growing list of clients, the positioning of their service needs to be more sharply defined in order to scale the business.  Through much give and take, the importance of segmentation and focusing on the strongest segment of their market was emphasized.  Martin Linkov presented Favit , a product aiming to personally curate and simply present online content.  As a blogger and potential customer, I said I am looking for a service to curate and prioritize what other bloggers are saying about a topic I am blogging about to give my readers a fuller perspective.  But Martin is not looking to answer that need.  He demonstrates how difficult it can be to explain a complex service, while being pressed to succinctly define who the user is for this service, and what is the value proposition for the bloggers who are the stated channel.  The most valuable selling proposition for this service still needs to be defined and validated.  Mark Hernandez pitched his business, After COOL Fitness .  I liked this business idea, there is clearly a need to fill in as physical education and recreation programs are being cut from school budgets.  Currently they are paid by grants and parents.  When I learned of the lopsided ownership structure of the business, I felt Mark's main priority should be to rework the capital structure of the business while continuing to organically grow the business regionally. The roundtables are the cornerstone programming of a global initiative that I have started called One Million by One Million ( 1M/1M ). Its mission is to help a million entrepreneurs globally to reach $1 million in revenue and beyond, build $1 trillion in sustainable global GDP, and create 10 million jobs. In 1M/1M, I teach the EJ Methodology which is based on my Entrepreneur Journeys research, and emphasize bootstrapping, idea validation, and crisp positioning as some of the core principles of building strong fundamentals in early stage ventures. You can find the recording of this roundtable session here . Recordings of previous roundtables are all available here . You can register for the next roundtable here . Photo by Laurent Cottier . Discuss

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Startup Strategy Roundtable: Validate Your Ideas

In growing technology markets, the rate of innovation increases as the technologies become more accessible. That's what is most significant about the announcement from Dell today that it is now offering servers, loaded and ready to go. The servers are designed with the power and optimized for customers that wish to create their own cloud-based infrastructures, be they public or private services. For instance, this might include customers that provide high performance computing (HPC), SaaS or wish to build their own public or private cloud. Sponsor Dell's Mark Cathcart puts it this way: "Perhaps significantly, one of the more important parts of this set of announcements are the turnkey cloud solutions comprised of pre-tested, pre-assembled and fully-supported hardware, software and services enabling customers easily and quickly to deploy and manage cloud infrastructures with confidence, taking much of the guesswork out of building and running efficient private and public clouds. This is a key theme of our "Efficient Enterprise" Strategy and best value solutions." Of interest is Microsoft's involvement with Dell. The two will work together on the Windows Azure platform. Microsoft will continue to invest in Dell hardware for Windows Azure infrastructure. The new push is focused on mid to medium-sized businesses. These are companies that face increasing data demands that can overcome a company's infrastructure. According to a post on Venture Beat , IDC estimates that companies store 500 billion gigabytes of data today and that will double every 18 months. People are communicating via their smart phones and portable devices in addition to the work done in the office. With a spike, a company can find itself with its network down. The new servers also represent a new generation of hardware that is designed to save on power consumption and cooling, major costs associated with data centers. According to Dell, the PowerEdge C-Series servers come in three basic models: PowerEdge C1100: This is a high-memory, power-efficient, cluster-optimized compute node server PowerEdge C2100: High performance data analytics, cloud compute platform and cloud storage server PowerEdge C6100: 4-node cloud and cluster optimized shared infrastructure server The servers run on Intel's quad-core Xeon 5500 and six-core Xeon 5600 processors. Discuss

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Dell: Build Your Own Cloud