Other Recent Articles


View Archives

About

photoby Julien Le Nestour
more info here


Most Popular Content

Enterprise X.0 - Nov 14, 2008 10:45 - Comments

Pilots are not for profit-making. And we’re not playing games.

This post is the first of the vendors series, exploring client-vendors partnership considerations. They’re all tagged and you can find them here.

James Gardner has a post up explaining how he and his team are looking at vendors coming to them with a new technology to try out. He makes a series of good points and I would encourage every vendor to read them closely. I can relate to all but one:

Some people, of course, will argue that this kind of thinking means that smaller companies (who simply don’t have the money to invest without commitment) are locked out of deals with a larger organisation. That probably true, and its too bad.

We actually seek innovative small companies, but that doesn’t mean we will pay for doing pilots either. Let me expand this point on pilots.

Here’s how we look at the value proposition:

We can be contacted by vendors, but often we contact them, especially when they are small and not mature for the enterprise market. As James said, we won’t even consider paying for a proof of concept or any other activity that requires us to spend resources (could be money, but more often time) to just see the light and be convinced of the value your product can add: this is your job and responsibility as a vendor. Your “cost of doing business”. So don’t ask anything at this stage, we are already spending an increasingly valuable asset on you: our attention. If we talk with you, especially if we called, we are genuinely interested, so don’t blow it up.

Assuming we know how we should, in theory, create value from your offering, we’ll need to test it, in our own specific and unique ecosystem. Your technology can be creating value for any other companies, if it doesn’t for us, then it’s of no use. That’s why we do pilots: to confirm that either the business value will be realized or that the technical risks can be mitigated (at a realistic cost).

Continue…

More In Enterprise X.0


Enterprise X.0 Fundamental Shifts

Enterprise X.0, Fundamental Shifts - Aug 28, 2008 13:13 - Comments

MP: Mac OS adoption rate in the enterprise increases and accelerates

THE GIST

Gist: The business market share of Mac systems is increasing and this trend is accelerating. The current marketshare is of 4.5% (see exhibit section below).

Continue…

More In Fundamental Shifts


Fundamental Shifts

Enterprise X.0, Strategic Shifts - Sep 6, 2008 17:06 - Comments

Behavioral Economics in Gartner’s Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, 2008

I just noted that “Behavioral Economics” have been integrated in Gartner’s Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies. Not surprising as I wrote before. Here is the famous graph:

Picture 6.png

It’s actually quite amusing how McKinsey concentrates on how to build competitive advantage and Gartner on years to mainstream. Of course, it’s marketing BS in one case and so-called analysis in the other, but Gartner’s stance isn’t particularly oriented towards action. They don’t provide anything meaningful on behavioral economics either.

More In Strategic Shifts


Strategic Shifts

Musings - Aug 5, 2008 16:36 - Comments

How the energy-rich rely on Schlumberger

Fairly good FT article on SLB which I’m passing on but won’t comment ;-)

Andrew Gould is quietly becoming one of the most powerful men in the oil industry, so much so that he feels compelled to reassure the world’s biggest energy groups that he has no intention of making them redundant. “We do not, cannot and would not replace what oil companies do with things we can’t do,” says the chief executive of Schlumberger, the world’s largest oil services group, in a rare interview.

Yet the list of things Schlumberger cannot do has shrunk so dramatically that many national oil companies (NOCs) can now forgo the costly and politically tricky step of forming partnerships with international oil companies to tap their own oilfields. For the likes of ExxonMobil, BP and Royal Dutch Shell, that means losing the most lucrative part of their business – the part they have relied on to achieve growth in production, revenue and reserves for much of their existence.

Source: FT.com / Comment & analysis / Analysis - Nationals’ champion: How the energy-rich rely on Schlumberger

More In Musings


Musings

Investments - Nov 20, 2008 18:53 - Comments

A crisp summary of where we’re all at

Roger Ehrenberg, blogging at InfoArbitrage is one sharp guy. His posts are impressive and he’s part of this breed of bloggers juggling all activities but still managing to churn out quality posts at an impressive rate (in this case, superb quality at a regular pace). Read his post, that will give you a finer grain for reading today’s picture. Extracts:

Why Can’t We Admit That…

…Citigroup, parent of the once-proud Citibank and Salomon Brothers, is bankrupt?

…Berkshire Hathaway is genuinely threatened by a potential run on its credit, due to contractual provisions in its derivatives agreements that could compel it to post more collateral at exactly the worst time?

…if we are even talking about Berkshire Hathaway being at risk, then ANY company is at risk of a run on its credit?

…as well-intentioned as those in our Government might be, that most have no idea of how to address the issues that threaten our national prosperity and well-being?

…any institution for which buying a bank is even remotely logical will do so to gain access to TARP funds, whether necessary or not?

…spending on infrastructure to get people back to work while re-building and upgrading essential services is a useful expenditure of taxpayer funds?

…everyone is scared, from the top 1% of the wealth pyramid down to those doing everything in their power simply to get by?

Read it all, well worth it.

More In Investments


Investments Musings

Geopolitics, Investments - Nov 20, 2008 0:07 - Comments

On G-20 and GM: Economics, Politics and Social Stability

George Friedman of Stratfor has a very sharp piece out again that may be republished and is a must read:

ON G-20 AND GM: ECONOMICS, POLITICS AND SOCIAL STABILITY

By George Friedman

The G-20 met last Saturday. Afterward, the group issued a meaningless statement and decided to meet again in March 2009, or perhaps later. Clearly, the urgency of October is gone. First, the perception of imminent collapse is past. Politicians are superb seismographs for detecting impending disaster, and these politicians did not act as if they were running out of time. Second, the United States will have a new president in March, and nothing can be done until he defines his policy.

Given the sense in Europe that this financial crisis marked the end of U.S. economic supremacy, it is ironic that the Europeans are waiting on the Americans. One would think they would be using their newfound ascendancy to define the new international system. But the fact is that for all the shouting, little has changed in the international order. The crisis has receded sufficiently that nothing more needs to be done immediately beyond “cooperation,” and nothing can be done until the United States defines what will be done. We feel that our view that the international system received fatal blows Aug. 8, when Russia and Georgia went to war, and Oct. 11, when the G-7 meeting ended without a single integrated solution, remains unchallenged. Now, it is every country for itself.

Continue…

More In Geopolitics


Geopolitics