On Thursday’s IDC Predictions 2010 webcast, our line to the On24 service dropped just a few questions into the Q&A session. We captured all the questions, and – as promised – we are posting answers to them here on IDC eXchange. Many thanks to my IDC colleagues who contributed to these Q&A responses.
On Thursday December 3rd, IDC released its big picture predictions for the IT and Telecommunications industry in 2010. Here are some links for more detail.
The Webcast – The recorded one-hour IDC Predictions 2010 telebriefing (simple registration required):>
The Document – The full “IDC Predictions 2010″ document:
The Video – And here’s the 5-minute video summary:
Answers to Telebriefing Questions – On Thursday’s IDC Predictions webcast, our line to the On24 service dropped just a few questions into the Q&A session. We captured all the questions, and over the next several days we’ll post answers to those questions here on IDC eXchange. So stay tuned!
In Houston yesterday, I spoke about cloud computing at an IDC/Energy Insights gathering of IT executives from the Oil and Gas industry. It was a high-powered group, with 5 of the top 10 global energy companies represented (it’s been a big month for me with the Energy sector – a few weeks ago, in Milan, I met with the CIO of another of the top 10 global energy players, Eni S.p.A.).
The interest in cloud computing by these Energy industry IT leaders was strong – we had a lively 1-1/2 hour discussion, which could have easily gone on for twice the time. Here are some of the comments/questions that these execs had about cloud computing – they offer some interesting insights to the IT industry about how users are thinking about cloud computing right now, and what vendors should be focusing on to position for success in this industry transition: [...read more...]
[UPDATE - Good news: looks like someone at Microsoft is hearing the same things from users that we're hearing. On Monday early a.m., Steve Martin posted that Microsoft was, after all, going to meet with the Open Cloud Manifesto group later that day.]
On Monday, 30+ IT vendors announced the creation of the “Open Cloud Manifesto” group, with a declared intent to “initiate a conversation that will bring together the emerging cloud computing community (both cloud users and cloud providers) around a core set of principles. We believe that these core principles are rooted in the belief that cloud computing should be as open as all other IT technologies.”
Much has been made about the fact that IBM and the rest of this group were not able to convince key Cloud players – particularly Amazon, Google, Salesforce.com and Microsoft – to join in. One obvious reason: these companies are all rivals for a strategic control point in the cloud: the application platform. (To me, the interesting exception was SAP, which is among those competing at the application platform level in the cloud, but still signed on to the IBM-led Manifesto.)
Yes, this kind of IT vendor rivalry is as old as the IT industry. But anyone who’s listening to customers today (including – importantly – those not yet leveraging the cloud), knows that driving more agreement around cloud service interoperability and data portability is going to be a very important element in moving cloud computing “across the chasm“. [...read more...]
Yesterday, as we had predicted, Microsoft finally announced its intent to become a major player in the rapidly-expanding cloud services market. Here’s a clip from IDC Directions last March, predicting the “big boots” (including Microsoft’s) that would be jumping into the Cloud Computing world this year.
We’ve written for several years about the unique opportunity Microsoft has to play a market-maker role in industry’s shift to the Cloud, particularly by helping its thousands of application solution and channel partners migrate to the Software-as-a-Service delivery model. [...read more...]
As part of our ongoing research into Cloud Computing, IDC recently conducted a survey of 244 IT executives/CIOs and their line-of-business (LOB) colleagues about their companies’ use of, and views about, IT Cloud Services.
This specific post looks at the current and future adoption of a variety of IT offerings delivered as cloud services. (Subsequent posts will look at users’ perceptions of the key benefits and challenges of IT cloud services, as well as what they want most from suppliers of IT cloud services.) [...read more...]
We’ve talked repeatedly about the growing importance of the SMB market (especially in emerging markets) for IT market growth. And we’ve asserted that it will take a new, “hyperdisrupted” solution development and delivery model – one that leverages online delivery (e.g., SaaS), web services and mashup application models, appliance-like systems, and very large, global solution communities – to really capture that SMB potential. We’ve also noted that IBM has been conspicuous in its absence, as other suppliers have experimented with these new models and brought them to market.
Now, as we’ve predicted, IBM is making its move. Last month, at its annual gathering of business partners, IBM finally revealed the core pieces of a new, Internet-infused service delivery model it’s been developing for the SMB market, labeled the “Blue Business Platform”. Here are a couple of clips of IBM’s Sam Palmisano (with Google CEO Eric Schmidt) talking about the new Platform at the event:
Last Friday’s unsolicited proposal from Microsoft to Yahoo!’s board of directors was unquestionably Topic A for many of us in the industry over the weekend. The consensus, if there is one, is that if this marriage is consummated, it is either going to be a very potent challenge to Google’s rising power, or a waste of $44 billion.
There are many precedents for large mergers not working, so predicting certain success would be very, very foolish. But over on idc.com, my colleagues and I have posted some key reasons why “Microsoft+Yahoo” makes sense. This chart from the IDC analysis shows one such reason: [...read more...]
In Cisco & WebEx: Striking Two Hyperdisruption Chords, we said that Cisco – in the wake of its WebEx acquisition – has a disruption-enabled opportunity to expand its business far beyond networking, moving “up the stack” toward business applications and solutions. Last week, at C-Scape, Cisco’s analyst briefing in San Jose, John Chambers and other Cisco executives articulated just such an expansive vision of the company’s future – one they hope will move the company well beyond its traditional role as networking sector leader, to a leader in providing a wide range of business solutions. [...read more...]
Just after I posted “Who Owns the Web? Guess Again…” – a piece about the shift of web search and queries from the big horizontal gateways to more brand- and community-focused hubs – NBC Universal and News Corp. announced a joint venture aimed at taking advantage of, and accelerating, that shift. In this video post, I continue the discussion about the Web power shift with IDC’s Susan Feldman and Rachel Happe, with topics ranging from online advertising and content distribution networks, to the growing importance of social networking and communities. [...read more...]
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