In my last post, we learned that services are only like products if you are willing to oversimplify them. And if you oversimplify them, you can miss out on business opportunities.
Services (actions supported by things) differ in several important ways from products (things supported by actions). While product options are generally well defined up front by the manufacturer, customers for services want to mix and match pieces of different services and essentially create their own new service. The definition of the service can easily become fuzzier and fuzzier as you serve more customers. Customers know that customizing a mass-produced product is a challenge, but they think, surely it’s easy to fine-tune a service. It doesn’t come pre-formed in a box, after all.
Monthly Archives: December 2013
SYS-CON.tv Interview: The End of the Beginning
“We’re here to remind people that the little thing called the Internet is something that you should be dealing with essentially, especially as you’re deploying an application and you have users who are trying to access it globally,” observed Gary Ballabio, Product Line Director responsible for Akamai’s Enterprise Cloud Solutions portfolio, in this SYS-CON.tv interview at the 13th International Cloud Expo®, held Nov 4–7, 2013, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.
SYS-CON.tv Interview: The Performance Cloud
“We are now focusing our hybrid cloud platform on our public cloud, so we are looking at launching a new performance servers specifically for public cloud applications,” explained Lisa Larson, VP of Enterprise Cloud Solutions for Rackspace, in this SYS-CON.tv interview at the 13th International Cloud Expo®, held Nov 4–7, 2013, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.
A Rock Star Faculty, Top Keynotes, Sessions, and Top Delegates!
Cloud Expo® 2014 New York, June 10-12, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY, will feature technical sessions from a rock star conference faculty and the leading Cloud industry players in the world.
SYS-CON.tv Interview: The Performance Cloud
“We are now focusing our hybrid cloud platform on our public cloud, so we are looking at launching a new performance servers specifically for public cloud applications,” explained Lisa Larson, VP of Enterprise Cloud Solutions for Rackspace, in this SYS-CON.tv interview at the 13th International Cloud Expo®, held Nov 4–7, 2013, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.
A Rock Star Faculty, Top Keynotes, Sessions, and Top Delegates!
Cloud Expo® 2014 New York, June 10-12, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY, will feature technical sessions from a rock star conference faculty and the leading Cloud industry players in the world.
Benefits and Economics of Strong Authentication in the Cloud
As web applications and cloud services continue to proliferate, identity theft, cyber fraud, cyber bullying, and simple misuse of confidential information online expand to chronic levels. Yet cloud providers are expected to ensure high security while maintaining a convenient user experience. MasterCard and Visa spend over $1 billion each year to fight identity theft and web companies are increasingly the subject of class action lawsuits due to online security breaches. Still, hundreds of cloud applications and portals are being hacked monthly leaving millions of passwords and confidential records in the hands of cyber fraudsters.
Recently, many cloud users have started to realize that security in the cloud is, indeed, a serious issue. This trend led ASPs, cloud providers, and enterprises to actively search for more convenient methods of securing the identity of their cloud users with strong authentication. While there are a number of such solutions in the market today, not all “strong” authentication methods are strong enough to stop hackers.
AppZero Names Modernization as 2014 Top Enterprise IT Priority
AppZero, the fastest, most flexible way to move server applications, announced today its predictions for top Enterprise IT priorities as we head into 2014. Based on its research and work within the industry, AppZero declares modernization as the top priority for any Enterprise IT department.
As Windows Server 2003 reaches end of support in July 2015, enterprises need to move their applications onto a newer operating system, or find themselves at risk with no patches or security updates. According to a recent survey produced by AppZero, industry experts estimate that there are more than 10 million machines still running Windows Server 2003. AppZero has the only automated tool on the market to migrate applications onto newer operating systems.
AppZero Names Modernization as 2014 Top Enterprise IT Priority
AppZero, the fastest, most flexible way to move server applications, announced today its predictions for top Enterprise IT priorities as we head into 2014. Based on its research and work within the industry, AppZero declares modernization as the top priority for any Enterprise IT department.
As Windows Server 2003 reaches end of support in July 2015, enterprises need to move their applications onto a newer operating system, or find themselves at risk with no patches or security updates. According to a recent survey produced by AppZero, industry experts estimate that there are more than 10 million machines still running Windows Server 2003. AppZero has the only automated tool on the market to migrate applications onto newer operating systems.
How Cloud Is the Zipcar of Computing
At a pre-conference Meetup recently, one of the organizers waxed poetic about how the cloud is changing how companies do business. His big example was ZipCar, the car sharing company. His example was how Zipcar uses cloud to deal with data.
But, I think he missed the bigger analogy there: how cloud is changing IT the way Zip car forever changed car ownership.
Before Zipcar, a few large firms dominated the car buying market. If you wanted a car you went to a dealership and negotiated a long term contract. You took on the responsibility for owning, maintaining, and paying down the costs for the life of your vehicle. Your car selection was also limited by what the local dealership had on the lot that day. The cost to buy, own, and maintain a car kept many people from having the mobility of a car.
Red Hat Releases OpenShift Enterprise 2
Red Hat, Inc., on Tuesday announced the general availability of OpenShift Enterprise 2, the latest version of its on-premise private Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) offering. With OpenShift Enterprise 2, customers can increase the velocity, efficiency and scalability of their IT service delivery, drive faster development of new applications and business services and reduce time-to-market. With new features – including datacenter infrastructure integration, an advanced administration console, support for even more programming languages, and new collaboration capabilities – and expanded global availability, a wider range of developers can achieve the benefits of private PaaS technology for their cloud deployments.
How Cloud Is the Zipcar of Computing
At a pre-conference Meetup recently, one of the organizers waxed poetic about how the cloud is changing how companies do business. His big example was ZipCar, the car sharing company. His example was how Zipcar uses cloud to deal with data.
But, I think he missed the bigger analogy there: how cloud is changing IT the way Zip car forever changed car ownership.
Before Zipcar, a few large firms dominated the car buying market. If you wanted a car you went to a dealership and negotiated a long term contract. You took on the responsibility for owning, maintaining, and paying down the costs for the life of your vehicle. Your car selection was also limited by what the local dealership had on the lot that day. The cost to buy, own, and maintain a car kept many people from having the mobility of a car.