collaboration

Cisco and Oracle look to change data center landscape

Oracle and Cisco may change the landscape in the data center if the companies continue to pursue their current tracks, according to most pundits, and we agree.

Oracle is already the giant of middleware, broader there even than IBM and more focused on making software the premier offering. The Oracle approach to IT is to create a brand around software and middleware, adding hardware to reap the maximum benefit from the sale, but focusing on software (especially middleware) for differentiation.

Cisco wants to ride virtualization and connectivity in the data center, and collaborative applications that link employees, into a dominant position. Cisco’s theory is that owning collaboration could give the company a foot into every application door because collaboration is the broadest of all horizontal applications.

Both companies face competition from incumbent giants IBM and HP, and the big question for 2010 is whether the competition among this group of four will create enough market buzz to build buyer literacy and interest levels enough to create a new technology buying cycle. We’re doubtful that competition alone can do it because competition typically focuses on differentiation rather than project justification. But we’ll have a better idea next month when we complete our enterprise fall planning survey.

Google Wave preview needs clear explanation of platform’s versatility

Google launched its wider Wave initiative, and it seems clear from early reaction that a lot of people are still trying to get a handle on just what Wave is. The classic question is, “Why can’t I do the same thing with XYX?” where the variable is anything from email or IM to telepresence.

As we see it, this isn’t the right question for a bunch of reasons. First, you can hammer a nail with a crescent wrench (we, like many others, have done that a couple times ourselves), but it’s not the right tool. The first step toward a relevant question to generate an appropriate appreciation of Wave would be to ask whether any of the alternatives could be an optimal tool. Second, we believe that even this optimality story falls short of the mark. Wave is a platform that could support a model of collaboration that we do not envision today because we have no reasonable mechanism to support it.

Wave is a flexible tool that we could build practices around. Many of the things we do with computers today (like writing blogs) are natural extensions of the typewriter process, and so a computer word processor can be conceptualized by applying it to typing tasks. But spread sheets? Some say they’re extensions of accounting sheets, but anyone who’s ever taken accounting knows how thin that analogy is. Other tools like GPS are further off the wall.

But many articles are grasping one truth — Google needs to make the value of Wave clear. A use case alone won’t do that because it doesn’t show the versatility. A host of use cases might, and a hierarchy would be best of all. Can Google produce this, or will it open the door to a new collaboration model only to have someone else walk through it? That’s the question we’d like to see answered, and we think Google would also like that.

Enterprise Architectures Planners’ Briefing Available

We have released a new Planners’ Briefing on Enterprise Architectures. This briefing explains what this new concept is supposed to do and how it relates to things like collaboration and unified communication.

EA may become as important to enterprise networking as OSS/BSS standards are to the telcom space, so those who are involved in the enterprise market should give this new briefing a listen.

Remember, you will always get the current briefing when you register by sending an email on your company account, your name, and your title to tmtadvisor@cimicorp.com, but you cannot get back issues. Speak now and learn about EA, or miss out!

Cisco breaks out with Eos social networking

Cisco has taken a big step outside its traditional networking boundaries in search of additional revenue opportunity. Perhaps its most significant excursion is the one into the application software space with Eos, a social networking system that is targeted at media companies but applicable, we believe, to enterprises and network operators who want to build and sustain online communities.

It’s not clear whether Cisco has customized excessively for the media company sector or is simply looking there as a good starting point. While Eos is billed as a social network, it’s our view that it’s a community connection tool designed to allow other elements (Cisco and third parties) to be integrated into a social network and relationship framework.

Given the powerful role that social networks could play in collaboration and communications, Eos may be a very useful tool to Cisco in creating a service-layer presence in 2009, something that vendors will need to do to sustain their growth not only next year but in the next decade.

Cisco’s collaboration launch conclusions

Cisco launched its long-awaited collaboration strategy, a move that is not only a giant step and risk for Ciscom, but an indicator of a major disruption in the networking market. Cisco is telling the world that selling bits is not enough, that margins and growth will have to come increasingly from the applications that ride on top of the network and link those bits to consumer or enterprise value.

By making the connection through others, both the sellers of capacity (the network operators) and the sellers of network equipment like Cisco have faced an increasing risk of commoditization and disintermediation. Others have often profited more from investment in networking than those who made it, and Google is the obvious example.

Cisco is apparently wrapping its launch in the mantle of Unified Communications, and in this particular regard we believe they’ve made a mistake. UC is an old concept, and by casting their offerings in the space they’ve both reduced the news impact and magnified the collision with their partners. There are only small chunks of technology that are critical to the collaborative space Cisco covets, and they should be focusing on them more discretely. We’ll have a full look at their launch when it’s public.

Cisco to launch collaboration strategy

Cisco will shortly be launching its collaboration strategy, and will be changing its “Human Network” advertising campaign (a good branding exercise for Cisco) to reflect a more collaborative theme. The Cisco strategy, we believe, will be to link its collaborative and telepresence offerings and social network tools into a corporate service ecosystem that Cisco will provide online as a service and not as a product. This new venture may create some clashes with carrier customers that have their own plans in the area, but we believe Cisco also plans to sell service through carriers, as Microsoft does with its CSF.