AMD has been holding a series of events to pre-announce its new approach to the consumer laptop market, which it is launching today as the Vision strategy. Rather than join Intel in the Netbook craze (although it admits that Acer uses its chips in one such form factor), it has decided to try to change the game by adopting a different approach to marketing. In particular it has selected a number of criteria it believes are more important to consumers in selecting a laptop – ditching the usual technical speeds and feeds that dominate current retail marketing. Its approach is reminiscent of its decision a few years ago to shift from clock speeds to comparative performance – arguably a move that Intel followed. It will be interesting to see whether this time its new approach will also lead to a change in the way laptops are marketed through retail distribution.
Read more »At an analyst meeting last week I met Andrew Beechener of DataScape Online (DSO), a Managed Services provider in the UK. He had some very interesting things to say about the development of what he calls ‘Modest Computing’, which are relevant to the Cloud Computing theme I’m developing – so I thought I’d catch up with him this week and investigate his views in more detail. Our interview was loosely structured around a number of questions.
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Symantec launched a new EMEA Small Business group in May 2009. It invited a number of analysts along to its impressive EMEA Business Centre in Reading on July 2nd to tell us about its plans.
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Having spent 23 of the last 26 years researching the server market (even if we did call them ‘Multi-User Computers’ in the 1980s), I think it’s about time to take look at this ITC offering and suggest a forecast for the next few years. As with all of my forecasts I’m looking solely at vendor revenues. Adding channel margins will make the total value of the market higher than I show here. Let me know if you’re interested in discussing the methodology.
The world server market has suffered an unprecedented fall in value in the last 2 quarters (-15% in Q408 and –23% in Q109). A view of the development of revenues is shown in Figure 1.
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BT invited a number of analysts to attend its Sustainability round table on June 25th 2009 at the BT Tower. Fielding an impressive set of senior executives the company led by Dinah McLeod who heads up its dedicated Sustainability practice. I hadn’t been to the Post Office (as was) Tower since the 1970s. At one time the tallest building in London it – like Concorde – is a witness both to 1960s technical optimism and, having survived an attempt to blow it up in
the 1970s, also to its own sustainability. Read more »
In introducing Cloud Computing as one of themes I flagged an intention to write profiles of suppliers and users. The first company to get in touch was Quest Software. I had an interesting talk with Joe Baguley (European CTO) and will try to capture his company’s approach.
Quest is a US management software company engaged in helping CIOs and software developers (usually in large organisations) manage their software deployments and improve efficiency. Its products cover four main areas – Microsoft Windows, Applications, Virtualisation and Database. I’ve shown the company’s revenues and profits in Figure 1. 
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Last weekend CEO Mark Templeton, Wes Wasson (Chief Marketing Officer) and other senior Citrix managers headed for Edinburgh for its regional i-Forum show. Alongside this major user event it held its annual industry analyst meeting. As always it was a great opportunity to catch up with the company, discuss and think about ITC from its unique point of view.
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IBM made a major announcement on June 16th about Cloud Computing. In introducing my own Cloud Computing theme I noted that there was as yet no accepted logical definition. At one level IBM appears to agree, since it says ‘some use the word “Cloud” to describe new consumption and delivery models’ (my italics) indicating that others think it’s something else perhaps. On another level it has formalised what it means to IBM and its clients. It has come up with an integrated raft of announcements consolidating $10b investments on acquisitions and R & D in this area and multiple smaller announcements over the last couple of years. I think it’s a good idea to look at how its latest moves help define as a Cloud Computing supplier 
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I once heard the head of a large ITC company say ‘We’ve got the right number of people – it’s just they have the wrong skills’. In more recent times many organisations could add’ ‘and in the wrong place’. At a time of great uncertainty for all the 19 million of us working in the ITC industry I want to provide guidance for those unfortunate enough to have to make hard choices about whether, when and where to cut resources.
Over the last couple of months I’ve been looking into the strategies of a number of key ITC vendors in order to plot the depth of the downturn and suggest measures and activities that can help with weathering the storm of recession. Read more »
It’s some weeks ago now, but Microsoft posted a 6% drop in its FY09 Q3 (calendar Q109) revenues to $13.6B as well as a 32% drop in net profit to $3.0B. It’s a company which always spends a lot of time in its last financial quarter planning. For once it isn’t so easy to see what it will come up with, as it not only has to produce a strategy to take advantage of increasingly sophisticated Web 2.0 Internet usage, but also to help it weather the current economic storm. As with my other vendor profiles, I want to describe what Microsoft has been doing in the last 6 months or so and make some predictions about what its new strategy will look like.
There was a great story on the BBC news at the beginning of June 2009 about The Cloud Appreciation Society who wanted to register a new Cloud type – the Asperatus. Much of the initial work to classify real clouds was done by Luke Howard (The Godfather of Clouds) two hundred years ago, but until now in meteorological terms there have been only two basic types of cloud formation, Cumulus and Cirrus, from which derive the 10 main and 27 sub types.
Similarly when it comes to Cloud Computing there’s an urgent need to describe, define and/or – if possible – simplify the term so we can discuss its suppliers and users, as well as measure and forecast its offerings.
It’s also worth asking whether or not it has a special role to play in our current market downturn and recovery, which was deeper than those of 1992 and 2001. The two aims are linked, because if we can’t find an acceptable definition it seems unlikely that its services will help us much. Readers of my reports might also be interested in my presentation on Cloud Computing. Read more »
The Sunday Times carried an article this week suggesting that technology stocks were currently a good investment. Well I’m nervous to criticise such an august journal, am no financial advisor, recognise the temporary positivism of the stock market,… but if current financial results are anything to go by please don’t go out and buy shares.
IBM posted an 11% decline in quarterly revenues (Q109 compared with Q108), achieving $21.7B. While for some this would seem disappointing, but for me it demonstrates a comparatively strong position in the teeth of the gathering storm of the current downturn. In addition IBM’s net income stood at $2.2B, down just 1% on the previous year.
When looking at its business by the age-old divisions of hardware, software and services it may be a surprise to many the extent to which it succeeded in driving the ratios towards the latter two classes. I remember well the days in the 80s and 90s when IBMers dreamt of pushing hardware below 50% of revenues. Well (believe it or not) in Q109 hardware was just 16% according to my calculations. See Figure 1 for a picture of IBM’s revenues by category and quarter from 2003 until Q109.
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Blogging about ITC eventually… I’m going to cover subjects such as Cloud Computing, Corporate and Social Responsibility, Market Forecasts, Digital Content, Convergence, etc. There’s so much happening in the industry today – and not all bad. Looking forward to discussing themes, trends, opportunities with anyone who’s interested. Everyone suggested WordPress as a great way to get going…
