Category Archives: Market Trends

Trends in various markets

Desktop Drift

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Seems everyone is aiming for the desktop. Some are drifting slowly, trying to grind away Microsoft’s dominance. Others are planning a full frontal assault. Yes, Larry Ellison is in the latter category. The slow motion mob is of course Linux. Nearly a decade ago I was helping SuSE peddle the first competent Linux desktop distro. The Microsoft hurdle was steeper then than now, and we knew advising CIOs to conduct forced march migrations was folly. But CIOs were interested in researching alternatives, clearly disgruntled at being held captive by Bill Gates and his nerdy desperados. We advised a piece meal approach. Since our study of CIO attitudes concerning Linux showed that they wanted their IT staffs to be Linux literate, we suggested migrating just IT to Linux desktops (sans Microsoft support teams who both needed Windows on their PCs, but would also attempt CIO assassinations if they were forced to … Continue reading →

Black Java

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This year’s JavaOne is a conference stood on its head. A number of elements indicate that Java is thriving, but in odd tangents and with uncertain bearing. I’m sure it was only coincidental that all Sun employees on site were wearing black shirts and near-death experience expressions. Sun staffers looked like people who woke up in a casket at their own funeral. Or in Hell if they believe the rumors about Larry Ellison and his cloven hooves. Exhibit floors are where you find the real pulse of an industry. Forget keynote fairytales which are often more about FUD than fact. When companies drop thousands of dollars on booth space and staff time – when spending shows their intent – that is where you learn how to place your bets in any industry. After touring JavaOne, I’m buying more stock in Apple. No, Apple was not demoing nor did the spirit … Continue reading →

SaaS Survives

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We may be in a recession, but SalesForce.com has decided not to participate. Last week SalesForce submitted financial reports covering the three deepest months of the current downturn. From February through April, SalesForce saw their revenues rise 23% and their net income nearly double, climbing 92%. They also announced that SalesForce is the U.S. economy and that Marc Benioff would ascend to the papal throne. Defying economic gravity is considered a miracle on Sandhill Road. We should not be surprised by this quarter’s occurrence. When in recession, companies and consumers alike reduce risk while attempting to expand opportunity. SaaS offers a reduction in risk for implementing a CRM system. Since SalesForce is currently absconding with nearly 10% of all CRM revenues and is thus the undisputed heavyweight of the SaaS CRM industry, 3,900 new customers instinctively turned to them in early 2009. Another angle is that in tough economic eras … Continue reading →

Mobile Mayhem

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Silicon Strategies client DeviceAnywhere has the good sense not only to employ us, but to take the pulse of their own industry on a regular basis. Knowing that trends change over time helps companies know how best to serve their customers – to anticipate their needs DeviceAnywhere surveys examine what technologies mobile applications developers design for, how DeviceAnywhere services are used and most interestingly what kinds of mobile applications are being written. This last bit says everything about how the mobile application market has shifted and what consumers really want. They want the Internet in their pocket. The Internet is a success because it is Darwinian in nature. Every mutant content provider self-formed out of the digital muck, rapidly mated in orgiastic enthusiasm, and new species of content and application are perpetually being delivered. Go forth and iterate. The reason a Darwinian Internet creates is popular is that every possible … Continue reading →

Virtual Position

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When I read rumors that Oracle is buying one of our former clients I wonder what we did right. Long ago and in the earliest phase of their interesting existence, we consulted to Virtual Iron. We helped with event management, presentations and removing kinks from their messaging when Virtual Iron was vending a lost cause. In those long ago days, Virtual Iron was selling sophisticated virtualization systems that not only let you divide one big server into many smaller servers (what most buyers perceive as virtualization) but they could glue several servers together via Infiniband switches and thus make many small servers look like one huge box. They were a few tiny steps away from private cloud computing, though they did not know it nor was there an industry buzz word to propel their value proposition. Virtual Iron was in what I call the ‘bottleneck bypass business’, which is always … Continue reading →

The Once and Never King

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We are about eight years behind schedule. Around the millennial epoch I helped SuSE whelp the SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop (SLED), a product that is till on the Novell price list. Growing frustration with Microsoft viruses, continued vendor lock-in and the inherent lower cost of an Open Source desktop were hailed as the beginning of the end of Microsoft’s dominance. Yeah. I didn’t believe it either. SuSE arguably had and still has the best alternative to a Microsoft desktop, and considering that it is not Vista, perhaps the best desktop available. But like many good technology solutions it never took the market by storm despite continued frustration with Vista, continued vendor lock-in and the inherent lower cost of an Open Source. Market dynamics and realities stopped SLED’s march. “The reality is that (the Linux desktop) is a slow, gradual, unstoppable growth,” said my buddy Jeremy White at CodeWeavers, a crew … Continue reading →

Mobile Money Madness

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Remember that in these times of chaos that there is money to be made by sorting it all out. Just ask Citigroup, AIG, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs Group, Ford, GM … The mobile industry makes chaos appear orderly by comparison. Like the internet (and other largely unregulated industry) innovation occurs so rapidly in the mobile market that your new handset is obsolete before you make your first call. (Did you know that you could call people using a mobile device!?!?!? I thought they were tiny personal computers – a means for letting Outlook nag me while away from the office.) There are three markets where making order from mobile chaos is proving profitable. These include mobile web application platforms, mobile application testing, and mobile analytics. In other words making apps, testing apps, monetizing apps. Mobile application platforms are application servers with hooks for managing myriads of mobile machines. These servers … Continue reading →