Three ways enterprise software is changing

Today's IT shops must grapple with analysis, cloud computing and DevOps

Once upon a time, life in the enterprise IT shop was fairly simple, at least conceptually speaking.

IT issued computers and laptops to employees, and maintained enterprise software, databases and servers that supported the company, which were mostly run in-house.

These days, IT's basic firmament is giving way to a more breathtaking geography that the IT pro must traverse, based on pay-as-you-go cloud computing, building applications and performing deep data analysis. Perhaps more fundamentally, IT operations are moving from merely supporting the business to driving the business itself, which requires agility and making the most of resources.

Here are three of the largest forces at work that will change enterprise software in 2015, and beyond:

The Platform

The idea of cloud computing has been around for a while, so it may be hard to think of it as a new force. Yet, after a few years of testing the cloud for running development projects and tangential applications, enterprises are now moving their more critical operations to the cloud.

IDC expects that by 2017 organizations will spend 53.7 percent of their budgets on cloud computing, and the market for cloud computing software will be over $75 billion.

Concerns about security and overall cost continue to fade as businesses face the upgrade costs of replacing data centers full of servers, or stare down the large up-front costs of implementing a complex in-house enterprise software system.

Travel information provider Lonely Planet is one Web-facing company that has made the jump into cloud services, migrating all of its operations to Amazon hosted services when its data-center lease came to an end.

"With Amazon, we could treat infrastructure as code," said Darragh Kennedy, head of cloud operations for Lonely Planet. Instead of worrying about how many servers to lease, the company could concentrate on perfecting its service, with Amazon quickly and easily providing however many servers are needed for seamless service.

"Our product owners can stand up a new environment in under 10 minutes, and that really speeds up how quickly we can build new products," Kennedy said.

Amazon Web Services got a head start in the cloud services space, but Microsoft is quickly catching up with its Azure service, according to Gartner.

Other enterprise-focused IT companies quickly ramped up their cloud-computing operations this year. IBM and Hewlett-Packard, have each earmarked $1 billion to building out their cloud-computing services.

Complicating the best laid cloud migration plans has been the sudden emergence of Docker, a new, lighterweight, form of virtualization that promises greater portability and faster performance.

Launched in 2013, Docker has been downloaded over 70 million times. The major cloud service providers, including Google, IBM and Microsoft, all spun up their own, and sometimes proprietary, Docker-based services.

While those CIOs who have already started down the path of cloud computing, perhaps by virtualizing some of their operations, may feel frustration at the potential of re-gearing with Docker, it provides one key element that they will need: swiftness. It has been said Docker is the first virtualization technology ready for the DevOps age.

What is DevOps? You should know about that as well.

The Software

A decade ago, COTS (commercial-off-the-shelf) software was the way to go. Why go through the trouble of building your own software from scratch when Oracle, Microsoft and SAP could provide you with all (or at least most) of the capabilities?

If employees grumbled about such software being sometimes difficult to use, well, they were getting paid to use it, right?

These days, however, businesses are finding that enterprise software is no longer in a supporting role, but is central to businesses maintaining a competitive edge. In many cases, this means the organization must build its own software, at least for those parts of the operation that provide the crucial competitive edge for the company.

Remaining competitive is a moving target, of course, as competitors are also busy sharpening their own products and services. Nowhere is this more pronounced than with large Internet-scale services such as Yelp, Facebook, or AirBnB, who live or die on beating their competition with more helpful, and easier to use, features. The days of asking users, or employees, to put up with fussy software are coming to an end.

Such pressure has brought about a new operating paradigm called DevOps, which, in name and in spirit, combines software development and IT operations into one cohesive workflow. Tightly integrating the development cycle of an application with the subsequent operation of that application can cut the length of time required to update a customer-facing or internal application. About 60 percent of CIOs plan to use DevOps to manage their software, IDC has estimated.

Microsoft has been filling out its portfolio of development software to support devops operations. IBM has set up a special consulting practice just for helping organizations get more into a devops-style workflow.

One user of Microsoft's DevOps tools has been the business services division of French telecommunications company Orange, which develops systems and software for other organizations.

"A few years ago, it was the norm to deliver good functionality on time and on budget," said Philippe Ensarguet, CTO at Orange Business Services. "Now, we have to deliver sooner and faster and better."

One question that dogs the modern business is how to offer something unique in this global, hyper-competitive market. This is where new forms of data analysis could help.

The Data

Data analysis, once chiefly the provider of numbers for PowerPoint presentations and executive dashboards, is increasingly shaping the strategies and operations for many organizations.

Of course, data-guided business decisions are nothing new. What is new is a new depth in the kind of insights that analysis can provide, as well a greater range of data that can be put to computerized scrutiny.

IBM, among other companies, has been ambitiously pursuing the additional ways data can be parsed through cognitive computing, which harnesses techniques of machine learning, neural networks and other approaches to better mimic the ways humans intuit insight from data.

And thanks to the open-source Hadoop data-processing platform, the use of which is growing in the enterprise, additional types of data can be mined for potential knowledge.

Hadoop excels at churning through vast reams of unstructured data, data not stored in a relational database but captured in text files or log files--all the stuff IT staff used to largely ignore, then routinely delete once it filled its coffers. But e-mail, the Web surfing habits of customers or server log files can provide insight into long term trends, daily operations or heretofore undiscovered customer preferences.

One such company that found a competitive edge with such big data, as it is often called, has been enterprise security services company Solutionary, which used a MapR-based Hadoop distribution to enlarge the set of services it offers for its customers.

Solutionary uses Hadoop to store and analyze the security and events logs of its corporate customers, so they can be alerted when suspicious activity may be taking place on their systems. Hadoop allows the company to store more data, at a cost considerably less than if it were to be stored on a data warehouse.

Using this additional data allows the company to offer a longer-view analysis to its customers about what is happening on their networks. It also allows them to perform predictive modeling on the data, potentially giving its customers earlier warning about security issues.

Hadoop allowed Solutionary "to get off an architecture where you had to be careful about what to put into it, and to a model where you could store everything," said Scott Russmann, Solutionary's director of software engineering.

Joab Jackson covers enterprise software and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Follow Joab on Twitter at @Joab_Jackson. Joab's e-mail address isJoab_Jackson@idg.com

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How Tech Leaders Can Prepare for the Future of Work

Advanced technology and a younger, tech-savvy workforce have modernized our work environment with the result that businesses must work faster and collaborate across distances more than ever. To speed operations and facilitate connections, companies are looking to invest in unified communications (UC), digital infrastructures that make collaboration technology ubiquitous.

The emergence of UC technology, which includes video, audio, content sharing and mobile applications, all of which make work possible from anywhere at anytime, has changed the role of the CIO. Not only do CIOs link the boardroom to the IT department, but now they also manage the shift from a physical business infrastructure to a digital one.

Related: Why the Future of Work Is Already Here

It’s up to CIOs to provide employees with the technology they need to be most productive. To do so, CIOs have to show the board how the investment in collaboration unlocks potential in fostering team collaboration, mobilizing talent and promoting creativity.

The new IT

The three trends shaping the future of IT are the consumerization of technology, the rise in remote working and the close connection between digitization and productivity. CIOs can navigate these changes, if they have the right collaboration tools at their fingertips.

Take, first, technology consumerization.

Employees expect to be able to use their personal phones, tablets, even some wearables, and experience the same performance in the workplace as they do at home. They want a single platform to run both their work and personal lives.

Smooth integration of these devices with enterprise applications is a must, and it must happen without compromising data security or network function. The latest cloud collaboration systems operate across devices and platforms, giving IT leaders the ability to connect employees while retaining control of company systems.

Employees also want the capability to work from anywhere, which is in part why using their own devices is so important. Productive millennials are proving by example that flexible work environments can succeed, assuming they provide easy connections to colleagues, partners, customers and data. It’s up to CIOs to choose collaboration technology that enhances productivity from outside the office while simultaneously protecting business assets.

Finally, today’s CIOs share responsibility for the bottom line. Their IT departments must account for technology’s role in enabling productivity. Collaboration technology, including analytics software, helps IT teams share information about the performance of the organization, its employees and its digital infrastructure.

Related: How Today's Tech-Savvy Employees Are Challenging the Traditional Role of Corporate IT

Getting the board onboard

The board will support UC adoption once it understands how the technology helps build dynamic, collaborative workplaces that spark innovation and make companies more competitive. CIOs must educate board members about UC’s business management benefits, which include the following:

• Reducing real estate and capital costs by lowering the need for office space, furnishings and other physical capital. If employees often work remotely, they don’t need individual cubes or offices. They need only some shared workspaces and centralized gathering spots equipped with video to connect to people outside the building.
• Improving customer relationships by providing communication options. Whether clients prefer to connect by phone, instant message or video, they can do so at the touch of a button, making interaction more convenient, efficient and productive.
• Attracting the best talent by enabling online applications and video interviews. Candidates can come from anywhere without having to travel, and companies can record their interviews for later review by other managers. The talent pool instantly becomes global.
• Building strong internal communications by facilitating executive webcasts, town hall meetings and collaboration on in-house social networks.

A team effort

After educating board members, CIOs need to partner with them for technology implementation. Preparing employees for the new way of work takes time and preparation; however, done collectively and correctly, it will bring rapid increases in productivity, multi-channel communication, remote work, heightened data analysis and more.

CIOs will work best with the board if they provide continuous data insights on the performance of collaboration technology. The board depends on concrete analytics to make business decisions, and it will support UC adoption if it can see evidence of the rise in productivity and employee satisfaction.

Building the bridge between IT and the board helps keep companies on the digital fast track. By winning the support of the board for UC adoption, CIOs enable their organizations to reap the benefits of the technology-driven collaborative workplace.

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Surat partners with Microsoft India to deploy ‘smart city-like’ technology infrastructure

By IANS on Dec 19, 2014 at 6:18 PM

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The Surat Municipal Corporation has tied up with Microsoft India to transform the economic capital of Gujarat into a smart city, a statement said Friday.With the help of Microsoft and its partner ecosystem, the city administration is evaluating technology infrastructure to meet the changing needs of its citizens, it said. Surat is the fourth fastest growing city in the world, with a population of 50 lakh. It is a business hub with 80 percent of the world’s diamonds being processed in Surat and 40 percent of India’s demand for textiles being met by the city — besides, it serves as the economic hub for several industries. ”In this context, it becomes increasingly important to leverage technology as an enabler of constant modernisation. We are excited to partner with Microsoft to transform Surat into a sustainable and competitive city that cares for its people,” Surat Municipal Commissioner Milind Torawane said.

“Our existing adoption of technology is benefitting Surat in several ways. With various service delivery channels like City Civic Centre, Virtual Civic Centre (online services through website) and mobile app, citizens are able to access the services easily and quickly,” he said. ”Through a people-centric approach, we are focused on partnering with Surat in its next phase of transformation. Our global experience in implementing this programme in cities around the world – from Paris to Chicago – puts us in a unique position to contribute to Surat,” said Neeraj Gill, general manager, public sector, Microsoft India.

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Uber Is Trying to Patent Its Surge Pricing Technology

The practice recently fueled criticism when users in Sydney faced rising prices as they tried to flee the area of a hostage crisis

The fast-growing ride-sharing service Uber wants to patent a pricing technology that has come under fire from critics who accuse the company of price gouging.

The technology, which Uber calls “surge pricing,” is among at least 13 patent applications the company has filed with the U.S. patent office, which typically become public 18 months after filing, Bloomberg reports. So far, most of the applications have been initially rejected for “obviousness” or because they were otherwise ineligible, but there’s been no decision yet on the surge pricing technology.

Read more: This is how Uber’s surge pricing works

The company, which was founded in San Francisco in 2009 and has already expanded to more than 50 countries, has defended the practice, which adjusts prices in real time based on the amount of demand in the area.

But Uber, already under pressure in jurisdictions around the world over regulatory and safety concerns, drew renewed criticism when the service raised prices in Sydney earlier this week as users were trying to leave the area around a hostage crisis.

SEE UBER PROTESTS FROM AROUND THE WORLD

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2014 Is Ending, but This Wave of Technology Disruptions Is Just Beginning

The sun is setting on 2014, but we're about to watch a new wave of technologies rise and remake the world. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)

Changes in technology are happening at a scale which was unimaginable before and will cause disruption in industry after industry. This has really begun to worry me, because we are not ready for this change and most of our leading companies won't exist 15-20 years from now. Here are five sectors to keep an eye on:

1. Let's start with manufacturing.

Robotics and 3D printing have made it cheaper to manufacture in the United States and Europe than in China. Robots such as Baxter, from Rethink Robotics, and UR10, from Universal Robots, have arms; screens which show you their emotions; and sensors that detect what is happening around them. The cost of operating these is less than the cost of human labor. We can now have robots working 24×7 and doing some of the work of humans. Over time, these robots will become ever more sophisticated and do most human jobs. The manufacturing industry is surely going to be disrupted in a very big way. This is good news for America, Europe, and parts of Asia, because it will become a local industry. But this will be bad for the Chinese economy -- which is largely dependent on manufacturing jobs.

In the next decade, robots will likely go on strike, because we won't need them anymore. They will be replaced by 3D printers. Within 15 to 20 years, we will even be able to 3D print electronics. Imagine being able to design your own iPhone and print it at home. This is what will become possible.

2. The reinvention of finance

We are already witnessing a controversy over Bitcoin. Many technology and retail companies are supporting it. Crowdfunding is shaking up the venture-capital industry and making it less relevant because it provides start-ups with an alternative for raising seed capital. We will soon be able to crowdfund loans for houses, cars, and other goods. With cardless transactions for purchasing goods, we won't need the types of physical banks and financial institutions that we presently have. Banks in the United States seem to be complacent because they have laws protecting them from competition. But our laws don't apply in other countries. We will see innovations happening abroad which disrupt industries in the United States.

3. Health care

Apple recently announced Healthkit, its platform for health information. It wants to store data from the wearable sensors that will soon be monitoring our blood pressure, blood oxygenation, heart rhythms, temperature, activity levels, and other symptoms. Google, Microsoft, and Samsung will surely not be left behind and will all compete to provide the best health-data platforms. With these data, they will be able to warn us when we are about to get sick. AI-based physicians will advise us on what we need to do to get healthy.

Medical-test data, especially in fields such as oncology, is often so complex that human doctors cannot understand it. This will become even more difficult when they have genomics data to correlate. Over the last 15 years, the cost of human genome sequencing has dropped from the billions to about a thousand dollars. At the rate at which prices are dropping, the cost of sequencing will be close to zero in a few years and we will all have our genomes sequenced. When you combine these data with the medical-sensor data that the tech companies are collecting on their cloud platforms, we will have a medical revolution. We won't need doctors for day-to-day medical advice any more. Robotic surgeons will also do the most sophisticated surgeries. We're going to disrupt the entire health-care system.

4. Now take the energy industry.

Five years ago, we were worried about America running out of oil; today we're talking about Saudi America -- because of fracking. Yes, fracking is a harmful technology; nevertheless it has allowed America to become energy independent and will soon make it an energy exporter. And then there is solar energy, which some people have become negative about. But it is a fact solar prices have dropped about 97 percent over the past 35 years, and, at the rate at which solar is advancing, by the end of this decade we will achieve grid parity across the United States. Grid parity means it's cheaper to produce energy at home on your solar cells than to buy it from utilities. Move forward another 10 or 20 years, and it will costs a fraction as much to produce your own energy as to buy it from the grid. This means that the utility companies will be in serious trouble. This is why they are beginning to fight the introduction of solar. If solar keeps advancing in the way it is, it will eclipse the fossil-fuel industry. Solar is only one of maybe a hundred advancing technologies that could disrupt the energy industry.

When we have unlimited energy, we can have unlimited clean water, because we can simply boil as much ocean water as we want. We can afford to grow food locally in vertical farms. This can be 100 percent organic, because we won't need insecticides in the sealed farm buildings. Imagine also being able to 3D print meat and not having to slaughter animals. This will transform and disrupt agriculture and the entire food-production industry.

5. Communications

Yes, even this industry will be disrupted. Note how AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint have seen their landline businesses disappear. These were replaced by mobile--which is now being replaced by data. When I travel abroad, I don't make long-distance calls any more, because I just call over Skype. Soon we will have WiFi everywhere, thanks to the competition between companies such as AT&T and Google to provide superfast Internet access. We will be able to make free calls over open WiFi networks.

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In practically every industry that I look at, I see a major disruption happening. I know the world will be very different 15 to 20 years from now. The vast majority of companies who are presently the leaders in their industries will likely not even exist. That is because industry executives either are not aware of the changes that are coming, are reluctant to invest the type of money that is be required for them to reinvent themselves, or are protecting legacy businesses. Most are focused on short-term performance.

New trillion-dollar industries will come out of nowhere and wipe out existing trillion-dollar industries. This is the future we're headed into, for better or for worse.

This column was adapted from Wadhwa's talk on Big Think, watch it below:

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