How Coronavirus Caught Organizational IT Unprepared

The Coronavirus (COVID-19) hit the world hard without warning and spread quickly across countries and continents. In their attempts to limit the spread of the virus, governments and individuals have changed the way we interacted with each other, and the way we worked and did business. This had a significant impact on the organizational IT systems, their infrastructure and applications. Unfortunately, many organizations were caught by surprise and were ill-prepared to handle this new environment, which required a massive and immediate transition to a work-from-home model. Continue reading “How Coronavirus Caught Organizational IT Unprepared”

“Crossing the chasms” – Yes, there are more than one

The classical “crossing the chasm” model ignores critical challenges in the product life cycle. There are more than one chasms you need to cross on your way to success.

Since Geoffrey Moore introduced the concept of the Chasm for marketing and selling high-tech products in 1991, the conversation was mostly focused on moving from Early Adopters to Mainstream customers, and building strategies that will enable that success. The planning was aimed to take a fully developed, market-ready product to the market, and winning various market segments and customer types while building the organization to growth. Not surprisingly, the sub-title of Moore’s book is: “Marketing and selling disruptive products to mainstream customers”. He focused his book on the marketing and selling of completed products and not on the development of those products.  This was illustrated in the well-known chasm drawing that presented the chasm between the early adopters and the mainstream customers.  Continue reading ““Crossing the chasms” – Yes, there are more than one”

Multi-Cloud or Cross-Cloud Strategy? Which one do you really need? – Part 2

Implementing multi-cloud or cross-cloud strategy requires proper planning and using the right tools and environments to make it viable. It won’t happen by itself.

In Part 1 we compared multi-cloud with cross-cloud strategies and have identified the reasons to use each of them, with the complexities they introduce. In order to properly enable seamless operation between the clouds, multiple technologies and architectures can be used. Continue reading “Multi-Cloud or Cross-Cloud Strategy? Which one do you really need? – Part 2”

When should you not listen to your customers’ requests?

Product managers are always taught to drive their product direction based on their customers’ requirements, but that is not always the right approach.

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According to a famous legend, Henry Ford once said: “If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse”. Although it is likely that Henry Ford have never really said those exact words (see here), they represent an approach that many innovators (including Ford) took, and used to change the world. Continue reading “When should you not listen to your customers’ requests?”

Three assumptions you cannot make about Public Clouds

Public clouds provide great value to many use cases, but do not forget to protect your data – it will not happen by itself.

The public cloud has transformed the way we use and consume IT resources. It also impacted the way we develop applications and how those interact with the underlying infrastructure on which they run. While public clouds are attractive for many users and organizations due to the many benefits they bring, several myths have emerged about data protection in the cloud, which should be understood by anyone using public clouds. Continue reading “Three assumptions you cannot make about Public Clouds”

What do Public Clouds and Mobile Phones Have In Common?

As organizations benefit from new capabilities in the public cloud, they are willing to forego requirements and expectations they have always assume to be mandatory. Just ask the mobile phones industry.

When I talk about public clouds and how mission critical workloads are moving to run there, I am often being asked: “but how would enterprises agree to run in the public cloud, when it means they lose a lot of flexibility and control on the infrastructure, and have less optimal environment for their applications”? Continue reading “What do Public Clouds and Mobile Phones Have In Common?”