Industry Observer

Realtime Analytics for the rest of us

noreply@blogger.com (Niraj J) — Fri, 16 May 2008 19:03:00 +0000

My two cents added to the discussions here and here.

John's points about the DW purchase decision being pushed to the SaaS vendor and being less relevant to the enterprise (analytic application mid-market customer) is the key to the big switch. A similar analogy would be that when an Enterprise gets its electricity from the electrical company (the GRID ). All that it cares about is the SLA – Can the supplier meet my XXX Megawatt per hour demands at peak loads of YY, 24/7 and after that the pricing is the decision point. What kind of generators the electrical company uses (Hydro , coal , windmills) is an important decision for the electrical company but certainly not relevant to the Enterprise using the electricity.

So this analogy leads to a bit of soul-searching for DW appliance vendors like Terradata , Greenplum etc. “Who is their customer?” are they taking up the role of GE (who manufactures turbines , windmills etc) to serve the SaaS vendors OR do they want to be offering solutions at a level higher to the end consumer that ultimately end up using their appliances. I think a little bit of both and mixture of a lot more partnerships is probably what is going to happen.

It is also interesting to note two other trends that will shape the BI world.

Fragmenting of DB market to specialized Database
Availability of webscale level specialized Databases like BigTable , Hadoop/Hbase at very low entry points.

These trends will lead to a development of a longtail-type market for real-time analytics in an SaaS model (example – Recommendation service based on collaborative filtering, using Predictive modeling results during the underwriting workflow for approving a quote).The reason this will happen is because

a) These kinds of applications are more focused and can be performed in silos’. The whole concept widgets moving at the next layer of functionality and reuse.

b) They are also better served by vendors whose livelyhood depends on bettering the algorithms that power the analytics engines.

c) With things like Bigtable , Hadoop/Hbase exposed to the world at a very low entry point , all it takes is one guy to improve an algorithm and expose to the world as a service.

Update: May 22 ,2008 : I ran into one more Cloud computing Data analytics solutions which is another Column oriented database check it out at Vertica

Cloud computing and Datawarehousing

noreply@blogger.com (Niraj J) — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 18:57:00 +0000

Following my last blog entry , my brain continued elaborating on the thought of Cloud Computing Adoption in the Enterprise.

Having worked in the Enterprise Space for So long , I am hard pressed to come to terms with the notion that Enterprises will be willing to completely outsource their Information Management and IT infrastructure and more so in a constrained environment like that of Google AppEngine.

Amazon AWS with its ala carte is still a better option to Enterprises as compared to Google App Engine. As you can pick an choose what you want. I think the key is that any Cloud computing vendor needs to "FIT IN" into the Enterprise's Architecture . This basically imply's that more entry points you have to the cloud infrastructure the more use-cases you will have for Enterprise Adoption. So , it seems like Amazon has a better strategy for Enterprise Adoption. Another use-case for Enterprise Adoption is via an SaaS vendor case in point - Vertica . Vertica is a user of cloud infrastructure from Amazon. But the way the cloud is coming into the Enterprise Architecture is via an SaaS vendor.

Another use-case that came to my mind is the impact to the EDW world. With things like BigTable and simpleDB exposed , why would an Enterprise invest in highend Databases like TerrrData - why not use a proven scalable platform like BigTable to run your analytics. In any case you need to do your EDW work in house on separate machines from your core systems - So using an on-demand infrastructure for such needs makes sense.

Shame on you if you cannot start a .com now !

noreply@blogger.com (Niraj J) — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:24:00 +0000

Life could not have been better for developers. I thought that what Amazon had done with AWS was the best developers could have had , But now we have one more entry into the space-- Google App Engine

It is interesting to see how the SaaS/HaaS space is shaping up. Googles App Engine seems like a layer above AWS. i.e a hosted development platform - the toolset for developing an application on App Engine will be focussed and consequently also limiting. App engine provides excellent integration to google's services(like single signon etc) but it is also limiting , i.e I cannot use Java (at least right now).

AWS on the other hand gives you more power (build your own machine the way you want it) but it has a higher learning curve and if you are running a shop on EC2 you will require a System Administrator to manage your website.

While at this nascent stage of Cloud Computing it seems obvious to compare AWS and Google's App Engine but I think that as the market evolves both the offerings will really address separate markets. Google will get its pie from transitioning the traditional Rapid Application development tool (RAD) customers and Amazon from the traditional IT Infrastructure shops. They certainly converge at some level but it will be years before that happens.

It is also interesting to see that traditional IT Majors like IBM , SUN and HP are missing in action from this revolution. One reason could be that at this point AWS and AppEngine seem like a mom-pop shop offerings(Small business and non mission critical) , how do these offerings translate to Enterprise customers and what are the SLA's that will mature these offerings to Enterprises is something I look forward to understanding in 2008.

Maybe Google and AWS needs someone like Capgemini or Accenture to do this.

If you have the time check out the video on google app engine

The Long Tail - Taken to the extreme

noreply@blogger.com (Niraj J) — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 00:28:00 +0000

OK , I have read the long tail and I agree it is a great book. It is very interesting to see how Amazon is taking the concepts of Long tail to the extreme.

Refer : AWS fulfillment service : is a service where you can use the Amazon warehouse to store your products and they will then manage the shipment , order execution and payments for the item.

Earlier , when AWS-EC2, S3 got introduced I really thought that it was vertical integration. But now I am starting to believe that what Amazon is doing is just scaling up every core competency they have. This is not really vertical integration in the sense that it is not coming from strategic business decision of getting into a market, but really coming from the fact of making the overall cost model of operations better. Volume drives costs down and if Amazon can manage to get more shipments there cost per shipment will go down. I don’t thing that they are getting into the warehousing business big time (i.e taking shipments from containers from china etc) , But seems like a experiment that might / might not work.

The key thing in Long Tail economics really boils down to - what is the incremental cost of exposing an Enterprise's inner business functions to the world as a competency. Frankly if you need to re-architect your processes to support this you need to rethink on adopting Long Tail concepts into your business.

Database 2.0

noreply@blogger.com (Niraj J) — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 07:53:00 +0000

For a long time (decades I believe) it seemed like the General purpose Database was the silver bullet. Object Oriented Databases tried to take the shine away from RDBMS , but only to strengthen the notion that RDBM’S do best at what they are supposed to do – Store , Query and Update Data.

The application development world adjusted to the notion that the Object Relational mismatch is a reality and instead of fighting it let us work with the RDBMS systems and make world a better place. Tools like Hibernate had great success because they accepted the strengths of RDBMS as compared to competing technologies at that time like EJB's . The Enterprise was also caught up in the ERP wave where everything in the Enterprise needed to have a predefined structure, vocabulary established etc.

2007 brought some interesting changes in the DB world. Web 2.0 brought the concepts of self organization , realization that all information does not reside in-house , that everything cannot be structured , that Information Management is not just EDW / BI - there is a whole world out there with unstructured information and Semantic Web . Consequently SQL and RDBMS is not the silver bullet.

2007 also brought some interesting DB’s to the forefront including SimpleDB , BigTable , HP Neoview , CouchDB each of these serving very different purposes finetuned for particular needs.

So the definition of Database 2.o in my opinion is that it is the realization that all information in the Enterprise cannot be out into RDBMS , cannot be structured and that there can and will be multiple datasources to information within and Enterprise.

So what is my point ?

I think the Database market is splitting into two layers
1. The general purpose database market - now turning out to be a commodity market
2. The specialized DB market

So finally I would like to close on the trigger that got me to think the above - The mysql acquisition by sun – Why does sun need a database product NOW ? it has severe wall street issues and convincing the market of buyout of a company that gives away free products is going to amazingly difficult.

Here is the answer I came up with .
With the technology and engineering capability needed to build a general purpose database generally available – Building a high performance RDBMS system that competes with the likes of Oracle and DB2 does not seem like a very big challenge. So if competing on price and brand are your differentiator's in the general purpose DB market then what better way to compete by giving the product free.

Now monetization on mysql and revenue potential is a separate discussion. My discussion above is keeping the number of deployments in mind.

more reasons for the Sun / mqsql acquisition

Struts , JSF , spring mvc , GWT - what is it going to be

noreply@blogger.com (Niraj J) — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 02:17:00 +0000

I was reading the blog at java based web frameworks for 2008 and ended up doing a query on indeed.com.

So I compared the following
1. Struts
2. JSF (Java server faces)
3. GWT (Googles web application toolkit)
4. Spring MVC

Here is what I found

And Now comparing the Relative growth

As I had expected Struts is the clear leader and my guess just like Mainframe's still are a very important part of the Enterprise , Struts will always be there in the web 1.0 world.

JSF - to me is really a web1.0 technology -just an upgrade to struts.Sun has a knack of making things complicated and I dont think it has handled JSF any different than EJB's 1.0.

Spring MVC - has an interesting story, Spring Core(the middleware piece) has a very strong acceptance and spring core has a bigger audience than spring mvc. It's simplicity of programming model , well thought feature's make it a good candidate for use.

GWT in 2008 is IMO going to be the real winner. About an year ago I had posted that 2007 would be the year for GWT . Well looking at the numbers I think it was. It has not overtaken struts but the relative growth has been the highest - 30,000 % WOW!.

It has three things going for it
1. Java based (so the corporate java developers have an upgrade path)
2. It exposes a whole new capability of ground up AJAX applications not available in Struts , JSF or spring MVC
3. Simple (in every way - learning , developing , building , deploying)

I ran into a client recently who was using GWT very aggressively , Spring core and Spring MVC.When I asked him about why he was using Spring MVC and GWT- he commented the following

- Everything on website cannot be AJAX based application style. I will have some pages that really are suited for html (jsp) type content . I am using Spring MVC for that(example login page , help pages )
-Also Spring MVC is also a good place to put everything together. It works well with J2EE file structures etc and a great way to launch everything and coordinate the website.

The above view is what I think will shape 2008.

Google Energy and Vertical Integration

noreply@blogger.com (Niraj J) — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 17:51:00 +0000

Google’s(NASDAQ:GOOG) announcement to enter the Energy space kinda surprised me but when you look under the hood there seems to be very good business justification for this.

Google is doing what Henry Ford did in the auto industry and Rockefeller did in the Oil industry – Vertical Integration.

Vertical Integration is defined as - The ownership by the same company of different functions in a supply chain relating to the provision of a particular good or service. Vertical Integration is generally done to lower the transaction costs in the supply chain and synchronize the supply and demand across the chain. Vertical Integration was pioneered by business leaders like Rockefeller and Henry Ford , where after reaching a certain size in their business they expanded into owning the supply chain so as to minimize the risk , control quality and lower transaction costs. Rockefeller after owning oil refinery branched out into oil distribution, oil retail and oil production.

Electricity costs for any SaaS vendor ( Google included) Electricity costs are significant and it is only going to get worse with Oil at $100 and the Global warming problems with coal. So it makes sense to manage the risk on the supply side and try to solve the problem. Google with its core competency of managing and monetizing innovation is also well placed to take up the challenge.Besides in my opinion Energy is going to be next frontier of innovation and to keep on sustaining at PE multiples of 50's long term GOOG needs to be looking at the next growth industries.

What got me thinking on reading about the Google Energy post is the approach Enteprise2.0 companies(like Amazon and Google) are taking towards Vertical integration. Thought leaders like Don Tapscott have argued that in the 2.0 world the transaction costs (the costs for collaboration) that justified vertical integration have evaporated to almost nothing now and vertical integration potentially does not make sense now as the integration costs internally in the Enterprise could be more than taking the route of ideagoras or Crowdsourcing

Google’s Energy entry and Amazon’s Webservices business in my opinion are Aspirational Core Competency based Vertical Integration transactions.

For Google:

Aspirational –Energy is the next thing
Core Competency - Managing and monetizing innovation
Vertical Integration – improve downstream supply chain.

For Amazon:

Aspirational - Become an HaaS Vendor
Core Competency - Software Engg and Systems Management
Vertical Integration - improve downstream supply chain.

Update : dec 29th: Here is another example for Googles vertical integration strategy. Also interesting to note that Google has been integrating downstream and not a lot upstream ( Android) , it did not not end up launching a GPhone as people had predicted.

Business IT Alignment and SOA governance

noreply@blogger.com (Niraj J) — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 19:26:00 +0000

Congratulation Bryan Mjaanes on successfully implementing SOA program at Zurich Insurance .

There was one slide that I really liked that in my opinion captured the Business IT Alignment problem quite well.

The diagram explains quite beautifully how the information flow and feedback mechanism's work for SOA governance. The link from Enterprise Architecture / SOA to Business Process in my view represents the two constituents in the Enterprise that need to be aligned and in my experience this link is generally the weakest link in the picture. What I have seen in Failed SOA cases is that the shadow IT(part of Business) will end up using SOA tools and technologies (webservices etc) and solve their business problem and keep on shouting to the world that they implemented an SOA architecture. See diagram below , This generally happens when the SOA program does not have a senior management buy in and the Enterprise Architecture group is really a figure head and not very powerful.

Subprime meltdown in layman's terms

noreply@blogger.com (Niraj J) — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 23:47:00 +0000

Want to explain the subprime problem to your Dad without boring him??

Funny Video :) Enjoy!

Collective Business Intelligence and Enterprise 2.0

noreply@blogger.com (Niraj J) — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 19:17:00 +0000

Web 2.0 as defined by Tim O Reilly is "the design of systems that harness network effects to get better the more people use them" . In his blog piece he describes very eloquently how Google's Page Rank mechanism is good case of harnessing user generated content.

Now take this to the Enterprise context. Up till now most of the discussion of Enterprise 2.0 I have seen revolves around two things
1. Harnessing Collective Intelligence of workforce to collaborate and share via tools like Wiki's , blogs . Product sets include Lotus Connections , Suite Two
2. Conversion of traditional office tools to Office 2.0 style platforms. Google Docs , HP Adaptive Enterprise Solution are excellent examples that basically focus on the ability to conduct normal business in a collaborative environment without being co-located.

A third part perspective of Enterprise 2.0 that should probably be included in the mix is the Business Intelligence gathered as a result of the network effect taking place with the continuous accumulation of Employee and Customer generated data and having an even broader data set as a result of SaaS applications serving more than one Customer.

So consider Salesforce.com - with several organizations using salesforce.com , they pretty much know the business benchmarks of processes in an industry (example :If they have 15 customers in the consulting space who use salesforce from sale to staffing cycle , salesforce will have the data to understand what it takes to improve the cycle by comparing various customers).

Frankly , If I was an SaaS player , I would pay to get users to use my software so that I can get their data and further master the business processes based on Data Analysis. As Tim pointed out , that in Web2.0 world Data is King and for Enterprises in 2.0 world , knowing what data is your core asset (and hence not shareable) and what data is something that you can share is going to be key.

So now you know - why did SAP buy Business Objects ? To enable Collective Business Intelligence on their Business By Design platform stupid.

Why did SAP buy Business Objects?

noreply@blogger.com (Niraj J) — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 04:53:00 +0000

Recently I ran into a client who had made a significant investment in Business Intelligence infrastructure and a decision support system. This Insurance Carrier had 8000 reports in their portfolio. Yes once again the number is 8000 ?? Needless to say that one of reason I was engaged was to rationalize the reports(besides fixing other problems they had like Data quality)

I work in the Information Management space and have come to realize that 80% of our work is in getting the infrastructure for decision support right (i.e focussing on ETL , Data Quality , one version of truth etc). A successful project's end point is generally the ability for the Business users to get the information they are looking for accurately.This measure of success traditionally has focussed most of the BI players and consultants to be technology centric and tools heavy on the plumbing aspect for data.

So where does SAP(NASDAQ:SAP) and Business Object's (NASDAQ:BOBJ) fit in? With the aquisition SAP now gets the capability to be more than a core business transaction processor. i.e with the intersection of its industry knowledge and the BI knowledge from Business Objects , it can now enter into the relatively new market of Business Health Monitering and Business Benchmarking (not sure if this is a standard term-just coined it). Its future software will probably be able to analyze the business outcomes against indstry norms and suggest remediation (example - Your billing cycle is 10days while in your industry it is 4 days , you can fix it by doing X Y and Z). OR it might be able to proactively moniter the health of your business taking the Enterprise view in context (Example - For the insurance carrier reserve level for the Auto LOB has gone below the norm of X , but the Claims ratio in Commercial LOB is looking good so overall reserve level should not change for the enterprise).

SAP gets a chance to deepen the relationships it has with its customers by adding the business outcomes offering and broaden by penetrating into the Business Objects Legacy contacts.

I expect the Business Objects aquisition to have the effect of 1+1 = 4. The deal is not accretive and on strictly financial terms dilutes EPS and growth rate and hence the resentment from Wall Street on the deal. But then Wall Street was never expected to be a thought leader in how the markets are going to evolve.

I also think that Business Objects and SAP are a good cultural fit. Business Objects and SAP are both leading edge Web2.0 players in their areas (Refer here and here) and hence understand the overall direction of the consumer.

open source and consulting

noreply@blogger.com (Niraj J) — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 17:53:00 +0000

Having read posts from Andy and Stephen O Grady. Here is my grey matter added to the collective intelligence around the topic.

Making money in open source is still IMHO not a proven business model (Refer Andy- Redhat revenues <> $5 plus ranges and most of the venture cap money going to open source , But the monetization method is not yet clearly established yet.

My take on open source monetization is the following. (Besides my thoughts here , here and here)

Convergence between Services and Product firms is inevitable(specifically in the open source space). Andy's POV of around consulting dollars in the open source space comes from a traditional view of a consulting firm where products and services are two separate businesses. There might not be that clear a boundary in the future.

Case in point - Infosolve . This is an open source vendor which has a go to market strategy with Services as the Front end and products as the back end (the enabler for services). This is different from other open source players like Redhat where they are essentially a product company which also offer services. My guess is that all open source vendors will end up having a significant part of their monetization coming from services(Consulting , SaaS OR some other form - example mysql service). The role of the open source products will boil down to enabling you to provide a better service model for monetization OR (worded differently) open source software products will end up being enablers for some other revenue stream - hardware sales for companies like HPQ , JAVA and IBM OR services sales.

For SaaS doing open source is more of an internal cost saving function while for Consulting it will be revenue generating function. So IMHO companies like EDS , CG ,Accenture will have to develop open source products/tools etc that enable selling their solution in a vertical.

Here are three examples illustrating in different ways how a consulting firm will work in the open source space.

1) If I have to sell a Application Modernization Solution to a Bank as a consulting firm. I will be expected to bring to the table a set of products(potentially open source led by my firm) that will enable me to implement the Enterprise wide program. These products could be similar to openDQ or an indemnified stack of open source products like the one offered by Spikesource. These expectations are present today also from customers and they are fullfilled by partnerships and alliances , but in the future there will be a conflict of interest situation between the company creating the open source product and the traditional consulting company because both the companies have the same path to monetization - SERVICES. This is a situation similar to IBM Global services , where the alliances with IBM generally do not work out for services firms as IBM has a strong services arm.

2) The Value of SI's is going to come with their ability to pull a stack of open source products together to address Enterprise challange's. rumormill tells me that spikesource is hungry for revenue and not doing too well. I am not surprised. As a buyer , what is the value of spikesource to me- It is basically an insurance policy for my software. I am not sure if a stable product like
Springframework OR Hibernate requires insurance (it is really counter intuitive). Now lets consider if Spikesource was really a Systems Integrator and as one of its offering provided SOA implementations. As a buyer I see the value in going to with spikesource as it will not only execute the project but also indemnify the software it is using. The way mysql is using services like network monitering is also an interesting case of how services will play and important role.

Note: I have heard the Spikesource is moving towards this direction. It has also ventured into the Software Appliance Direction with Intel on its investors list

3) Lastly the role of consulting companies to advise / Strategize and help customers define the roadmap etc will always remain. This is the High value - low scale funtion Andy talks about. It will be the ability of the consulting firm to understand the vertical and have solutions that fit into what the customer is looking for that will provide the scale for the Consulting firm.

For Product companies , it is going to be important to figure out a monetization mechanism that does not rely on monetization at the time of distribution of bits and bytes. Maybe they will have to come up with appliances like you see for (Neoview and Datapower and tealeaf and SuiteTwo) OR end up being SaaS companies like - Microsoft -live , Google and Salesforce.com OR go about a consulting services route indicated in this post or an IT-BPO route discussed earlier

Microsofts Tolerating Piracy strategy and open source

noreply@blogger.com (Niraj J) — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 18:47:00 +0000

Reading the story in Fortune was an eyeopener for me and it started a debate in my mind regarding what open source evagelists have been saying and Microsoft's strategy. (NASDAQ: MSFT)

The open source story has been that there are three kinds of consumers
- People who will never spend on Software (students , startups , etc)
- People who will always spend for Sofware ( As they want indemnification , Software contracts etc). generally Publicly traded companies.
- People inbetween.

Companied like Sun (NASDAQ: SUNW) have taken this to the core and have a go to market strategy that is inline with this concept.

The Fortune article and specifically the comment from Bill Gates

tolerating piracy turned out to be Microsoft's best long-term strategy. That's why Windows is used on an estimated 90% of China's 120 million PCs. "It's easier for our software to compete with Linux when there's piracy than when there's not," Gates says. "Are you kidding? You can get the real thing, and you get the same price." Indeed, in China's back alleys, Linux often costs more than Windows because it requires more disks. And Microsoft's own prices have dropped so low it now sells a $3 package of Windows and Office to students.

was an eyeopener because to me Microsofts strategy is more evolutionary in nature and also protects its interest recognizing the fact that customers will evolve and hence pay later on. Students will move into organizations and startup's will turn into public companies at some point of time. I do not mean to imply that SUN does not recognize the evolutionary nature of customer , but they are giving an option to the customer - not to pay if they think they can maintain SUNW software themselves. While Microsoft will use its Legal muscle later on in the evolution of the customer and force them to pay.

Comparing Commercial Open Source and Traditional Software company’s business models

noreply@blogger.com (Niraj J) — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 16:02:00 +0000

The world of open source now has a host of players in different forms. Here is my attempt to classify the two different business models taking a style used earlier by Tim O Riely to describe Web 2.0.

My aim is really to compare Commercial Players. I consider Software Organizations like Apache and Eclipse as NGO’s in the open source world as the aim for these organizations is not to make money, it is really to benefit the industry by having common standards in the industry and leveraging shared development.

Yes it can be argued that IBM makes money from Eclipse via Rational Tools and that member organization benefit from Apache by reducing production costs in producing a commoditized product like a webserver. I still consider these examples as Not for Profit because the monetization on the product is not a guarantee for the company doing the contributions. As an example IBM has been able to monetize on Java more so then the founder of Java -Sun and that Apache Webserver is benefiting an entire industry as compared to a direct player like IBM.

	Traditional Software Companies	Open Source Commercial Companies
Some Names	Microsoft , ILOG , Chordiant	Red Hat and JBoss , mySQL , Sun(Solaris) , Spikesource
Supply Chain	Integrated. One integrated provider that creates the product, tests it , supports it , consults on it	Loosely coupled. Generally different entities creating the software , distributing the software , testing the software. Generally each layer has to have a value add or else will be removed
Marketing	Traditional Top Down Marketing	Bottom up Marketing
Sales Function	Commission based sales agents OR Distributors	No Sales function. Order processing and operations only. refer death of cold calling
People	Designations are important - Product Manager , VP Software development etc	Brand Name Individuals - Linus Torvalds , Rod Johnson
operations	Similarities to Manufacturing (where you do Market Analysis , Product Design , Develop the product and roll out in the market). Products have a low barrier to entry if coming from establised vendors like Microsoft	Similarities to Movie Studio's where the aspect of running the business is a very different function from creating the Intellectual Property. Movies run on Brand name individuals like Tom Cruise and not on studio name
Monetization	at the time of distribution and potentially each Customer / vendor interaction	Monetization : several models (advertising , Conversion , professional Services , several more) but not necessarily for each interation
Product Lifecycle	Market Analysis , Business Case around revenue potential, Product Design , Develop , Test , Marketing , Sales , Maintenance then Next Release	Personal Situation Analysis , (develop , Release , Test) , (develop , release , test ) , Market and Revenue Potential , Bottom Up Marketing

Google and SaaS Stack Vendor

noreply@blogger.com (Niraj J) — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 07:04:00 +0000

Following my earlier blog about Google as an SaaS stack vendor , I started thinking about what is next for google to complete its stack.

Prediction : Google will come out with a Hosting Service in an years time

This hosting service will probably be very different from Yahoo or Go Daddy . It will be something that will have a built in IDE option (like MashupEditor ) and will have native support for things like GWT . It will be an environment where you can pick and choose the Google out of box services , can create your Services and will be integrated with Google Apps. It could be based on Java Runtime Environment (because of GWT) but I would be surprised if Google would expose the J2EE directory structure to the consumer.

The big question I do not have an answer to is what would be the Database option. Giving a plain old mySql connection does not seem to be the style for Google. Mybe they will come up with their own DB ?

UPDATE: It is 4/7/08 - less than an year from the prediction. My prediction has come true . check out. http://appengine.google.com/

They have exposed BigTable , GFS and made python to be their development platform. I am waiting to see GWT and Java getting exposed as well.

Why Google Gears ?

noreply@blogger.com (Niraj J) — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 15:57:00 +0000

Andy asks the question : Why google gears ?

Yes with 3G cards and Wifi do we need an offline option. Probably not. (I could potentially use it in planes - but my expectation is that by the time applications comply with an offline option airlines will figure out a better business model around selling internet on the plane. We did have a failed first step).

Here is why IMHO Google does gears
1. Google does stuff just because they are cool so ROI is not necessary when they start working on it. (Example Google Sets)

2. From a business perspective. Google needs to have an offline option to compete with Flash and Java webstart to complete its SaaS stack of GWT , Google Apps , MashupEditor etc.
Google is in the business of SaaS Development for the Enterprise (look at its recent acqusitions like postini). It is creating an alternative to Java , .NET , FLASH etc and make no mistake about it. Yes their revenue now comes from Advertising but I would be surprised to see if it is the same 5-6 years down the road.

So where is the money going to come from for Google after 5-6 years. --> From using there grid. From using there SaaS platform. You might end up paying on a subscription based model OR pay via getting targetted ads served to you.

Software as a Service and IT Consulting Firms

noreply@blogger.com (Niraj J) — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 15:42:00 +0000

IT Consulting firms in the history of their existence have shown their value to the Enterprise in several ways. In the early days their value was two folds -

1) A Solution to the IT staffing needs of an Enterprise to handle Peaks and valleys in their staffing requirements based on the projects. (companies like EDS excelled at this and were really the delivery arms for the CIO's)

2) A Consulting based approach that added value to the client organzations by helping them making informed strategic decisions (Capgemini , Accenture (NASDAQ: ACN) are good examples of companies that did great here)

Over the last decade with the advent of offshore Consulting firms , The labor arbitrage angle was the big focus area and getting the distributed development model working was the big value add of these firms. The growth of companies like Wipro and Infosys are excellent examples here.

At this point of time all the above are a given for an major IT Consulting firm , but the next phase in the evolution of IT Consulting faces a threat that challanges the very existence of IT Consuting firms in their current forms.

I am talking about -- Software as a Service firms (eg: Salesforce.com)

The Bread and butter for IT Consulting has been implementing complex software withing the Enterprise Context. With the advent of Saas firms , the need for an IT Consulting Firm is eliminated . The value of SaaS to an enterprise is cutting on the complexity of maintaining inhouse software and it is in direct conflict with the Business model for a consulting firm. Yes , their is some need for IT Consulting but it is very minimal.

So , what will happen to the IT Consulting firms ---> In my best guess they will evolve into ITBPO firms . (BPO + ITO). ITBPO firms takes the outsourcing concept to the next level. ITBPO takes the Software aspect out of the relationship and focusses on the business function.
There will be convergence in the business model for traditional outsourcing firms like ADP and Traditional IT Consulting firms like Wipro , CGEY , etc. A Similar convergence is happening in the media industry with players like Viacom , News Corp trying to be tech savvy and players like yahoo , google and MSFT trying to be media savvy.

Why is SOA more important in the Insurance space

noreply@blogger.com (Niraj J) — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 14:17:00 +0000

I was at the ACORD LOMA 2007 conference and there were a lot of sessions on SOA explaining all the great things we know about SOA.

A point that I felt got missed in the conference was that "SOA is even more important in the Insurance World today as say compared to other verticals"

One of the biggest challanges facing Carriers today is "Legacy Modernization". Carriers want to achieve Straight through processing but it is probably a 100Million investment and atleast a 2-3 year plan to do that.

In the mean time you also have pressures from the market to get your website going (enable realtime functions like InsuranceID Card printing , Update Garaging Address , Add Vehicle , Add Driver etc). The question most carriers face is that - Will the investments I make for my website upgrade go waste as there is a seperate initiative for upgrading my Policy Admin system going ?

--- > Enter SOA
The Hub and Spoke Arcitecture of SOA promises to decouple your front office applications from back office systems. This becomes a very strategic advantage for present day carriers as most of them have a roadmap of upgrading there backoffice systems and also have market pressures to get new front office applications and with SOA the two initiatives do not need to be tightly coupled.

I also hear a lot about "How do I get the business to sponcer an SOA program". So here is one more reason (added to the list here) .

SOA will enable business to get what they want earlier. IF they want an upgraded website and also Straight through processing , the only way to get that is using SOA

Out to Acord Loma Conference

noreply@blogger.com (Niraj J) — Mon, 21 May 2007 04:37:00 +0000

I am off to the ACORD Loma Conference . My Employer (CapGemini) has a very big presence at the event.

CapGemini thinks it has a very good story to tell about
1. Smart Insurance Enterprise and
2. Smart Insurance QA organization.

I Agree..

Having being directly involved in the Insurance QA solution and having addressed unique challanges in QA for insurance systems , I think CapGemini has a diffrentiator in the market place. To my knowledge I have not seen any other Vendor provide a solution that ventures into the above area's beyond a recognition of the problem.

See you at ACORD LOMA(I should be in the CG booth) and I promise to blog about QA and Test Data Challanges in Insurance in coming weeks.

Software as a Service OR is it Community as a service

noreply@blogger.com (Niraj J) — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 18:13:00 +0000

I was recently talking to a large online brokerage and they were making a business case around launching a website on the lines of SocialPics

the discussion was - should the website be exclusive to the customers of the brokerage house or should it be open to all. The general thought in the group was that a service like that should really be exclusive to the customers as it would be the "Value Add" on their current web site , a diffrentiator from their competitors , one of the reasons for propects to become their customers and hence a justification to charge more premium per trade.

The discussion was near completion when a 20's something executive (who has a blog on blogger.com) raised the question - "So how are you going to build your community with all these barriers to entry" . The whole point of having a community like Social Pics is to leverage the knowledge of wisdom of crowds. If you are making this crowd as an exclusive club what is the value of such a community.

The world of software has changed in the last 5 years. 5 years ago putting the software like that of SocialPics on the website would be viewed as a value add. Things like Financial charts was a differentiator. Today Everyone gives a good Financial charting capability free , what people are interested in is the community like this or this or this(for a specific Stock)

Let me make a bold statement and say that "Software in itself as no value in a Web2.0 world ". It is the community , the volume of usage , the masses that you bring along with a successful software that has the value.Once you have the volume (as a measure of usage OR as a measure of community involvement) you will probably have the best software - because you have the best usage data collection , best feedback mechanism (Concept of continuous and never ending Beta )and maximum user community to improve your software.

Irony in the insurance space

noreply@blogger.com (Niraj J) — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 06:37:00 +0000

Here is a list of top 5 adwords on Googles adsense program (sep ,2006 information)

$82.92 - austin dwi
$78.01 - school loan consolidation
$76.54 - college loan consolidation
$74.93 - car insurance quotes
$74.78 - auto insurance quotes

The $ cost is the CPC (Cost Per Client for 1000 page impressions)

Car insurance and Auto insurance are number 4 and 5 in the list and yet most of the business done in the insurance space is via traditional agents. Isnt this a classic case where the demand exists but the carriers just resist selling direct for reasons listed here

Another irony I noticed is that when I searched on car insurance on google , the first link I get is of Allstate insurance which is an Agent driven carrier to the core. If allstate has to spend advertisement dollar for market capture and also continue on its traditional agent driven model who long will it be when people like Geico take over there market share ?

The question is : Does the desktop matter anymore?

noreply@blogger.com (Niraj J) — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 05:57:00 +0000

On my first reading of the blog entry Does the desktop matter anymore? I kinda agreed to the discussion until a thought came to my mind. Here goes...

In today's world what is the desktop ? about 90% MSFT and 10% rest of the world.

So to me the question is really "Does microsoft's PC strategy matter any more?" OR put it in a different way - Since computing is moving on the server and network is really turning out to be the computer , Do we need to bother about who controls the desktop. My answer is - Damm well we do.

If MSFT had its way in 1996-2000 the world would probably be a different place. The millions of mobiles devices we are talking about would have only synced up with your Windows operating system. Who knows instead of WIKI's and blogs , FileSharing would have evolved into a social network. And the worst nightmare could have been that the desktop still played a *VERY CENTRAL* role in a highly networked world by having a set of standards for the web that required you to be on a MSFT PC . (example - Microsoft Sharepoint). And we probably would not be having this discussion today that the desktop is irrelevant.

So in my opinion desktop applications innovation (via open office , linux , Mac , etc ) has to and should continue to be able to give a new avatar to the traditional PC in a Web2.0 world.

Refer also to the post of why open office and google documents need to integrate.

Does open source make ecomonic sense ?

noreply@blogger.com (Niraj J) — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 20:22:00 +0000

this is a topic talked about at several places including here (Jonathan) and here (Red Monk) all of which are perfect arguments ?

A point I felt that was not clearly articulated in my earlier readings was that I look at open source as just a different Market Capture Strategy.

You have a choice today. Do you want to spend millions in Marketing and Sales of your product or do you want to spend those millions into the product and follow the route of Bottom up marketing. ( and refer : death of cold calling)

Refer to what an a CEO of Major insurance carrier says regarding barriers to entry. I shall explain in a different blog entry of how the barriers can be eliminated in Web2.0 world.

Keeping the discussion to making money in open source. Once you leverage open source to overcome the barriers to entry you have several ways to make money including :

Business Models
- Donations : Apache , Debian
- Advertising : Sourceforge , O’Reilly Media, Sys Con
- Membership : Eclipse , Java.net
- Conversion :
--- Maintainence / Support / Subscription : JBoss , Solaris
--- Brand ownership - IBM (Eclipse)
--- MEdia Kit - Suse Linux
---- Add Ons (Dual License) - Niku Clarity , mysql

- Software as a service - Google with GMaps and a bunch of other services . Frankly if you are in SaaS world there is an even better case for you to go open source as the customer is interested in the service and not the software.

- Professional Services - interface21 (Spring framework)

Also note the Demand supply equation in the open source world works like this

Supply side:
- Technology Vendors : Achieve critical mass and gain market share aggressively
- Technology Vendors : Share cost of development and testing
- Individuals : Solve a particular problem and make the solution available to the world
- Individuals : Get involved in an areas of interest to learn , contribute and help career.

Demand Side :
- Lower Total Cost of ownership
- Transparency and freedom to enhance , modify the products to suit specific needs
- Better quality as a result of large user community base and hence more testing and improvements
- Demand side decision influencers generally involved in open source world

Understanding the type of payer you are in the open source world and understanding the kind of leverage you are looking for from this type of model is key for Enterprises.

Here are some personality traits of open source players

Three kinds of players
»Innovators – Model : Build Great Products - Achieve Critical Mass very aggressively ---Make $$$ by any/all of the Business Models
- Hibernate , Spring , Linux : started by a developer to scratch an itch and then they got a life of their own
- Eclipse , Netbeans , Tomcat : started by Big product companies as a strategy to achieve Critical Mass ASAP and leverage economies of scale

»Contributors - Ride on the success of a good open source product. Strategy is to start contributing to successful products. Come on the main contributor list and then you sell your expertise in that area by virtue of having IP on the product. Example JBoss/Tomcat story , numerous one person outfits.

»Consultants - Neutral parties who look at open source as another IT Solution for the their client. Build the expertise by working on the technologies and tools

How do you find a sponsor for an SOA program ?

noreply@blogger.com (Niraj J) — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 20:59:00 +0000

SOA has an Enterprise wide impact and the question I run into from architects from various organizations I work with is ?

SOA is great and I want to get this into my organization , but the business does not care about SOA. How do I get the funding for an SOA program in my organization ?

So here is what I have been saying to my client?

Get SOA into the organization under the pretext of a a Portal Project or a BPM Project

A portal is something that the business can relate to customer experience and the BPM tools with the capability of defining business processes and visual rules engines is something they relate to their efficiency.

and a catchya situation : I have also seen Architecture groups in organizations start an SOA Framework Project that basically assembles the plumbing for future SOA projects. Most of the projects like these (with little business context) either are not completed or the results of which are never used. I call these approach as Architectural Waterfall..

Googify your Application

noreply@blogger.com (Niraj J) — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 16:15:00 +0000

I am fan of Google Apps(NASDAQ:GOOG) and I think it has real potential of replacing the Corporate Intranet.

I already love gmail better than outlook (I get more spam in my corporate email than in my inbox in gmail account -And note that I give my gmail id to all commercial entities and *DO NOT* give out my corporate email id to anyone ) and Google Calendar is fast taking up my usage by having the Webservices API , Multiple Calendars etc. For my thoughts on Google Documents refer my earlier post

Besides I love the ability to configure my home page and choose between a portlet that shows freeway traffic to my home , a googifed salesforce.com that shows the sales projections from salesforce.com and a custom homegrown interface to my project management tool showing the resource utilization for my account. The ability to combine my personal and official priorities on my home page is just great.

Google Apps to me is building up to be a true Web Platform for application development. It is very ironic to me that we in IT consulting keeping on talking to Enterprises about the strategies to implement SOA and forget to mention about how to leverage existing open SOA platforms like Google Apps.

This leads me to think that the next big thing for software applications is going to be- "Googify" the Applications. As the Google platform becomes more established you will see vendors that comply to google apis and the enable there application for the google portlets.

You already see IBM Websphere support the google gadgets in their platform and several vendors like salesforce.com are already Googifying there applications.