These are my notes and thoughts from the SharePoint Conference 2011 session. It was a tough call between this session and one on developing social applications for Windows Phone, but I guess I’ll have to wait for the recordings to be released.

It’s 3:30am now and I am waiting for the gym to open at 5:30am. Stupid jetlag!

Session notes

• About:
  • Presented by Jeffery Mann of Gartner Inc.
  • His focus areas = Social computing and collaboration
• Intro
  • Gartner noticing that conversations with customers about cloud are moving from What is it? To How do I start?
• Hype cycle for cloud computing
  • Most cloud computing technologies still at peak of inflated expectations
  • Dedicated email services leading into plateau of productivity
  • Cloud collaboration services borderline from Trigger to Peak of inflated expectations (2 to 5 years from main stream adoption)
• Cloud risks
  • 70% of companies with over 1000 have not yet started a cloud initiative
  • Why?
    • Security
      • This barrier can usually be overcome with detailed review
    • Compliance and risk
    • Quality and predictability of service
    • Business case costs and benefits
    • Remediation of failures
    • Align business need with actual cloud reality
  • “Expect adoption to start over the next couple of years“
• Quick tutorial
  • Gartner Cloud computing definition: “A style of computing where scalable and elastic IT related capabilities are provided as a service to customers using internet technologies”
  • 5 attributes that support outcomes
    • service based
    • Scalable & elastic
    • Shared
    • Metered by use
    • Internet based
  • 5 of cloud service models
    • Business services
    • Information services
    • Applications (SaaS)
    • App infrastructure (PaaS)
    • Infrastructure (IaaS)
• What as a service?
  • “one way to look at cloud is to think about what you don’t want to do yourself”
    • SaaS = get rid of applications
    • PaaS = get rid of middle ware
    • IaaS = get rid of servers
• Cloud email and collaboration market
  • 7 to 8 years for higher level penetration
  • Adoption by industry
    • Earlier (information not key to the industry)
      • Higher education
      • Manufacturing
      • Retail
      • Hospitality
    • Later (information is key to the industry)
      • Healthcare
      • Financial services
      • Defence
  • MS advantage = installed base and minimal change for users
  • Not many players have complete platform offerings (MS, Google, IBM)
• Cloud markets are growing with adoption
  • SaaS
    • Becoming more mainstream
    • Slightly slower IT spending ahead
    • Multi thousand seat deals becoming common
    • Market value around $15bn
  • PaaS
    • High profile BUT low revenue
    • SalesForce.com and MS adding more credibility
    • Integration as a service (brokering) is growing
    • Market value around $70mn
  • IaaS
    • Fastest growing market
    • 2014 market to be worth $10bn
• Cloud benefits
  • Shift from capacity on demand to capability on demand
  • Reduced cost of computing resources
    • “There is the potential that cloud will be able to provide at lower cost“
    • Clear line of sight to costs of computing resources
    • Cap ex to op ex
    • “We are cautious because low cost is a benefit but shouldn’t be the ONLY reason“
  • Shift from technology use to value consumption
    • Pay for what you want to do – not a piece of tech
• Face a new money reality to keep your users
  • Disconnect price from cost
    • Customers pay for parts
    • Customers trained to care about tech
    • Budget recycling
  • Reconnect price to value
    • Customers pay for what they need to do
    • Customers trained to evaluate prices in terms of outcomes
    • Providers free to spend whatever makes sense
    • Providers balance the margin between price and cost
• What are people doing?
  • Collaboration and productivity
    • Well suited to the cloud
  • Web application serving
  • Email
    • This is the current driver
  • SaaS
  • Crowd sourcing
  • Prototyping
    • Try b 4 u buy
  • Development and test
• Can your IT organisation handle a business ‘fly by’ to the cloud?
  • BU level adoption
  • 83% looking at SaaS
  • Don’t want to wait for IT
  • Rapid time to capability
  • Transparency of pricing
  • There are risks
    • Shelf ware as a service
    • Possible governance issues of application portfolio
    • Release management dictated by provider
    • Security concerns
    • Longer term TCO concerns
  • The way forward
    • There has to be a balance – you can’t forbid them from looking on the web (they will do it anyway)
    • It’s a governance issue
• Cloudy questions
  • Support manager – “Can I get rid of client installs?”
  • Owner – “How far with MS?”
  • CIO – “How can IT have a material impact on our business?”
  • Technical architect – “How do we cut out technical duplication?”
  • IT manager – “Should we be buying new tools?”
  • Business manager – “What projects should we propose to our users to generate budget?”
  • Apps Manager
• Evaluating whether SaaS is less expensive than on premise
  • Yes if…
    • Headcount reduction for functions such as SW, DB admin etc?
    • Will you reduce or avoid purchasing additional HW / SW / ?
    • Will you avoid buying additional DB or application server licenses ?
    • Will the SaaS offering provide must have functionality not available as part of your ERP suite?
  • You must identify where savings will come from – cost reduction is not automatic
• Step 1: The Mirror test
  • Look at yourself in the mirror and ask, “Are we really ready to consider the cloud for content and collaboration?”
  • IT departments can spend time and money without asking this question
  • Are the board ready to move data to someone else’s infrastructure
  • Will you be able to convince the legal department?
• Next steps after the mirror test
  • Are there specific legal, compliance or practical reasons not adopt
    • Doesn’t seem to be a law against cloud computing!
  • Decide on WHY you want to do it (identify the benefits)
  • Identify where to start (email, collaboration)
  • Find areas of least risk to try a pilot first
  • Look for vendors that match you need and want
  • Specify the criteria to move beyond the pilot
  • Move in steps; build on success
• Who should go first?
  • Straight forward OOTB requirements
  • “users need a place to put stuff”
  • Have balanced goals of flexibility, better use of resources, and cost savings
  • Greenfield or migrating from competitor
  • Organisation embraces the cloud way of working
• Who should wait?
  • Management is suspicious of the cloud or MS
  • Has complex customisations or complex apps
    • “One of the good things about O365 is that it can handle more complex environments… such as hybrid”
    • BUT don’t pick complex situations for your first projects
  • Wants to build custom apps or integration
  • Cost savings are the only driver
• How to talk to the boss
  • Compare cloud offerings to current actual situation – not what the boss thinks the situation is!
  • Don’t minimise the risks – better to raise them yourself first
  • Describe contingency and exit plans – not a leap into the abyss
  • Make sure your peers and the other leaders are behind it – not time to lead from the front

 

My thoughts…

As always the analyst sessions are amongst the best at these types of events; well presented, well structured, coherent, and most importantly you come away feeling like you’ve learnt a lot. The key messages I took from this session were:

1. Main stream cloud adoption is still some years away
2. Email services are leading the way
3. Don’t just assume that cost reductions will be realised – identify specific areas of cost and measure and estimate
4. Don’t start with anything complex
5. Get management and business buy in
6. Start with prototypes, pilots and iterate, and be clear on goals and success metrics
7. Governance will be important to prevent problems caused by business unit adoption

Most of this sounds terribly familiar from my work with clients on SharePoint; come to think of it aren’t these the same messages that we hear decade after decade about almost every new technology innovation? It all comes back to the basic questions and principles:

1. What are you trying to achieve? (business goal)
2. Why are you doing it? (business case)
3. How will you know when you’ve done it? (success metrics)
4. Keep it simple: Successful complex things usually start out as successful simple things, not many start as successful complex things (iterative approach)
5. IT projects need executive support (Change requires leadership – stability requires management)
6. Governance is key (Co-ordination)

It really is this simple! So why, oh why do organisation continue to make the same mistakes over and over again. And then act surprised and blame the media, the vendors, or the partners?

It’s no wonder that IT project failure rates have been around 70% for the last 15 years!

Rant over.

From the perspective of MS partners and their clients I inferred the following messages from the session:

1. Office365 for mail is going to be the first mainstream market
2. SharePoint Online for simple collaboration and document storage will follow a few years later
3. The Hybrid deployment options for complex solutions gives MS an edge
4. Main stream Azure adoption is probably 3-6 years away

S: