My response to, "Can IBM POWER 7 hit the C-spot?"

Original Post is here

James, I am not sure that the definition of processor chip defines what a cloud is or how a cloud works.

After all, the ultimate "business" goal of a cloud is a virtual infrastructure that is in the form of a service, an application, actual infrastructure to build upon, or storage as a new form of cloud offering.

The reality is that very few are offering a real cloud solution of any kind other than SaaS which is still very relevant but not as sexy to talk tech about these days. So instead we talk about cloud.

Which reminds me that when talking about cloud, it harkens back to my very early days and using multiplexed time as no one could really afford their own computer system?

Now my disclosures;

1) I am an IBM client

2) I am running the first Power 7 system in Canada

3) I am a client of Redmonk

4) I provide customer testimonials for IBM on Power, Linux, & Virtualization

5) I am a Novell Enterprise Linux (Suse) client and customer reference on Power

So there are LOT of items touched on in this article, my take on power as a processor.

The Power 7 processor brings new processing power and speed to the table for IBM Power customers.  Keeping in mind that HP, Sun/Oracle, and Dell - CAN NOT run 3 different operating system simultaneously in their virtualized environments. Even VMware only handles Windows and Linux workloads.  The number of unique operating systems speaks to number of solutions available for a business to choose from that leverages the hardware investment. In other words it's about software choice without infrastructure costs. IBM wins hands down.

Now for the Oracle part.  Larry has always been a flash in the pan kind of guy. Saying or doing something to get him front page news. Now he wants to rule the world and adopt IBM’s 1960’s view on being a total solution provider for his customers.  IBM learnt the hard way that customers want choice, not a good direction for Larry.  The reality to all this posturing is that Oracle enjoys very high end mission critical respect for its database and solutions, which by the way generates a lot of mtce revenue that Larry is desperate to protect. He believes that by owning the whole process he can guarantee his clients the most reliable experience that he controls.  History tell’s us that unless choice is available in hardware, operating systems, and support they are destined to fail.  Just look to players like WANG who dominated the early imaging market as one of many stories that tell this same tale. I wont even get on my soap box to talk about Larry’s Linux as that is a whole series of issues behind it. In the end if all you do is Oracle, then a 100% Oracle solution may be best for you, but reality is no one is 100% any one product, let alone just one product.

A few words from a business perspective on database.  When you run a lean shop which is the reality for all of us today, having technologies that are self healing, self managing that don’t require a DBA are of value. That is what DB2 does for us.  As I understand it that is not the world of many database providers including Oracle. It is rare to find DBA’s in a DB2 shop, especially in an SMB space, I can’t say that for my counterparts that run other main stream database technologies.

As far as powering the cloud, if it’s about choice then IBM has a unique offering in the Power system, but again I don’t see cloud as the end goal for a processor. The management tools for ALL vendors are not what we want today, that speaks to your point about creating front end tools in order to offer a service. I am not sure that business is really ready to jump to a cloud, so this posturing is about being ready, not what is ready today. That includes the way you can manage a cloud or offer services from the cloud. 

James knows that I push the Power envelope so Unbuntu Vs Debian Vs Red Hat Vs Novell Suse is again about choice, they all run Linux on a Power platform. I always stress caution to an enterprise audience about Linux in that if we are to learn from the past and adoption of Unix, the world of Linux must learn to not become to proprietary, which in the end is my biggest beef with Larry’s Linux.

In summary:

• A chip technology does not define the cloud
• Power 7 is just the next generation in a roadmap of chip technology, guess what’s next Power 7+ and then Power 8
• Power systems are a virtualization engine which is about choice for business
• Oracle may be at risk of alienating it’s clients by eliminating choice
• Running lean means deploying technologies that self manage
• The cloud is a great concept but not widely deployed other than SaaS
• Business is not ready to adopt the cloud
• Nobody is managing the cloud really well yet
• We have to be wary about splintering Linux the way Unix was

Thanks for listening . . .

Chapter 5 - CIO to Marketing Person

This will be my final posting on this journey topic, not because it's done but because I am now getting into the tree's of this, what I learn will refine and change, part of that I want to keep private, other parts aren't germain to this story.

As a wrap up here are some of the other things I learned along the way so far.

- CRM is important to support this type of initiative. We choose a Canadian provider Luxor CRM instead of the market leader Salesforce.com or the others we short listed. You will have your important factors to judge which is best for you, Luxor was our winner.

- Social Marketing is not about selling, it's about being part of the conversation.

- Social Marketing is not about Facebook, Linked In, Twitter, My Space, etc. although those tools may be used as part of your social marketing efforts. For the record Yes people do business on facebook.

- Finding a strong network to help you shape your idea's and perhaps filter what you want to do versus what you should do is necessary.  I found The Community Roundtable as an unbelievable source not only for social marketing and community management but also a great depth of experience regarding other marketing efforts also.

- Don't under estimate the effort required to formalize a sales/marketing process. Going from an ad hoc approach to a focused and strategic approach is taken a  lot of effort, getting it right is the difference between being dismissed by a future customer, or engaging in a conversation that enters the sales cycle.

- One of the ways we have learned to be better at our approach is engage an expert and friend of the organization. We found that with Engaged Innovations.  If you want to make sales/marketing strategic these folks do it right..

- While there are many folks that I like and trust and wish to engage in helping me learn, one thing is clear. Some providers believe that what they know is "national security" and they believe that by doing it for you is the value they deliver.  It is clear to me that by sharing and allowing me to decide what part of the process I wish to own, I can decide when I am able to spend money, who I will spend it with.  This does NOT mean I want to learn for free but I use our own principles in approaching a customer to win their trust before the meter starts ticking.

I hope those of you reading this series have enjoyed it, I have had little feedback so unless I get anything further, I will continue to post occassionaly updates but not a large focus on the journey story.

Thanks for listening . . . .

Chapter 4 - CIO to Marketing Person

Chapter 4 is all about my first lesson on social marketing.

When I began this journey I thought there were 2 types of marketing; email and social

Reality there are numerous, commonly divided into;

• Email Marketing (Push)
• Adword Marketing (Pull)
• Social Marketing (Pull)

We are all familiar with email, or the spam it creates in some cases. There are many sub lessons to be learned but here are a few;

1. Don't send mail as XYZ User name, Send it as organization name where your business has name clout in your industry
2. Business messages are primarily text based (not images) so focus on a good, SHORT, message with links or attchments to other materials.  Links are better because you can track who went to it.
3. There are many types of campaigns you can run, the more high value the contact information you have, the more you should use a permission based approach to sending emails.

The next category is truly a science unto itself,  Ad-word advertising. I don't claim t know enough except to be dangerous in this space. Here are some things you should think about when considering a campaign like this.

1. Does your audience search for what you are offering on teh web. General assumption is everyone "Googles" or whatever you favorite search engine is for everything these days, reality is Adword engines can tell you what is being searched in order to achieve better results.
2. You can control your time of day and geography of when your ads appear. It could be all of Great Britain, but more so if within 150KMS of London as an example.
3. You can control how mush you spend, but be prepared to put serious money to this if you get good at it.

 Final category is social marketing, not really marketing as you would suspect because nobody wants to be sold to, and on a social community where you interact with members they can revolt against you very quickly if you too aggressively sell to them, so here are few tips.

1. Remember that it is you they want to buy from not your company so create a level of interaction where you are focused over the organization, ie: you act on teh organizations behalf but they interact with you
2. Cappy Popp shared a real killer line re use of branding, unless you are a lifestyle product, a passion, or a cause don't use your brand as the community, focus on your industry as the community. eg: lifestyle product is Harley Davidson so they can create a community around their name.  My company isn't a world wide known brand so I should focus on my industry, International Trade.
3. Start small and manageable. If you try and start initiatives across too many social technologies you divide your audience and risk losing focus too easily.

My final lesson I believe is this, today we talk in terms of Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter as top of mind social technologies, this market moves fast and  what these are today could become the myspace of yesterday, so don't focus on the technology as much as the strategy.

Thanks for listening...