Great news from Amazon Web Services (AWS) yesterday - they’ve made it easier to get your data up into the cloud.  All you have to do is ship them the raw SATA drive and they’ll plug it in.  Easy!  And they’re now accepting capacities up to 4TB.

This is why we work with AWS - they’re constantly raising the bar higher and higher.  They take care of the infrastructure, and we deliver the Platform and Software layers to our Enterprise Software customers.

Anyone out there need more than 4TB?

This announcement got me thinking about the other direction of the data transfer that still hounds Enterprise Software vendors.  Most vendors still deliver most if not all of their products as client-side installs. 

With the goal of lowering the cost of sales, software and tools vendors enable customers to download from their website (the cloud) evaluation versions of their products.  This would be fine if these distributions hadn’t grown to be hundreds of megabytes themselves!  A very large semiconductor vendor told me that it takes a customer 3 1/2 hours to download their software over a T1 line in North America.  And of course, it takes many attempts for it to be successful.  Not a scalable model and one of the many reasons why we promote moving evaluations and pre-sales training to the Cloud using Xuropa.

The reality is, this problem is only going to get worse.   (Numbers provided by OECD.)

WW Broadband Penetration, OECD 2009

Broadband Pentration Growth, OECD 2009

Software distributions are only going to get bigger, and with broadband penetration low and not climbing at a huge rate, something needs to change.  Of course, corporations will always be at the forefront of broadband adoption, but the rise of virtual teams and off-site workers will continue to exacerbate the problem of a lagging telecommunications infrastructure.

Although a full SaaS model would remove this problem.  There are many other obstacles and reasons why a complete move would not work for many of these software vendors.  However, moving the front end of the acquisition process (pre-sales training and evaluations) just makes sense.  Doesn’t it?

Posted under Xuropa, industry

Phil Wainewright writes a very informative blog over at eBizQ that brings in his thoughts, observations, and views on Cloud Computing and SaaS (Software-as-a-Service).  Really good stuff that I highly recommend.

Every now and then I need to pinch myself though.  In a recent post, he wonders if standalone Enterprise 2.0 (think, “social networking tools inside the corporation”) vendors will survive as more SaaS vendors integrate these types of features into their products.  It’s an interesting thought, but already?

For this to happen, all customers of software will have moved at least one of their “ubiquitious apps” to a SaaS vendor that has incorporated one or more of these corporate-social feature-sets.

Although Salesforce.com have made great in-roads, and Google has shown how to get into large corporations or government agencies with gmail, two numbers from Gartner should give pause:

• 2013 Revenues for SaaS: $16 billion
• 2013 Revenues for Enterprise Software: $300 billion

Given that SFDC revenues will likely account for 10% of the forecast SaaS revenues for 2013 and the huge gap between the two numbers overall, it appears likely that the Enterprise 2.0 vendors will have a large enough market to go after. 

Taking a step back a bit, considering where we are in the technology adoption curve for SaaS overall, and how much uncertainty exists around how the landscape will look ultimately, isn’t it too early to call the demise of any SaaS player?   

For some time to come, there will be a need for technologies and applications that operate at the Platform level to fill gaps and smooth interoperability between products, solutions, and platforms.  Even though ultimately many of these point solutions will be acquired or spun-out as economics and strategic positioning dictate.

Rather than looking over their shoulder for a SaaS player integrating their functionality, they should be more concerned about serving the market that’s out there, providing value, and generating revenues.

We still have a long way to go…

Posted under industry

“For more than 70 years, Agilent Technologies has been the world’s premier measurement company, beginning with its predecessor Hewlett-Packard.  The company constantly looks toward the future for opportunities to make contributions in electronic and bio-analytical industries.

 

Over the next several decades, we see several global megatrends emerging that not only present new measurement challenges, but may profoundly affect the way that people live and work. These megatrends include the rise of Asia, the spread of infectious disease, food safety and the environment.

 

Agilent President and CEO Bill Sullivan highlights these trends as well as their implications for the United States.”

Posted under industry

I was captivated this morning by a wonderful presentation made by Alex Morrison of CogApp.  The panel presentation was made at bTween, 2008 and succinctly provides a fascinating way to start to think about user centric design of software products.

Of particular interest is the quote from Guy Kawasaki - that every piece of software should be “D.I.C.E.” - Deep, Indulgent, Complete, and Elegant.  (He first talked about this concept in the early ’90’s).  If we think about this in the context of Facebook, it immediately makes a lot of sense.  When we start to think about Twitter though, we could hardly say that it is “complete” or “Deep” from a functionality perspective….but layer on top of that the content and interactions of the users and it truly is “complete” and very deep.  Is there a topic that is not announced or discussed using short bursts of 140 characters or less?

This is User-Centric Design - not just designing from the user’s perspective, but including user behavior and data at the core of the functionality of the product.

Posted under industry

Monterey Bay by "The City of Monterey"

Sponsored by The Design Automation Technical Committee (DATC) and the IEEE Computer Society, the event will be held in Monterey from April 8-9, 2010.  Cloud Computing is included in the “Brave New World” session starting at 4:30pm on the 8th.

Event Information

Registration

Posted under industry

It is a testament to the times that as a new burgeoning technology is hatched by an ”army of geeks” in a caffeine drenched frenzy, I can have a conversation at a party with a lawyer from a completely different field and find that he already has a rudimentary grasp of that same technology - Cloud Computing. 

Even if I normalize for the natural demographic skew of my location (San Francisco), it is impressive to consider how quickly this phenomenon has progressed towards the mainstream.  Clearly, the message has a lot to do with the rate of transmission. 

“Software-as-a-Service“, or worse “SaaS”, didn’t catch the imagination as well as “Cloud” did.  Which is ironic considering SaaS is actually what the consumer/user really interacts with.  What was originally represented by “The Cloud” was a metaphor for all of the networking, server hardware, protocols, etc. that no user in their right mind would want to know even existed, never mind have to understand. 

Even Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce.com, the original “Software-as-a-Service” company, writes in his letter to shareholders, “We have become the first enterprise Cloud Computing company to report more than $1 billion in revenue.”  He may argue that this is in line with their Force.com strategy - providing their compute power in the form of a “Platform-as-a-Service” (here we go again) – Sales Cloud 2.  But considering where the vast majority of those $1 billion came from, it more reflects the company’s savvy marketing team.  If a Cloud Computing company were to be defined as any company that provides compute resources as a utility, then wouldn’t Amazon have been the first $1 billion Cloud Computing company the moment they turned on AWS?  “SaaS” appears to have lost its luster and “Cloud Computing” is the “new black”.

The reality is, what you call something does matter.  And every successful company out there knows this.  To throw up your arms and quote Shakespeare is to miss the point, and likely doom your company/product to failure in the process.

To give something a name is to give it meaning.  Even better – a name should imbue the audience with a passion, an image, something that goes far beyond its function.  “Cloud Computing” does that, with very little effort….”SaaS” needed an education cycle, time, and resources, and the market really doesn’t have that kind of patience.

(If you’re curious, in 2006 SFDC was all about “CRM”, and press releases in 2008 described the company as “…the market and technology leader in Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS)”.)

Posted under industry, marketing

Courtesy EcoScapes (http://www.ecoscapes.net)

Last year was my first time attending DVCon. So, that was the first time I got to witness the infamous EDA Troublemakers Panel. Last year Peggy Aycinena channeled her inner John Cooley with a provocative panel discussion entitled “EDA: Dead or Alive”. Of course, the EDA world looked very bleak back then, just months after the financial meltdown, Cadence financial woes, EDA layoffs left and right, VC funds shutting down … a forest fire of bad news sweeping the industry.

But just as the wildflowers bloom after the wildfire, optimism is returning to the EDA industry. (Gosh, that sounds really corny, huh). So it’s not too surprising that two EDA veterans will be at DVCon this year heralding EDA’s return. Fellow EDA blogger Paul McLellan and EDA Hall-of-Famer Jim Hogan have become the Captain and Tennille of EDA. They spoke at ICCAD on the future of chip design. And now they are giving another talk during DVCon entitled “So you want to start up an EDA company? Here’s how…”.

I don’t know what these guys are going to say, but if I were them, here are a few things that I’d point out that make for some optimism for starting up an EDA company now:

• There are lots of good EDA people looking for work, so this is a good time to partner with them or to get them on board for a lower salary than you’d have to pay otherwise.
• Small companies are able to use technology to their benefit to lower their cost of development. Development hardware is cheap and even rent-able through cloud computing providers. Open source software tools abound. The biggest cost will be your time.
• The cost of sales is dropping due to new technology. WebEx. GoToMeeting. Skype. Xuropa. These tools and others enable you to reach out to customers globally while never leaving your office.
• Then again, who needs an office? Working from home has never been easier.
• And who cares where you are located? It’s easy enough to collaborate with your virtual team globally. (Xuropa has people in the Bay Area, the LA Area, and France).
  
• The lack of VC money can also be a good thing. You retain ownership and control of the company and don’t have a “timetable” to “cash out”.
• The lack of VC funding also forces you to think about getting cash flow positive as quickly as possible. Rather than wasting time and money designing the perfect product, you’re forced to start selling it early which leads to better feedback and a better product.

The idea that the downturn is an opportunity is not new. In fact, Sean Murphy has been spearheading the whole concept of bootstrapping for some time now. Check out his site for some great advice. Also, Dharmesh Shah, founder of Hubspot, writes a great blog on this subject as well.

I’m still not sure if I’ll make it to DVCon this year, but if I do, I will definitely attend this session. If not, I’m sure someone from Xuropa will be there. Just like my EDA SaaS and Cloud Computing Roundtable last year, it’s not part of the regular program. It will be held Tuesday evening Feb 23rd from 6:30 – 7:30 in the Oak Ballroom at the Doubletree Hotel (where DVCon is going on). This will be right after the DVCon reception, so grab a beer or a glass of wine and head on over.

I hope to see you there.

Posted under Xuropa, business, industry, marketing

Many, many people ask the question, “Social Networking is interesting, but how can it impact my business?”.

This question, and many more are to be explored in a panel that promises to be fascinating and useful.  The event is organized by the Association for Corporate Growth (of which I am a member), and held at Cadence Design Systems in San Jose.

For more information and to register, go here.

Date/Time:

Thursday, January 28th, 2010; 6:00 PM - 8:30 PM

Location:

Cadence Design Systems, Inc.
2644 Seely Avenue, Building 10
San Jose, CA

Panelists:

Peter Coffee
Director of Platform Research
Salesforce.com

David Sacks
Chief Executive Officer
Yammer, Inc.

Charlene Marini
Director, Corporate Marketing
ARM, Inc.

Dr. Peter Young
Adjunct Professor, New Media
SJSU

Steve Brown
Director of System Design and
Verification Marketing
Cadence Design Systems, Inc.

Garrett Herbert
Partner - Merger & Acquisition Services
Deloitte & Touche LLP

See you there!

Posted under business, industry

Maybe the benefits of the technology are slightly exaggerated here

Posted under Humor, industry

Photo via Tipiro

It is interesting to see the recent commentary regarding the environmental effects of Cloud Computing, and I’m happy to see the dialog coming while the industry is still in its infancy.  If only the same could have happened with the automotive industry - what a different world we’d live in today!

As Reuven Cohen (CTO of Enomaly, a Cloud provider) writes,

“The general consensus says that reducing the number of hardware components and replacing them with remote cloud computing systems reduces energy costs for running hardware and cooling as well as reduces your carbon foot print while higher DC consolidation / optimization will conserve energy.”

But as Mr. Cohen and James Urquhart (Product Marketing Manager, Cloud Computing and Virtualized Data Centers at Cisco) agree - there is no proof.  There is no standard measurement or parameter that everyone agrees indicates that the net result is better or worse for the environment.  And so for now we’re really discussing the hypothetical and using deduction to point us in the right direction.

One point we can all agree on - as a civilization, we’re doing more computational work now than ever before.  Of course, this will only continue to grow, and exponentially. 

Think about the rate of increase in the number of people performing some sort of computation (for example, the 300+ million members of Facebook all uploading photographs and playing Mafia Wars) and the rate of increase in the amount of data to be manipulated (consider a 5 megapixel camera built into everyone’s phone, or everyone watching Avatar in HD on Hulu).  All the while, in the cloud, processors will be running algorithms to deliver the experience while constantly making adjustments as they dynamically navigate the trade-off between data size, connection speed, and client performance (processor and screen resolution).

The question is, are we more environmentally friendly doing all of this in a shared Cloud or on our own datacenters?

Mr. Urquhart’s reasoning takes us in a positive direction,

“I believe one thing to be true: the increased efficiency of the hardware components in most cloud data centers and the increased utilization of these components mean that we are almost certainly doing more work per unit of energy consumed than before.”

But on the face of it, I can only agree with part of this.  Indeed, greater efficiency built into the hardware is a good thing for the environment - the lower the power consumed and the greater the amount of work done per clock tick of the processor is good.  However, greater utilization of that hardware due to virtualization could take us in the opposite direction with respect to the environment.

Firstly, (as both Mr. Urquhart and Cohen agree) the more compute cycles available, the more we’ll use.  It’s what we do.  Therefore, increased utilization due to virtualization will actually increase energy consumption and impact the environment negatively in absolute terms.

But more subtly, how the compute power is delivered is actually more important in comparing a datacenter to a virtualized cloud.  Virtualization improves utilization, but does it improve system energy efficiency over the same workload?

Whether the hardware is virtualized or not - the processor still needs to tick.  In fact, through virtualization, the processor needs to work harder with more fetches from cache, DRAM, or the hard drive to deliver the same calculated result to the end user.  And so, on the face of it, greater utilization due to virtualization actually impacts the environment negatively…for now.

We need to go back to the hardware to turn this around.  Virtualized servers drive the high-end of the processor lines of the physical servers that support them.  The increased demands of compute power per square millimeter of the processor and parallelization/efficiency within them will drive overall energy efficiency of the system in the right direction.

One additional point to consider is data distribution.  The power it takes to deliver the compute power from the cloud/data center to the remote user has an impact.  A centralized cloud vs multiple distributed datacenters (from different service vendors) and their proximity to the users needs to be added into the equation.  If we’re talking about consumer services sharing a cloud, the impact of centralization will be significant and detrimental.  However, corporations using their own local datacenters on-site are much more energy efficient in data transport energy costs.

Clearly, the calculation is not straight forward, and when all’s said and done, it may only be interesting from an academic perspective.

Fortunately for all of us, being green is considered by many to be a tier one value proposition during the purchase process of equipment and services.  This demand will get baked into the product definition process and we’ll all move in the right direction.  One point that is without argument however - it’s a heck of a lot greener to work remotely on a cloud or datacenter, than either shipping CDROMs or getting on a plane and working on-site.

Posted under industry