Why Microsoft Needs a Fighter Pilot Instead of a Moist N’ Easy Snack Cake Salesman
Wondering where that crazy title and the photo came from? First, check out Steve Ballmer’s early pre-Microsoft career. He was the Product Manager for Proctor & Gamble’s Moist N’ Easy Snack Cakes. No harm in that, in fact he apparently sat near Jeffrey Immelt, who would eventually rise to become one of GE’s celebrated CEO’s. [...]
The SAP cloud a freak of nature?
In Florida, where I live, we know a thing or two about clouds. We see them in the horizon or on the radar and we reset lawn sprinklers from auto to manual. We think of sedating our beagle, who becomes a baby when he hears thunderclaps. Not every cloud brings rain, though. Last February, Chicago [...]
The Innovator’s Dilemma Meets (and Eats) the Cash Cow at Microsoft
Microsoft is frequently cited as an undervalued stock and a profit machine. But the Innovator’s Dilemma is meeting the BCG Matrix at Microsoft – right now – as the advent of cloud computing destroys the value – and profitability – of their primary Windows and Offices franchises. To the company’s credit, they have recognized the challenge and aggressively attempted to respond, but [...]
The Cloud Wars – 2012
It seems, based on the last few acquisitions in enterprise software by three of the largest software vendors, that cloud computing has moved past its tipping point. The acquisitions, RightNow by Oracle, SuccessFactors by SAP and DemandTec by IBM, also…
Oracle OpenWorld 2011: 10110101010…No, Really
Oracle, Oracle, Oracle. WHAT am I going to DO with you? On the one hand, you have certain parts of you that are very, very good. Word is (from a colleague or two who spends time talking to your customers) that your customers are generally content with you, though not ecstatic. All in all, you [...]
Speed is a Feature – Further Thoughts on Windows 8
I noticed a tweet from Get Satisfaction marketing dude Jeff Nolan recently about the Google advantage – namely speed as a feature = which reminded me of a post of the same name a couple of years ago from my founding partner Stephen O’Grady, which led to me thinking about the performance engineering work Microsoft demonstrated [...]
On-demand Market Maturity and the User Experience: Salesforce, Workday, and Microsoft Show How to Get it Right
The week before Labor Day was an on-demand trifecta, a perfect storm of theory and practice on what the brave new world of on-demand software and services can and will evolve to in the coming years. It was the week of Dreamforce and the maturation of Chatter, the week that Workday hosted a group of [...]
First appstore experience on a Windows 8 Tablet: the Chrome web store
From 2011-09-13 I am at Microsoft Build where the company is taking the wraps off its new tablet-friendly Windows 8 operating system. No freebies for influencers at BUILD (fail!) but the developers here will all be taking home the shiny. I can’t give you the specs of the machine – its under NDA til later [...]
Enterprise headlines and excerpts, 2011, July and August
July and August Enterprise Software and Solutions news. Headlines and excerpts follow below, but here are some of the highlights of the months of July and August: Apple became the world’s most valuable company, but Steve Jobs resigned due to health issues. Meanwhile, Google bought Motorola’s cell phone business. Salesforce.com promoted its message of Cloud, [...]
Read My Lips: We Are Not Walking Away from WebOS
Today comes news leaked from an internal HP all hands meeting that the company is not abandoning WebOS, 15 months after acquiring it for $1.2 billion. This is how we get all our news about HP these days, leaked memos and meeting soundbites. Watch for two main arguments being presented, the first by the tech [...]
