Announced on a Saturday, this deal signifies that the Tech Titans may be loosening their purse strings to make acquisitions that help them with long term growth (see a related Aragon Research First Cut on SuccessFactors). For SAP, this signifies that a growth via acquisition strategy may be a long term play for them. Note that for others, such as the IBM Software Group, this strategy has worked successfully for years.
Aragon Research will be doing a full First Cut with analysis of this announcement, which was announced today, December 3rd, 2011. It is clear now that there is a trend that has Talent and HCM Suites appear to be coming together (see Aragon Research First Cuts: Talent and HCM Part I and Part II).
One thing that we will be looking at long term is how well does Enterprise Learning fit inside a Talent Suite. In Enterprise Content Management (ECM) for example, Web Content Management never really got absorbed as part of that Suite (note, Aragon Research covers Learning as part of its Knowledge topic).
In the short term, this will put some pressure on remaining providers of Talent Management Software (Cornerstone OnDemand, Saba Software, Silkroad, Sumtotal Systems, Taleo, Ultimate Software, Workday) on what they do:
1. Remain standalone;
2. Combine forces with another Talent or HCM provider;
3. Get bought by a bigger tech titan (ADP, IBM Oracle, SAP).
Regardless, this may signify that with the better unemployment numbers that just got issued in the US, that it is a good time for large enterprises to loosen their purse strings and make some acquisitions.
Stay tuned for our Aragon Research First Cut early next week.
Showing posts with label IBM. Show all posts
Showing posts with label IBM. Show all posts
Saturday, December 3, 2011
Friday, October 14, 2011
Collaboration and Content in the Cloud
First came ECM, then came Microsoft SharePoint, then Google took content to the Cloud. Now everyone wants to jump on the bandwagon, as sharing content gets even easier in the cloud. Lots of start-ups and existing providers are jumping in (Box, Dropbox, Citrix, IBM, Google, Microsoft, Mindjet) and many others. It is all about making access to content fast, easy and mobile.
At Gartner, I helped coin the term Basic Content Services (BCS) as a way to describe what, at the time were emerging capabilities in products like SharePoint, which was not full Enterprise Content Management (ECM). Microsoft didn't like the term BCS and started to proclaim themselves as full ECM.
Jump ahead to 2011 and files are larger, people (like sales execs) are using tablets for work, and email systems block the transport of large files. Some are calling this new capability Cloud Content Management and for vendors it is a hot market. There is a large amount of investment, mainly at Box, which is gaining significant attention in this space. As a result, there is also new M&A activity occurring (e.g. Citrix announced it is buying ShareFile). Expect to see a lot more in the coming months.
In 2011, it is about more than just putting content in the Cloud. People want to be able to collaborate too, and for those that remember, collaboration has always been part of the content management story. People need access to the content, but often they need to collaborate with others on it. Google established the collaborative content approach with Google Docs and now others are working hard to capitalize on that trend.
As a recent example of collaborative content, Mindjet now offers their mind mapping tool as a Cloud service, Mindjet Connect. You can create information maps, edit and collaborate on them, as well as manage content with this new cloud service. Additionally, Cisco recently acquired Versly, which allows users to collaborate within a Microsoft Office document.
Aragon Research is publishing a syndicated research note this month that reviews this shift towards Collaborative Content in much deeper detail. There are lots of choices that will emerge and it is clear that business leaders are not waiting for the old way of doing things with ECM.
At Gartner, I helped coin the term Basic Content Services (BCS) as a way to describe what, at the time were emerging capabilities in products like SharePoint, which was not full Enterprise Content Management (ECM). Microsoft didn't like the term BCS and started to proclaim themselves as full ECM.
Jump ahead to 2011 and files are larger, people (like sales execs) are using tablets for work, and email systems block the transport of large files. Some are calling this new capability Cloud Content Management and for vendors it is a hot market. There is a large amount of investment, mainly at Box, which is gaining significant attention in this space. As a result, there is also new M&A activity occurring (e.g. Citrix announced it is buying ShareFile). Expect to see a lot more in the coming months.
In 2011, it is about more than just putting content in the Cloud. People want to be able to collaborate too, and for those that remember, collaboration has always been part of the content management story. People need access to the content, but often they need to collaborate with others on it. Google established the collaborative content approach with Google Docs and now others are working hard to capitalize on that trend.
As a recent example of collaborative content, Mindjet now offers their mind mapping tool as a Cloud service, Mindjet Connect. You can create information maps, edit and collaborate on them, as well as manage content with this new cloud service. Additionally, Cisco recently acquired Versly, which allows users to collaborate within a Microsoft Office document.
Aragon Research is publishing a syndicated research note this month that reviews this shift towards Collaborative Content in much deeper detail. There are lots of choices that will emerge and it is clear that business leaders are not waiting for the old way of doing things with ECM.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
A Tale of Two Tech Titans, IBM and Kodak
The tale of two 100 year old tech firms is really about thriving vs surviving. IBM and Kodak have both been around for over 100 years. In fact, earlier this year, IBM celebrated its 100th year. Kodak has been around longer, going back into the 1880s, when George Eastman developed film and the first camera.
Kodak and IBM are part of American history. When I was a kid, my mom loved her Kodak Camera. Later on I got a Kodak Instamatic and thought it was cool. IBM was there too, with the famous punch card machines that fed data into mainframes, typewriters, and the IBM PC. Today, you can see some of that history when you turn on an episode of Mad Men and watch one of the actors typing on an IBM Selectric or using a Kodak Carosel projector.
Jump ahead to 2011 and it is a very different tale for the two firms. Today, IBM is thriving, its market cap and stock price are up, but that is partly because over the years, IBM has made some very tough decisions that it often took heat for. IBM exited businesses, such as typewriters and PCs as they became commoditized (they also exited the printer business).
Kodak is not in the same place that IBM is, but it is still around (most firms from the 1800s are not). Today Kodak is struggling to survive, partly because of the shift from analog to digital photography. People are not buying film and they aren't printing photos as much as they used to. Kodak does make one of the best inkjet printers I've used and by far one of the best scanners, but it is a crowded market.
Rochester, New York is the home of Kodak. Kodak employment in Rochester has shrunk from a high of over 60,000 in 1982 to now under 7,400. When I lived there, many neighbors worked at Kodak, but many found their careers cut short. Some were 4th generation employees.
IBM has gone through tough times too, and there was a time when it had to do some serious downsizing. IBM weathered that storm and today it is back on top, as one of the strongest Tech brands in the world.
The lesson learned here is that business survival is tough. In a digital world that we live in today in 2011, it is even tougher because new competitors can emerge out of nowhere.
There is still hope for Kodak, but these are tough times in Imaging and Printing. Just ask any camera manufacturer what they are thinking, now that Smartphones (e.g. iPhone 4S) have world class camera lenses in them.
Kodak and IBM are part of American history. When I was a kid, my mom loved her Kodak Camera. Later on I got a Kodak Instamatic and thought it was cool. IBM was there too, with the famous punch card machines that fed data into mainframes, typewriters, and the IBM PC. Today, you can see some of that history when you turn on an episode of Mad Men and watch one of the actors typing on an IBM Selectric or using a Kodak Carosel projector.
Jump ahead to 2011 and it is a very different tale for the two firms. Today, IBM is thriving, its market cap and stock price are up, but that is partly because over the years, IBM has made some very tough decisions that it often took heat for. IBM exited businesses, such as typewriters and PCs as they became commoditized (they also exited the printer business).
Kodak is not in the same place that IBM is, but it is still around (most firms from the 1800s are not). Today Kodak is struggling to survive, partly because of the shift from analog to digital photography. People are not buying film and they aren't printing photos as much as they used to. Kodak does make one of the best inkjet printers I've used and by far one of the best scanners, but it is a crowded market.
Rochester, New York is the home of Kodak. Kodak employment in Rochester has shrunk from a high of over 60,000 in 1982 to now under 7,400. When I lived there, many neighbors worked at Kodak, but many found their careers cut short. Some were 4th generation employees.
IBM has gone through tough times too, and there was a time when it had to do some serious downsizing. IBM weathered that storm and today it is back on top, as one of the strongest Tech brands in the world.
The lesson learned here is that business survival is tough. In a digital world that we live in today in 2011, it is even tougher because new competitors can emerge out of nowhere.
There is still hope for Kodak, but these are tough times in Imaging and Printing. Just ask any camera manufacturer what they are thinking, now that Smartphones (e.g. iPhone 4S) have world class camera lenses in them.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
The Patent Wars are not new, the Battle for Mobile is
The battles we are now witnessing among tech giants for patents are not new. What is new is the realization that mobile is the new battle ground and the stakes are high. In patent wars, it is a chess game and one of the objectives can be to stop the other vendor from succeeding. Often this can be mitigated by a cross-licensing arrangement that users rarely hear about.
In mobile, Microsoft has been racing to catch-up and it is working hard to make sure it has plenty of armor (patents). Apple has been surging and it has been filing patents in droves for years. They learned the hard way (from all the Microsoft battles in the early years) that patents help sustain and protect the business. Apple has also been working very hard on doing the right patent acquisitions (note that Apple won the bid for the Nortel patents because it partnered with EMC, Ericsson, Microsoft, RIM, and Sony).
Much of the talk has been around Google, its failed bid for the Nortel patents and this week, its hefty purchase of Motorola Mobility. Given that it failed on the Nortel bid, it didn't have much choice to buy Motorola and gain access to its 17,000 issued patents. What was ominous for Google was that Microsoft was one of the other bidders. That said, while Google is getting abused in the press about the Motorola price tag, it is getting 17,000 patents (Microsoft has over 18,000).
IBM has one of the biggest patent portfolios in High Tech, it is very good at creating patents and it has made a business out of licensing them. IBM plays the game very well and it is professional about it. It can get a little nasty with some of the others. Google could certainly learn from IBM and it looks like it has, since they just cut a deal with IBM to license 1,000 of its patents.
An example of patent licensing that many don't know about occurred in the copier market. Years ago, Canon had invented a new way of applying toner to paper and later a modular system for packaging toner cartridges. It brought Xerox to the table and a cross licensing deal was cut way back in 1978. However, while Xerox got access to the Canon patent portfolio, Canon gained access to Xerox's high speed paper handling patents and 20 years later, Canon eventually crept up into the departmental copier space where Xerox made a large majority of its profits. There are always trade-offs to patent licensing deals.
In mobile, the battle it isn't just about patents on the core technologies, it is about the entire mobile ecosystem. More about that in some of our upcoming research. If you haven't checked out the newest research firm, Aragon Research, please stop by our site.
In mobile, Microsoft has been racing to catch-up and it is working hard to make sure it has plenty of armor (patents). Apple has been surging and it has been filing patents in droves for years. They learned the hard way (from all the Microsoft battles in the early years) that patents help sustain and protect the business. Apple has also been working very hard on doing the right patent acquisitions (note that Apple won the bid for the Nortel patents because it partnered with EMC, Ericsson, Microsoft, RIM, and Sony).
Much of the talk has been around Google, its failed bid for the Nortel patents and this week, its hefty purchase of Motorola Mobility. Given that it failed on the Nortel bid, it didn't have much choice to buy Motorola and gain access to its 17,000 issued patents. What was ominous for Google was that Microsoft was one of the other bidders. That said, while Google is getting abused in the press about the Motorola price tag, it is getting 17,000 patents (Microsoft has over 18,000).
IBM has one of the biggest patent portfolios in High Tech, it is very good at creating patents and it has made a business out of licensing them. IBM plays the game very well and it is professional about it. It can get a little nasty with some of the others. Google could certainly learn from IBM and it looks like it has, since they just cut a deal with IBM to license 1,000 of its patents.
An example of patent licensing that many don't know about occurred in the copier market. Years ago, Canon had invented a new way of applying toner to paper and later a modular system for packaging toner cartridges. It brought Xerox to the table and a cross licensing deal was cut way back in 1978. However, while Xerox got access to the Canon patent portfolio, Canon gained access to Xerox's high speed paper handling patents and 20 years later, Canon eventually crept up into the departmental copier space where Xerox made a large majority of its profits. There are always trade-offs to patent licensing deals.
In mobile, the battle it isn't just about patents on the core technologies, it is about the entire mobile ecosystem. More about that in some of our upcoming research. If you haven't checked out the newest research firm, Aragon Research, please stop by our site.
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Tech Recap Week Ending 5/13 - a new Clash
It was a busy week in Tech and May is usually that way, spanning back all the way to May of 1990, when Microsoft introduced Windows 3.0 to the world. Things changed.
This week Microsoft was at it again and they announced that they were buying Skype, which at 8.5 Billion is a steep price to pay to get your Mojo back. See my take on the deal here.
Of course Google was at it too and the shot that hasn't yet been heard around the world is their new Chromebook. A nifty way to shift people from buying to renting a PC (prices are roughly US $20-28 per device/month) and more importantly some clever security and a new way of isolating of apps from the OS to stop intrusion attacks. Google still needs to show that it is committed to this approach with its partners, but this week it certainly showed it is dedicated to Chrome. The progress Google showed with Chrome in just twelve months is impressive and it also shows that Google's development teams are maturing.
The last item probably would have never showed up at all had it not been for a smart reporter that wasn't about to be duped and it has to do with the whisper campaign Facebook tried to launch against Google. While this has been widely reported and widely tweeted about, what is interesting is that this represents an epic shift of the clash of the titans.
I used to discuss Microsoft vs IBM as the big titan clashes. Now that the battle is in the cloud, it is Google facing off against Facebook. This time it is really all about Ad revenue. Google has it and now Facebook does too. I'll certainly be talking about Facebook in the future, but suffice to say, Facebook is pretty vulnerable to the same type of PR attack it launched on Google. Even more worrisome, Facebook is also an effective tool to use as part of a cyber-attack on an enterprise (see As Facebook Grows, so does Cyber Warfare).
So a busy week in tech and it doesn't show any sign of slowing down.
This week Microsoft was at it again and they announced that they were buying Skype, which at 8.5 Billion is a steep price to pay to get your Mojo back. See my take on the deal here.
Of course Google was at it too and the shot that hasn't yet been heard around the world is their new Chromebook. A nifty way to shift people from buying to renting a PC (prices are roughly US $20-28 per device/month) and more importantly some clever security and a new way of isolating of apps from the OS to stop intrusion attacks. Google still needs to show that it is committed to this approach with its partners, but this week it certainly showed it is dedicated to Chrome. The progress Google showed with Chrome in just twelve months is impressive and it also shows that Google's development teams are maturing.
The last item probably would have never showed up at all had it not been for a smart reporter that wasn't about to be duped and it has to do with the whisper campaign Facebook tried to launch against Google. While this has been widely reported and widely tweeted about, what is interesting is that this represents an epic shift of the clash of the titans.
I used to discuss Microsoft vs IBM as the big titan clashes. Now that the battle is in the cloud, it is Google facing off against Facebook. This time it is really all about Ad revenue. Google has it and now Facebook does too. I'll certainly be talking about Facebook in the future, but suffice to say, Facebook is pretty vulnerable to the same type of PR attack it launched on Google. Even more worrisome, Facebook is also an effective tool to use as part of a cyber-attack on an enterprise (see As Facebook Grows, so does Cyber Warfare).
So a busy week in tech and it doesn't show any sign of slowing down.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
An Operating System that changed the World
The seeds were planted years ago, soon after the Apple iPod came out. However, Apple never disclosed its multi-device OS strategy until their momentum in the market was well established. Today, Apple's Operating Systems are powering phones, tablets and Macs. That has created a fair degree of market envy, but Apple now has a few generations of users that know their products work and pretty much keep working.
The high tech industry, which from 2007 until early 2009 failed to take Apple seriously, is now reeling from the continuous product hits coming out of Apple. In fact, one could argue that the PC industry has been permanently changed. Netbooks have given way to Tablets and Smart Phones without apps are just not highly desired, since data, not calls, are powering Carrier growth. Mobility, Applications and ease of use are the watch words.
Google recognized the trend early, put together a great team and now Android has become the OS of choice for most handset and tablet manufacturers. Other providers failed to act and now are scrambling to catch up.
The OS is not the only part of this success story, Apple made it easy for developers to monetize their work and that unleashed a wave of application innovation like we haven't seen in decades. The others that are in the game, with the minor exception of Google, don't have the same application portability across phones and tablets.
I was in the battles of the Desktop Operating Systems in the early days of a GUI based OS (I was at Xerox in Palo Alto) and in those days the desktop OS was looked at in one dimension (Workstations/PCs). What is fascinating to me is how many large vendors have continued to look at the OS in a single dimension. Apple and Google get As, they did their homework, monetized their designs and are now reaping the rewards.
The question though is what lessons the other vendors (Microsoft, Dell, HP, Nokia, RIM, Sony) will learn from this. For many, a multi-dimensional OS was never viewed as strategic. For a few, it is fast becoming a matter of survival. Mergers and acquisitions will be the things to watch this year.
The result of all this is that that it will no longer be a one OS fits all approach. Users will pick the apps they want, run them on the devices they want and access secure corporate portals that serve up the right content, data and analytics.
The high tech industry, which from 2007 until early 2009 failed to take Apple seriously, is now reeling from the continuous product hits coming out of Apple. In fact, one could argue that the PC industry has been permanently changed. Netbooks have given way to Tablets and Smart Phones without apps are just not highly desired, since data, not calls, are powering Carrier growth. Mobility, Applications and ease of use are the watch words.
Google recognized the trend early, put together a great team and now Android has become the OS of choice for most handset and tablet manufacturers. Other providers failed to act and now are scrambling to catch up.
The OS is not the only part of this success story, Apple made it easy for developers to monetize their work and that unleashed a wave of application innovation like we haven't seen in decades. The others that are in the game, with the minor exception of Google, don't have the same application portability across phones and tablets.
I was in the battles of the Desktop Operating Systems in the early days of a GUI based OS (I was at Xerox in Palo Alto) and in those days the desktop OS was looked at in one dimension (Workstations/PCs). What is fascinating to me is how many large vendors have continued to look at the OS in a single dimension. Apple and Google get As, they did their homework, monetized their designs and are now reaping the rewards.
The question though is what lessons the other vendors (Microsoft, Dell, HP, Nokia, RIM, Sony) will learn from this. For many, a multi-dimensional OS was never viewed as strategic. For a few, it is fast becoming a matter of survival. Mergers and acquisitions will be the things to watch this year.
A sidebar about IBM. IBM certainly knows about Operating Systems, but they of stepped back from the desktop OS fray when they exited the PC business. Given all that is going on, this may be a time that they evaluate their strategy, since they have the core competence to scale an OS up and down.
The result of all this is that that it will no longer be a one OS fits all approach. Users will pick the apps they want, run them on the devices they want and access secure corporate portals that serve up the right content, data and analytics.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
A Friend of Sales
In my farewell note that I sent to Gartner colleagues yesterday, I copied a whole bunch of sales execs in addition to all my friends in research. I said that I'd miss my friends in Sales because Sales is part of my DNA (in addition to marketing, I was a District Manager of Sales at Xerox).
After moving from Upstate NY to California in the second half of 2008, I got to know the whole Gartner Sales Office in San Jose, because I took the time to do so. The Managing VP, Pat Hoey and his Region Manager Dennis O'Malley and I became friends. When I was in the San Jose office (and I was there a lot), I would walk around and greet people. We'd talk about client facing issues. I helped a few client teams with their strategy, mainly because they asked for help. We also grew the business because we helped clients (large and small) solve some of their problems.
In so many firms today, Sales is viewed as a necessary evil. Marketing is not well connected with Sales and many marketing people don't understand the sales process. It sounds strange, but it is true in so many cases. Many functional managers don't view it as their role to help sales. That is wrong. In the old days at firms like Xerox and IBM, everyone in the company participated in a blitz day.
When you look at many firms today, leadership starts at the top. Companies that are growing are doing so because they are focused on customers. They listen to their customers and take actions based on the feedback. Think about that the next time someone from sales asks for your help.
After moving from Upstate NY to California in the second half of 2008, I got to know the whole Gartner Sales Office in San Jose, because I took the time to do so. The Managing VP, Pat Hoey and his Region Manager Dennis O'Malley and I became friends. When I was in the San Jose office (and I was there a lot), I would walk around and greet people. We'd talk about client facing issues. I helped a few client teams with their strategy, mainly because they asked for help. We also grew the business because we helped clients (large and small) solve some of their problems.
In so many firms today, Sales is viewed as a necessary evil. Marketing is not well connected with Sales and many marketing people don't understand the sales process. It sounds strange, but it is true in so many cases. Many functional managers don't view it as their role to help sales. That is wrong. In the old days at firms like Xerox and IBM, everyone in the company participated in a blitz day.
When you look at many firms today, leadership starts at the top. Companies that are growing are doing so because they are focused on customers. They listen to their customers and take actions based on the feedback. Think about that the next time someone from sales asks for your help.
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