Please note, there are hundreds of vendors proposing to offer cloud computing. I have  selected five vendors and reviewed them at a very high level to see how they address our major considerations/filters (costs/capital expenditures, scale, instant access, business applications).   So as you read ask yourself if these vendors meet the minimum criteria for cloud computing

Microsoft’s Azure – Windows Azure offers an environment for developers (Web, ISV, business. etc.)  to create cloud applications and services.  So right off the bat; Azure is a developer’s “kit” not actual cloud provider. Microsoft’s Azure pricing is consumption based (usage) and they offer a SLA agreement (could not find any details).  Part of Microsoft cloud computing developer’s platform will be incorporated in data centers for off- premise applications for the final end user. 

 Callidus Software – Bring Sales into the Picture

Callidus, who provides Sales Performance Management (SPM) software, is expanding its suite on the Force.com platform to offer entire sales life-cycle from on-boarding deployment and payment, to talent development, while providing visibility into sales operations and financial performance. Basically this is an enhancement of SPM and it is supported by a “cloud” environment that provides scalability and uniform access.

Rackspace’s offering is usage based ($10.95/mo or 1.5¢/hr) with no long-term contract AND free technical support.   One can scale up & down at any time and access the cloud via Open Source APIs. Bandwidth is available for 7¢/GB in and 22¢/GB out.

According to Rackspace it is a three (3) step process; 1-Select your size of the cloud, 2-then the operating systems and 3- the rest is done by Rackspace    One note about their SLA guarantee. Cloud Files service will be available 99.9% of the time in a given billing cycle; if not you get a credit on your next bill.   Personally, this is not a good SLA component. 

 Zetta – Enterprise Cloud Storage on Demand

Zetta claims to provide cloud on – demand (scale) with pay (Zetta Enterprise Cloud Storage pricing starts at $0.25/GB/month) as you go. Zetta provides a Total Cost of ownership calculator so you can quickly compare your current costs to Zetta managed storage costs.  Along with the performance is performance assurance (assume some sort of SLA).  Not sure about instant access to business applications.

Stratascale – The world’s first physical cloud

They provide servers, firewalls and storage that are scalability (4 levels of clouds, which consist of 70GB/server, 1 Gbps bandwidth between servers, secure and reliability).  I did not find anything about their pricing structure or SLA agreements, so no comments.

This is really a hosted/managed service for servers with fire walling. Not sure how far they can scale and where are the business applications.

Bottom line, given this was a random sample: technically, none of these met all of the criteria for being a cloud computing vendor.  Most are offering some sort of storage/server solution with some uniqueness like added security or a management tool. Their specific offering may well meet a foundation or infrastructure component; but one would still have to find other vendors to help provide the complete solution.  Given this situation the pros might not outweigh the cons in your decision process.

Lesson learned, do a complete due diligence before you sign on the dotted line.

Happy researching in the cloud or it pays to keep your head in the clouds!

RHL   3/3/10

Many liken business to war.  We “attack the competition.”  We “defend” our customers.  Our new product introduction will “gain a competitive advantage and kill the enemy.”

Going into the New Year there was a lot of rhetoric about the Great Recession; whether the economy is growing, and what to expect.  The TV talking heads, bloggers and analysts have had their say, often repeating what someone else has said or changing their opinion based on new information.

I found much of what was being said contrary to what I had heard or seen.  So, during the past last two weeks I went to the front lines and talked with multiple marketing colleagues, located in Eastern Massachusetts, about how they think 2010 will unfold.  Like front line solders, these people are fighting a daily battle with defined tactical goals, surprises and limitations. They have real life experiences to document what is going on.  These conversations have taken place in person and over the phone.  The companies represented range from a very small start-up to billion dollar multi-nationals.  The industries range from hi-tech to commodities and covered both products and services.

I covered 5 subjects: money/credit, customers, social media/networking, new product introduction and marketing functions obtained or offered as a service…function as a service (FaaS).

One of the most interesting finding was the commonality on some subjects.  I heard the same thing regardless of size of company, industry or offering.  The starkest difference, not surprisingly, was between young startups with no or few customers, and larger more mature companies with large installed bases.  Yet even here, there were commonalities.

The number one topic related to money, or the lack of it. I will discuss my findings on money/credit below.  Future blogs will cover the other themes.

The Lack of Money/Credit

Everyone I talked to bemoaned the lack of money; to carry out programs, launch new initiatives, upgrade capabilities, add headcount, etc.  While some were operating on budget numbers that were below 2008 levels, others were using OPM (Other People’s Money) to meet their goals and objectives.  Using OPM included scheduling late payments (beyond 90 days) to working with vendors to fund prototype models and deliverables.

In some of the larger companies specific product lines, which had promotional dollars in the past, are now included in corporate or “umbrella” campaigns, while in both large and smaller companies each component of a lead generation program is vetted on a strict ROI basis…resulting in fewer shows, mailings, etc.

It appears the dictum to “do more with less” has taken effect.  However, few of the front line troops that I talked to felt that they were really “doing more.”  They felt that they were, at best, holding their own and that the risks to their product, brand, image and market share is much higher today than 18 months ago.  Some quotes:

• “We are losing our differentiation”
• “Sales say the number of qualified leads is significantly below where it was even a year ago.  I agree with them but have no funding to change the process.”
• “I have no discretionary marketing dollars”
• “I spend all of my time thinking about the next 30-60 days…I don’t know what is going to happen in the second-half.”

My conclusion, biased as it may be by geography and small sample size,  is that the lack of funding is constraining marketing activity and will result in slow, minimal growth.  The “do more with less” approach has morphed into “hold your position, don’t lose any ground” position.  Flat “growth” from year-to-year has become the new measure of success.

There is no basis for extrapolating these findings to the economy as a whole.  Were I to do so, it would suggest that there are no marketing drivers in 2010.  Few, if any, companies are adding marketing resources, mounting new campaigns, or taking chances.  The tepid commercials during the Super Bowl seem to reinforce this thought.  And, without Marketing driving business, new economic growth will be slow and uneven.

I would be interested to hear about your experiences in operating to today’s tight economy.

Next up: Customers focus

Note that a core Fire Alarm Marketing service is helping companies direct their scarce resources for an optimum return.  Call if you would like to discuss how we can help you.

RHM   2/11/2010

These announcements cause collateral damage.   Pity the poor product managers and product marketing managers whose management expects similar news and coverage relating to their new product introductions. They are almost doomed before they start.

What recourse do the PMs have and how do they go about setting the right expectation of management?  The astute PM can employ three tactics:

• First, acknowledge what everyone is talking about, and compare it with their efforts.  For example, communicate that Google has spent X dollars on development, or that Google is partnering with T-Mobile and planning to spend Y dollars on promotion, and then compare these values to the resources allocated to his/her introduction.

• Highlight (again) the positive features/advantages/benefits of their new product; the differences from competition, and the expectations of the introduction; be it increased market share, improved margin, greater revenue, etc.

• Paint the forecast for new product introductions against the economic background of 2010, i.e., emphasize that no-one is sure where the economy is going. “Flat” may be good. Taking market share from competitors is a winning strategy when segment growth is flat, and so on.

Fascination with the next new widget has been known since the start of the industrial revelation, if not before.  Having gone through a difficult year, starting 2010 with bright shinny devices (that seem to be more evolutionary than revolutionary) creates undo expectations for everyone, except for Google and Apple.  Yet everyone else’s new product introduction may prove to be stronger and longer lasting than these new toys.  The PM, who casts his /her new product in the appropriate light, who executes well and meets his/her goals can have a more meaningful and successful product introduction than the products with all the hype and glitter.

Is your new product introduction properly positioned with your management, or is management asking you to match Google and Apple?

RHM  1/7/2009

VOIP is basically transmitting packet data (voice is data) over the Internet versus traditional voice (circuit switched). The two basic advantages of VOIP are: the convergence into a single “network” of voice and data and lower costs. Given these advantages, it is not a question of “if” but “when” that VOIP will be ubiquitous.
While the use of VOIP is growing rapidly it is still a small percentage (15-20%) of overall usage in the United States. You will see reports that IPBX (Internet Private Branch Exchange-switches that handle phone calls) installed are now greater then PBXs, but that only means IPBXs that handle both traditional voice and VOIP; not the number of actual users that are deployed. So before you buy or use VOIP service, you should understand the following issues and get answers to how your selected service provider (SP) is addressing them.

1- What happens to my phones when there is a power failure? Conventional phones still work when there is a power failure, not so with VOIP.
2- What is the quality of VOIP that is provided by the SP? If they and you don’t have enough bandwidth or have high delays, you will experience congestion, gobbled or choppy phone calls.
3- Reliability of the VOIP service. Again traditional phone systems have 5 “Nines” reliability; currently VOIP has a high (relatively speaking) number of lost calls or interruptions. Find out what the SP guaranteed reliability rate is and make it part of the Service Level Agreement (SLA).
4- Security for VOIP is definitely a weakness (one major problem is 911 calls are not well addressed). If you business or usage needs to be protected, again understand the vulnerability of VOIP and how the SP is addressing this.
5- What functions does the SP that you are considering offer. Remember not all SP are created equal. Features like SLAs (have services like reliability rates, call quality, local or international calls supported), bandwidth required to utilize their service, and type of broadband (digital, cable modem, high speed dial) vary from SP to SP.

VOIP like any previous and future technology has positive and negative factors; This posting addressed the top considerations from a user’s point of view.

If you are the CMO and are considering on implementing VOIP (probably a question of when not if) do you understand the issues and potential impacts to your enterprise? Make sure you understand what is required to support the service and what the selected SP is providing. If you want to know more about VOIP or need assistance with marketing or business development for VOIP products or services, contact us at  www.firealarmmarketing.com with your request.

RHL 12/3/2009

When we were children, the adults in our life provided guidance in the form of information and direction, which they learned from their parents, or acquired themselves through the school of hard knocks. We were instructed not to touch the stove…it is hot and can hurt you; to look both ways before crossing the street…cars can hurt you; and do not run with scissors, you will put your eye out; etc, etc. Sensible advice aimed at helping us as we grew up and experienced the world, as our parents knew it.

Due to the rapid pace of technological change, only a few adults are providing guidance to their children as they learn and use internet skills and social networking tools. A Generation Y /Echo Generation person, raised on a computer, with its immediate access to information, continual linkage to their friends through IM or SMS, and seeing what their friends are doing on Facebook, lives in a different world than someone who remembers a Basic programming class or punch cards.

The issue is that neither the parents nor the children know what to do or how to act. The parents because they have not experienced it, the children because they are generally naïve and trusting, and there is scant education about social networking risks. Interestingly the Government has stepped into this void with some clear information and direction.

Accepting that there are bad people in the world, and that they will take advantage of others for personal gain, the Internet poses risks to people, countries and enterprises. The Lori Drew/Meg Meier suicide case and identify theft are examples of personal attacks. Denial of Service attacks happen daily, and are now deployed by government agencies in state-to-state conflicts. Enterprises are prime targets as BJ’s, TJX Heartland and Choice Point can attest.

On top of the security risks, there are significant marketing risks. Failure to address all of them may negatively impact the company or bring it down completely. Specifically:

1. Is the company using social networking properly? Are we employing the right mix of “traditional” communication technologies with social networking technologies? Failure to use the right mix may allow competitors to gain market share.
2. If the company embraces social networking, and has multiple people blogging and tweeting, along with multiple Facebook pages, is the right message being communicated, consistently? Is the message being undercut by rouge bloggers? See what happened at Whole Foods for an extreme example.
3. If bad people are using the information contained in the Marketing blogs, Facebook, and LinkedIn sites, along with Marketing tweets, to develop social engineering attacks on our company as a whole, or as a way to blunt our marketing programs, what our are defenses and mitigation strategies?
4. What protection is in place to stop company confidential information from leaking out through social networking postings? Are postings by a junior Gen Y person that she is “going to the trade show and we are introducing a feature that will really rock”, or that “We working on closing a multi-million dollar deal with Acme Tool and Die” a concern? What if the posting is more specific? Does everyone understand the sensitive nature of information or commenting about places or things? Making negative comments about Memphis proved to be disastrous.

The bottom line is that no one is providing adult supervision regarding the use and application of social networking tools. The knowledgeable Marketing Manager recognizes the risks, prioritizes them and then works with his department and within the company to teach, learn and lead. However, as with technologies today, speed is critical. Failure to learn, adopt and educate in 2009 may result is some of the negative issues cited above.

How well do you understand all the risks of social networking, and what are your second half 2009 mitigation plans? Will you be called on to explain how something happened when a social network goes south…which is a “when,” not an “if”? Are you prepared?

My next post will answer the question, “Would Smokey the Bandit Tweet?

RHM 6/25/2009

Although we are only a few days from summer, it is not too late for “spring cleaning”  The Wikipedia entry for “spring cleaning” reads:

The most common usage of spring-cleaning refers to the yearly act of cleaning a house from top to bottom which would take place in the first warm days of the year typically in spring, hence the name. However it has also come to be synonymous with any kind of heavy duty cleaning or organizing enterprise. A person who gets their affairs in order before an audit or inspection could be said to be doing some spring-cleaning.

In today’s economy, almost all hardware and software companies can benefit from spring-cleaning. The focus should be on those products that are in the last stage of their life cycle. Many companies are loath to “sunset” products, often for a variety of reasons; the CEO cut his teeth on that product; one major customer continues to buy it; it was our flagship 5 years ago, we will lose out identity if we sunset it, etc. etc.

However, by critically examining the product(s), especially in the harsh light of today’s economy, an astute Product Manager may find that demand has fallen off dramatically, that the margins once generated are no longer there, or that the product is no longer competitive.

If the decision is to do spring cleaning, what actions are appropriate? Underlying all decisions is the need to recognize that if action is appropriate today, it will be imperative six months from now. So fast, aggressive action must be taken today.

For chosen hardware products:

1. Immediately stop production and stop the purchase of all unique parts. Take inventory and determine the value of unique parts in stock. Based on finished goods inventory and projected demand (which will probably be high) make a determination on whether to build out inventory or not.

2. Determine if promoting and selling the chosen products will cannibalize growth products. If yes, seek an alternative disposal process. If no, move quickly to clear the inventory. The best way to clear inventory is to increase the value of the transaction. This can be by lowering the price, or by tying the sale into some other value, i.e., free installation, extended warranty.

3. If the promotion of the chosen product(s) will cannibalize growth products, consider:

a. Contacting the main customer(s) and working with him/them on taking the inventory at a reduced value,

b. Finding a geography that is not as mature as your main market, and moving the product(s) through that geography,

c. Focusing on a well defined vertical, and re-position the chosen product(s) in that vertical with some added features/benefits. Make sure that this solution does not overlap into your mainstream market.

d. Scraping the inventory.

For software products:

1. Announce the end of life (support) for the chosen release.

2. Announce the quarter in which the next release will be made.

3. Offer inducements to the installed based to purchase the current release, with a well-defined path for upgrading to the new release. (Assuming that it is not a forklift upgrade.)

4. Stop all promotion/selling of the chosen release.

Clear direction to the sales channels regarding the discontinued products is a critical part of any spring-cleaning. Specifically, instructions on how to handle on-going sales to existing customers, defined migration paths, length and breadth of warranties, etc, for each product must be finalized prior to any announcement.

Taking action now may preclude having to set aside a “reserve” next January, after your auditor has reviewed your sales forecasts and inventory.  Usually such reserves are a charge against profitability, which may already be slim this year.

Is spring-cleaning in order?

RHM 6/18/2009