On Demand B2B with John Radko

Oracle enters the Amazon Cloud!

I am a big fan of Amazon's web services / cloud platform strategy -- if for no other reason then it demonstrates their continuing ability to go places in the market before others even realize they exist.  In terms of the horizontal cloud computing services providers, they are the innovation leader right now in my opinion (with some serious competitors at their heels, including Microsoft and Google).

Interesting thinking from AMR

Tony Friscia, of AMR, raises some interesting points in his latest "Above the Noise".  I am especially interested in his first point where he differentiates people that sell technology from people that use technology (the other trends are well worth a read as well).

In a perfect world…

Yesterday we had a team-building event that culminated with a visit to a local winery in Virginia, Chrysalis Vineyards.  After the tasting, we were led by the enthusiastic winemaker Curtis into the area where the wine is actually "made", and he spoke to us at some length about the process (August is apparently an ideal time to visit, as the winery is cleaning and getting ready, so he had the time -- come the fall they would be going all out to transform the first harvest into wine).

Advantage SaaS: Faster Go-live!

I am increasingly convinced that a number of big changes are happening that are likely to reshape the way businesses use technology, including cloud computing, SaaS, and the increasing ability to really compose solutions from services (think SOA that works across technologies).  I believe dollars and hours are going to be the drivers of these changes, rather than pure technical considerations, and want to do a few posts to share some of the reasons.  I'll start with a key SaaS virtue, which I actually believe if more a factor of the "service model" than SaaS -- rapid implementation.

The importance of driving productivity with technology

With an entire week devoid of any kind of air travel (vacation), I was a bit behind on my magazine reading.  BusinessWeek published their "50 Best Performers" issue, but what I find absolutely amazing was a terrific article on the challenges faced by Chinese factories, due to rising wages and regulation!

Really “Just in time” at Bowling Green Kentucky

I just returned from a wonderful Spring Break vacation with my family, spent camping in our recently acquired pop-up trailer in the cave region of Kentucky.  Mammoth Cave National Park happens to be very close to Bowling Green, so we took the opportunity to visit the National Corvette Museum, and tour GM's Bowling Green Assembly Plant, the only factory on earth that produces the legendary Corvette...

Action, Visibility, and a tough Economy

GXS has a terrific set of clients in the retail industry, some of whom I have worked with for many years, so stories about the industry tend to draw my eye.  The other day I was reading a widely syndicated piece from AP about retail retrenchment, when something caught my eye:

 

"Experts also say merchants are weathering downturns better because of new systems to control inventory and costs."

RFID — is the premature standardization over?

A very interesting piece from AMR Research's John Fontanella on RFID reaching its tipping point.  This piece is free until March 14th, so click quickly!

Multi-tenancy: absolutely critical to Software as a Service (SaaS)

We had a really good session last week with an analyst who covers our industry exceptionally well -- and we had a really interesting debate about what multi-tenancy is, and whether it was import for SaaS (or any of the growing number of other "aaS's" sprouting up...).  For the record, I have a pretty simple definition of multi-tenancy, and I think true multi-tenancy is ultimately required for successful SaaS platforms.  If you are deploying a new stack/instance/virtual machine/OS for every new client, you are not multi-tenant.

Soy, a component in the supply chain of . . . everything?

A bit of an unusual topic for me, but this was too good not to share.  Fortune Magazine recently did a wonderful article on the rise of the soy industry in Brazil.