Hearing from "Accidental Cloud Leaders" at the Cloud Leadership Summit-- Blogging for Computerworld

One of the highlights of last week's "Cloud Leadership Summit" (which I started to cover in Tuesday's post) was the opportunity to hear from leading practitioners of cloud computing-- CIOs who have made big bets on the cloud.

When you think of the type of companies that are moving their IT aggressively in the cloud, you probably don't picture companies like Brady or RehabCare. Brady is a $1.5B global manufacturer of safety and identification products, based in Milwaukee. RehabCare is a 13,000 person provider in the highly regulated healthcare industry, based in St. Louis. Both are 2,000 miles from Silicon Valley, the headquarters of the companies they've chosen as their core cloud platforms.

Brady even refers to itself as an "accidental cloud leader" in a recent article they penned for Network World. "We moved to the cloud out of business necessity," said Bentley Curran, Brady's CIO...

Read more here...

Reintroducing the Appirio Cloud Ecosystem

by Mark Koenig and Nitin Jain

Last November, Appirio introduced the Cloud Ecosystem Map, a tool that could be used by business and IT executives to help them navigate the cloud ecosystem. In the 10 months since then we have watched as that page has become the most-visited page on our website (other than our homepage); in fact, there are over 10,000 inbound links to the ecosystem map. We’ve also watched the cloud ecosystem continue to change: IBM acquired Cast Iron, Oracle bought Sun, HP purchased 3Par. Existing players introduced new applications; indeed, two days after we introduced the map, salesforce.com introduced Chatter.

The map has succeeded in delivering against its original objectives - to make it easy to access and understand the cloud ecosystem - but as we have heard from our readers and customers, and as we learned ourselves, there is also room for improvement. As the ecosystem continued to change at “cloud speed,” the map began to lose credibility.

When it came time to refresh the ecosystem map, lo and behold we discovered that we are the cobbler’s children: sure we had a really cool, interactive map, but the database underneath it was not easy to update, and more importantly, didn’t allow for a dynamic cost-effective feed to the Flash environment. an update was going to be an expensive proposition. What we really needed to do was to re-architect. And that’s what we’ve done. Last week, on the same day that Appirio launched an offering of our own into the ecosystem, we also re-launched the Cloud Ecosystem Map.

We built the new version of the map on using the Force.com platform to store the data and a custom Visualforce page as the presentation layer. This allows us to keep the interactivity that we liked so much about the original version, but gives us the flexibility to update the map much more frequently. To read Nitin Jain’s detailed Release Notes that describe how we built the new Ecosystem Map, check out our Product Blog.

Take the Oracle acquisition of Sun as an example. Currently on the Ecosystem Map they are presented as two separate columns. Over time, we will be able to consolidate this into a single column to reflect changes as the company rationalizes its offerings. And last but not least, because we run our business in the cloud using technology from Force.com, we can maintain the map ourselves going forward.

As is often the case with cloud-based applications, we are finding unexpected benefits as well. Because all of the information in the underlying database for the Ecosystem Map is now an integral part of our company’s computing environment - and stored in the same database as all of our accounts, leads, opportunities, projects and more - our team is already identifying future uses for the application. Future phases of the ecosystem map project will have an internal focus that will help us improve the ability of our account teams to deliver great solutions to our customers. Two that we are currently in the design phase for were suggested via our use of Salesforce Ideas:

• Connect the ecosystem database to our Customer Data Vault. This will allow our account teams to quickly find prior examples of work with have done in conjunction with (or alongside of) other vendors in the cloud ecosystem.
• Connect the ecosystem database to the Account Object in our Sales Cloud. This way our account teams can identify those cloud ecosystem vendors (and their solutions) that our clients and prospects have invested in while building their own ecosystems.

Undoubtedly there will be more ideas that we discover as the Ecosystem Map continues to evolve. Which brings us to our final point. This is very much a work-in-progress. It is not intended to be a comprehensive view of the landscape; it is, however, easily updated. So we are asking you to help us keep it up to date by sending us submissions for consideration in future updates. That way we can keep it current for all.

Please explore the map and send us your feedback, thoughts, ideas, and suggestions by clicking on the "feedback" link on the map or emailing us at cloud@appirio.com.

Learning from Our Customers - Bern Abplanalp, Convio

We recently hosted a webinar for our customers on Salesforce Chatter and Ideas best practices based on our own use of these products. We were thrilled to have a guest speaker, Bern Abplanalp, Business Operations Analyst at Convio, join us for a discussion about his experience rolling out Chatter. Convio is a leading provider of on-demand constituent engagement solutions that enable nonprofit organizations to more effectively raise funds, advocate for change and cultivate relationships with donors, activists, volunteers, alumni and other constituents. Bern has helped Convio adopt Salesforce CRM and Appirio’s PS Enterprise to manage Convio’s services teams and therefore brings the perspective of someone who uses Salesforce and Force.com to manage the core of his business.

Since many of you have asked us about Chatter, we thought we’d summarize our conversation here.

Why did you decide you needed Chatter at Convio?

We wanted to use the proactive communication elements of the tool. For example, when Sales would update status on an opportunity, our professional services managers wanted to immediately be updated without having to ask. There were also collaboration features we wanted to use that would expedite the conversation by virtue of being fully integrated with the Salesforce environment, e.g., project or account-related collaboration.

What was your rollout plan for Chatter within Convio?

There wasn’t a lot of material out there about how to rollout Chatter, e.g., sample communication plans, etc., so much of this was of our own making. We used the following approach:

• Identified SMEs (subject matter experts) within our primary functional areas(Sales, Services, Marketing) who would be our “trusted testers”
• Used SMEs to validate initial list of fields to be tracked (by Chatter) and get overall feedback on the Chatter tool. Because Chatter cannot be on/off for specific user profiles, we had to have a holistic plan for all SF users that would provide the right information that people needed without being overwhelming to others.
• Created a structured messaging strategy including various pieces of collateral to support the Chatter deployment including Custom Training Tutorials (screen casts), Chatter Implementation Guide (for managers/team leads), Chatter v. Other Apps, Chatter FAQ & Terminology, Chattequette
• Encouraged users to learn about Chatter by using Chatter by setting up a “Getting Started” Chatter group

How has Chatter been received at Convio?

Thus far it’s been very positive. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the number of users who were admittedly pessimistic about Chatter initially, but once they saw the potential, have become big advocates. If we turned off Chatter, after just 3 weeks, I would be lynched.

What pieces of advice do you have for others who’re thinking about Chatter?

• Don’t be complacent and under-manage the deployment process of Chatter just because Chatter is easy to use. It’s a powerful tool, but there isn’t a lot of collateral/training/tutorials on rolling out the tool, so take the time to think about and define how/when to use Chatter for your users.
• Embrace the credo “less is more” - don’t try to make every object in your Salesforce org a participant in the conversation!
• Provide clear guidance for when to use Chatter relative to other tools (e.g. IM, email, Salesforce Reports…)
• Preview Chatter to management teams separately prior to release so they know what to expect and can set the proper guidelines for their teams

Many thanks to Bern for a lively and insightful discussion. We're excited about many more of these and learning from you, our customers! If you'd like to be a part of this series, please leave a comment below or email us.

"Single largest opportunity in cloud computing" - Blogging for Computerworld

Ryan Nichols

Last week, I was flattered to help host over 100 leading cloud providers, consumers, and thought leaders for a "Cloud Leadership Summit" in San Francisco. Processing all the interesting ideas from the event will keep me busy for a couple of weeks, but I wanted to get started exploring a concept presented by one of the keynote speakers -- Daryl Plummer, Chief Gartner Fellow. The concept is a cloud service brokerage, which he calls "the single largest revenue growth opportunity in cloud computing, bar none."

The goal of the event was to move beyond "cloud 101" and explore the issues faced by enterprises taking their second, third and fourth step to the public cloud.

"Adoption of the cloud is rising rapidly-- there's no sign that it's going back. We have to think about how will we deal with this." Plummer asked the audience, "How many of you think that in the next five years, you will be using less than 5 cloud services? Less than 50? More than likely, you will be dealing with hundreds of cloud services."

That message resonated with this crowd -- led by CIOs from companies like RehabCare and Brady who are already consuming dozens of cloud services from one or more cloud platforms, and are wresting with cross-cloud identity, security, and data integration.

Read more here....

Introducing CloudWorks - Delivering on the Promise of the Cloud

Narinder Singh

Today is one of the most significant days in Appirio’s history. We’re announcing the launch of Appirio CloudWorks (video). In many ways, this launch sums up what we’ve learned over the past four years.

A lot of our assumptions have changed along the way. When we started Appirio in 2006, we believed that on-demand applications were the future of enterprise IT today, we know it and have the evidence from over 700 cloud projects that foreshadow how powerful a truth it will be for an entire industry.

Freed from the constraints of on-premise applications, both IT and business people have become more productive. Business people can access information anywhere and IT can stop running infrastructure and partner more closely with the business. An inspiring example is our customer, RehabCare, who is using the power of the cloud to transform the healthcare industry.

While the impact that cloud applications and platforms have already had is amazing, there are some challenges ahead. Like enterprise applications of the past, cloud applications need to be brought together with each other to create complete solutions for business people. This need is only growing as enterprises move more of their business to the cloud.

According to data from Appirio’s soon-to-be-released survey of 150 cloud adopters, cloud applications will play an increasingly important role in enterprise IT. Forty-five percent of cloud adopters say they plan to have the majority of their IT in the cloud within one year, and 68 percent say this will happen in three years. And while more than 70 percent of cloud adopters said reducing SaaS silos is a priority to increase value and impact of their cloud applications, only four percent had fully integrated them. Forty percent cite existing technology limitations as a reason.

Cloud applications have changed our expectations of applications both in terms of usability and agility, but unfortunately the same cannot be said of the technology available to bring them together. We’ve found in engagement after engagement that we were using tools labeled as being cloud focused but were shackled by also serving the lowest common denominator, i.e. on-premise applications. Traditional integration tools are optimized to extract data from enterprise applications that are designed not to share information. They fall far short of delivering solutions to the business. Trying to build cross-cloud solutions that bring together information across cloud applications is far more expensive and challenging than it should be - especially when compared to how much better cloud apps are than what came before.

Learning from our experiences over the past 4 years, as well as in prior lives at SAP, Borland and webMethods, we realized that an entirely new approach was needed to bring cloud applications together in a way that unlocks their potential rather than stifling it. Our objectives were simple:

• Be as user-centric and agile as cloud applications themselves
• Make it easy to deliver solutions that bring relevant information from cloud applications directly to business people
• Take advantage of community-based innovation and public cloud infrastructure

With CloudWorks, we believe we have achieved these objectives. CloudWorks is cloud broker technology, delivered as a service, that unifies identity, security, data, context and common business objects across leading cloud applications. CloudWorks makes it possible to build solutions that bring the right information from across your cloud applications to your business people, when they need it, regardless of where they are.

We’ve packaged solutions for common scenarios, including SalesWorks, which delivers customer information to sales people in context, as they work in their email, calendar or mobile device. For example, an email from a prospect automatically brings in information about campaigns they’ve responded to. A calendar appointment shows the latest whitepaper that the prospect you’re meeting with has downloaded. A mobile application automatically brings up the latest Chatter on a project as you enter a customer’s office building. These are just a few examples of what’s possible today with CloudWorks.

Today’s announcement is the first step in the journey toward a truly cloud-powered business. We’re very excited for the days ahead!

Appirio Partners with Workday - The Next Step in the Journey to the Cloudsourced Enterprise

Chris Barbin

It’s with great excitement that we “officially” announce our new partnership with Workday and the formation of a dedicated Workday practice. Appirio’s Workday practice will be led by two members of my management team, Jennifer Taylor who formerly led Appirio HR and Lori Asburry, who previously led our West coast delivery team. Over the last four years, Jennifer and Lori have helped Appirio recruit and build a team of very talented cloud consultants that have successfully completed more than 700 projects that have moved almost 400,000 users to cloud applications and platforms. We’re very excited to now bring our cloud expertise and innovation to the Workday ecosystem, and look forward to the same type of success with Workday customers.

Appirio began with the mission of accelerating enterprise adoption of the cloud (which we called on-demand in 2006), and made the conscious choice to focus on a small set of strategic partners who were leaders in their space and driving the industry. We’ve since centered our efforts around salesforce.com, Google Apps and Amazon Web Services, and are now thrilled to add Workday to that list.

A lot of things have changed since 2006. Salesforce is now a $1B+ company. Google Apps is now being used by 25 million people and has been broadly adopted even by notoriously conservative government agencies. And an increasing number of large enterprises are moving their core applications, and their most sensitive data, to the cloud with Workday. The notion of a cloudsourced enterprise which was fanciful for a company of reasonable size in 2006 is now very much within the realm of possibility.

There’s no question now that enterprises are going to move the core of their business to the cloud. But at the core of any business are people and financials, two areas that have long been the strongholds of companies like SAP and Oracle. Since 2005, Workday has led the charge into the very core of the enterprise. Their success with companies like Flextronics, Commerce Bank and Chiquita proves that customers are not only willing, but keen to finally transition to modern applications for HCM and financial management. We’re excited to join the movement.

Appirio will offer a complete set of solutions to help enterprises make the most of Workday, from migration and integration services that help customers successfully adopt Workday to solutions that bring Workday information together with other cloud applications (more on this soon). In addition, Appirio is now using Workday(for HCM and financials), along with Salesforce and Google to run our own business.

With Salesforce, Google Apps and Workday as a foundation, a completely different type of model for enterprise applications is within reach - agile, user-centric, innovative, and mobile - and we’re excited to help make this vision a reality for our customers!

Mythbuster Monday (Part 6 of the Series): Cloud Computing is Only For Cost Cutting

Mark Koenig

Some myths start out being true and become false over time. Today’s myth - “the only reason to move to the cloud is to cut costs” - is a good example. In the early days of SaaS, adoption was driven primarily by a need to cut costs. Sometimes this was expressly stated as a need to reduce the tangible, direct costs (hardware plus software licensing and maintenance) associated with an application, or the desire to opt out of costly upgrade cycles. Other times, it was a softer goal of simplifying the software environment, and with it the cost of managing complexity. Regardless, the initial value proposition of cloud computing was seen primarily as cost reduction, and for some, that remains the primary driver to move to the cloud.

As I’ve written before, there is nothing wrong with “better, faster and cheaper.” But that is only a part of the cloud computing story. While cost reduction remains a key component of the cloud computing value proposition, agility is an equally if not more important reason to invest in cloud computing solutions. This has been supported in a number of research reports coming out. For example, Sandhill reached out to more than 500 IT executives in their “Leaders in the Cloud” survey and found that 49% of participants mentioned “business agility” as a driver of cloud adoption, as compared with 46% who mentioned “cost efficiency”. Appirio’s soon-to-be-published “State of the Cloud” report had similar findings (more on that soon).

The cloud’s agility benefits were made clear to me during a recent client requirements workshop. The workshop was originally conceived as an opportunity to finalize requirements for a prototype of a new cloud application. However, the VP of the business unit had just that week communicated a change in their go-to-market strategy for 2011, so the meeting agenda quickly changed to address the impact of the new strategy across the client’s cloud applications. By the end of the meeting the client team had laid out a plan to modify their applications, including the new prototype, identified the new reports it would need to modify its environment, and validated that these changes could be made in time for the start of the new fiscal year. In contrast, they said the last they went through such a strategic shift, they had to delay the roll-out by three months: they needed the extra time to modify the on-premise application environment that they were running their business on at the time.

When we work with our clients to build a roadmap and business case for cloud investments, we consistently find that the business benefits are often times orders of magnitude more than the cost savings. It is the combination of business agility and cost savings the cloud-model provides that forms the foundation for innovation and business transformation. Companies that fail to recognize this will sub-optimize their cloud investments - and risk being left behind by more nimble competitors.