Obama’s in-sourcing is just a political rhetoric

Posted on January 16, 2012 by Tarry Singh

“You’ve heard of outsourcing. Well, these companies are insourcing,” the president said. “That’s exactly the kind of commitment to country that we need–especially right now, when we’re in a make-or-break moment for the middle class and those aspiring to get to the middle class here in the United States.”

Obama added: “When a lot of folks are still looking for work, now is the time for us to step on the gas.” And while he gave a nod to what he said were the “the bottom line” benefits of sourcing domestically, Obama asserted “a moral case” for insourcing.

Great sound bites, especially in a political season where attention is focused on 99 percenters, Occupy protesters, and general class warfare. But here’s the reality: There’s no broad trend toward insourcing, but there is a recognition that the pressure to cut costs over the past decade led many companies to push the envelope on offshoring a bit too far, and that it’s time for some rebalancing.

That’s a point on which executives at both North American and India-based IT companies I’ve talked with agree. CGI Group is a midsize tech services company based in Quebec, with offices in more than 40 U.S. locations as well as centers in Bangalore, Hyderabad, and Mumbai, India. CGI employs roughly 10,000 workers in the U.S. and 20,000 elsewhere.

Of late, the company has been opening development centers in small U.S. towns such as Belton, Texas, Lebanon, Va., and Troy, Ala. CGI U.S. president George Schindler, who attended Obama’s insourcing summit, told me that such locales are becoming more cost competitive with India and offer a pool of untapped IT talent that can add some geographic balance to CGI’s workforce.

Source

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Could cloud computing drive vendor lock-in?

Posted on January 15, 2012 by Tarry Singh

“However, if you’re looking at private cloud solutions that are based on technology that locks you into a specific storage vendor or a specific network vendor, it is creating a situation where the trend ticks back a little bit,” he added.

Implementing a cloud solution means buying into the specific protocols, standards and tools of the cloud vendor, making future migration difficult and expensive. This is largely because standards are still being formed, and cloud computing is not yet mature enough for customers to demand vendor independence.

Cloud providers are in no rush to make things more open, as keeping things proprietary locks consumers into their environment.

Meanwhile, the common belief that cloud computing saves organisations money is a “massive misconception,” according to English. On a compute for compute basis, there is often no difference in price, he said, and many businesses forget to factor in the cost of migrating off the cloud platform later down the line.

There are of course good reasons to consider cloud computing, such as the resilience it offers and the opportunity it provides to move quickly and flex capacity up and down. However, organisations should not think of cloud computing as a cost saving move, said English.

More here

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The Aldridge Company Signs MOU to Move Chinese Companies to the Cloud

Posted on January 12, 2012 by Tarry Singh

The Aldridge Company, a leading provider, consultant and integrator of Information Technology and Cloud Computing solutions for SMBs, today announced it has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Shanghai Lingang Economic Development (Group) Co., Ltd. (SLED) to help advance cloud computing in the Pudong district of Shanghai. The Aldridge Company is among a dozen organizations joining forces to form the Shanghai Lingang Free Trade Port Economic Development, which will develop a new state-of-the-art data center designed for cloud computing.

Under the terms of the MOU, The Aldridge Company will offer consulting and operational services for cloud computing as customers move into the data center. In addition to opening the data center, the development intends to act as a business incubator for its partners in the Pudong district of Shanghai.

“We are proud to be helping to bring the benefits of cloud computing to business and government organizations in Eastern China and view this partnership as a key step forward in our international growth,” said David L. Aldridge, president of The Aldridge Company. “This is the first of what we hope will be many new opportunities in China and elsewhere as organizations around the world embrace the cloud.”

More here.

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Acer, Lenovo to launch Cloud sync services

Posted on January 12, 2012 by Tarry Singh

When Apple launched iCloud last year, many solution providers asked Channelnomics how it would affect cloud computing. The answer is coming this year at the annual CES trade show in Las Vegas, where Lenovo and Acer are launching their own versions of device-synchronizing cloud services.

The services by both PC vendors is primarily aimed at consumers, but will undoubtedly find their way into the business market as users continue to press for greater use of their personal devices – smartphones and tablets – for work purposes.

The services are very similar in scope and functionality. Both will essentially store and backup files – including photos and music – between PCs and other devices, such as smartphones, tablets and ultralight notebooks. They will automatically synchronize files between different devices, decreasing dependence on embedded local storage in devices and enabling access from any place at any time.

More here

 

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Hyderabad-based DeskStream acquires Northern Irish cloud start-up WorldDesk

Posted on January 12, 2012 by Tarry Singh

LAS VEGAS – DeskStream Inc., a leading provider of desktop virtualisation software, has today announced the signing of a definitive agreement to acquire a prominent Northern Irish start-up in the cloud computing and virtualisation software space. DeskStream, with development centres in California, U.S.A., and Hyderabad, India, will acquire Belfast-based start-up,WorldDesk Ltd. The deal was announced at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.

The financial terms of the deal, which will close in the first quarter of 2012, have not been disclosed but the acquisition will see DeskStream adopt the WorldDesk name and branding with immediate effect. DeskStream was founded by Rao Cherukuri in 2007.

 

With the acquisition of WorldDesk, DeskStream will take control of a unique cloud-based workspace delivery platform prototype built on Dropbox but is capable of being extended to leverage other cloud storage providers. DeskStream will also add customer support services, marketing expertise and additional software development capabilities. The deal will see the employees of WorldDesk, including co-founders Jonathan Chesney and Claire Moore, join DeskStream. WorldDesk, founded in 2010, will continue to be based in Belfast.

 

Speaking following the announcement, DeskStream CEO, Rao Cherukuri,commented: “We are delighted with today’s announcement and the addition of WorldDesk to the DeskStream family. The combination of DeskStream’s thin client technology and the work WorldDesk has done on the management and delivery of workspaces from  the cloud has the potential to transform the mobile computing market.

 

“This acquisition speaks to the strength of our business and the sector as a whole. We are already experiencing a sea change in how people view cloud computing and desktop virtualisation. The acquisition of WorldDesk will help us to capitalise on the opportunities that result from this.”

 

Speaking following the announcement, WorldDesk co-founders, Jonathan Chesney and Claire Moore, said: “We established WorldDesk in effort to revolutionise how organisations, individuals and, in particular, schools use computers. We wanted to fundamentally alter the norm of how people think of, and use, their computer desktop. DeskStream shares this vision and has placed a great deal of confidence in our mission. We are delighted with today’s announcement and we look forward to taking WorldDesk to the next level.”

ENDS

12.01.2012

Notes to Editors:

 

1.     DeskStream is a Silicon Valley start-up, with development centers in Menlo Park, California, U.S.A., and Hyderabad, India. DeskStream was founded by Rao Cherukuri in early 2007 and operates in the desktop virtualisation and cloud computing space. The DeskStream vision is to create a world where anyone can execute their personalized desktops — anywhere, anytime, and on any device.

DeskStream’s founder, Rao Cherukuri, is a serial entrepreneur and Silicon Valley veteran, with more than 20 years of industry experience. Rao’s track record with successful start-ups includes co-founding Flow Wise Networks in 1996, which was later acquired by Network Equipment Technologies, and co-founding Ramp Networks, which went public in 1999 and was acquired by Nokia in 2001. Rao’s most recent venture, Euclid, raised more than $37 milion in venture capital and was sold to E4E in 2005.

For further background and comment on DeskStream please visit:www.deskstream.com

2.     Belfast-based WorldDesk was founded by Claire Moore and Jonathan Chesney in early 2010. WorldDesk’s mission is to completely revolutionise how individuals, organisations and schools, in particular, use computers and todeliver a personal desktop experience to every school child in the world by 2030. WorldDesk believes that while it’s not always practical to give every student or individual an actual computer, their platform can offer everyone a personalised computer experience; from the CEO of a Fortune 500 to a school child in Africa.

For further background and comment on WorldDesk please visit:www.myworlddesk.com

3.     Press kit materials are available at: http://myworlddesk.com/about_worlddesk

4.     WorldDesk is among the exhibitors at this week’s International CES. The team is located at Booth Number 74110 in Eureka Park for the duration of the week.

5.     The images accompanying this release are made available for press use only and show DeskStream CEO, Rao Cherukuri, with WorldDesk co-founders, Jonathan Chesney and Claire Moore, at the signing of the definitive agreement in Belfast.

 

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McKinsey getting in sourcing advisory? What do they know about it?

Posted on November 15, 2011 by Tarry Singh

I am a great fan of McKinsey. I love reading their Quarterlies. One of the greatest leaders of McKinsey’s , you might almost want to call him the father of McKinsey was Marvin Bower. No, not James O’McKinsey but Marvin. Marvin spent his last years telling how McKinsey should stay away from temptation. Anyways ode to Marvin is not what we are doing here.

McKinsey hd launched a program called Lean IT, which they normally refer to the “Toyota Way but for IT’ when I was working for my past employer. They have run through the program and its all done and did it really turn that organization competitive? Not really. It got thin and lean.

Working in the management consulting we started coming across McKinsey as a competitor. In some places we defeated them as well! Why? Not because they weren’t good, we were better!

Why again? Because global sourcing advisory is our DNA, not that of McKinsey. Today I was talking to someone about this large Danish client who McKinsey helped with its Lean IT and also went around doing both applications and Infrastructure sourcing advice. After all the years it turned out that all those excel sheets really didn’t really get the gist of it all. 2-3 years down the road, the client is struggling.

Funny thing is that one of the top key executive of the firm which got the outsourcing order was complaining to me that if McKinsey gets in, then they always consistently give deal away to HP and IBM.

Our founders have amazing skills that they can leverage to TRULY help clients get the RIGHT deal. It’s nto about the frameworks, excelsheets alone, its about true understanding. This is the only reason when we get into a boardroom we leave an impression any client would die for extra 30 minutes. And I’m talking about the truly connected clients. There are a lot of those who are disconnected from reality and sure enough any advice is good enough. They insist “we only work with McKinsey!” Hey, McKinsey is not Louis Vutton! [I dont care if that CIO is frowning now]

It is not about lean IT, its about understanding the sourcing eco-system. It is not about the frameworks and information collection, its about the KNOWLEDGE and EXPERIENCE. Banks dont need Lean IT, Banks need elastic IT! Banks dont need to have Lean IT to fix defect bugs, they need to understand why soft-aspects such as relationships and another xx number of sub-factors that affect the defects in Application development.

I read this article and I felt sad. Sad because I could write more and I am not even as experienced as my other colleagues.(https://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Tackling_the_roots_of_underperformance_in_banks_IT_2883). This is what CIOs are buying? and McKinsey, there are niche-players that have performance monitors that do a lot more cooler things per industry vertical.

Marvin Bower always believed that you should stick to what you know and don’t get into what you don;t know. He always resisted all the temptation when Booz Allen Hamilton were going down the slippery slope. He died in 2003. Had he lived, he would have fought for his brand.

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Father

Posted on March 13, 2011 by Tarry Singh

10,000 suns…
10,000 sons…marching
marching across the broken patch of land
breaking through to the east
the great Aryan had arrived

Took a walk…miles and miles
Feet were torn like paper beneath
You know, the future’s burning
Behind the weary eyes, those curtains
A parting pain coming…its coming

Can’t look back…can’t look back
Future’s burning, future’s calling
Sea of rain, showering from under
Walk is what I must, walk is what we took
For it is who I am…who we are

Stranger at the railway platform
Could you see my future burning?
My false belief, my visitations
True beliefs of the devisiter
You saw them all, I see them now

Born out of the throes
Into the hands of you
Fell as if he was fallen
Comes a ray of hope
The one that he had departed from

Life you gave me, life he gave us
World you gave us, world that took us
Flew like birds, chirped and chirped
Buds open up to the sun
Drink the rays…so hungry

Furry little you, there are so many
Hands like balloons… so are mine
Crawl and explore, son
Your walk to is awaiting
Your future too will burn for you

As the world turns
As tides ebb… my chariot awaits
The walk won’t end
10,000 suns await
while you are my only one

(Dedicated to my Dad)

 

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Clouds in 2011: A year of Facebook IPO, Apple Online Services, GroupOn and what not!

Posted on January 9, 2011 by Tarry Singh


All,

First of all best wishes for 2011!

To make our group more engaging we will be writing each week and discuss at large of what we are seeing in the market based on the actions our clients are undertaking.

We, at QS Advisory, have seen a dramatic traction. We will soon be also publishing several books on thought leadership, emerging models and rules of engagement.

Topics we will engage in:

  • - Keeping track of the buyer traction towards the cloud
  • - Discuss the CSM model — Cloud Service Management and why it is not ITSM
  • - Discuss why business alignment with IT will pass the “analysis-paralysis” chasm and become reality
  • - Why security and privacy will be paramount unlike in the past for enterprises — in the age of clouds?
  • - Social Computing and the age of SuperSearch — we will discuss the Query 1.0 Google), Query 2.0(Amazon) and Query 3.0(Facebook)
  • - New Global Economic System comes of age with GroupOn, Facebook, Zynga etc going to the stock market

and a lot more as we see the world turn faster as data churns quicker and in much larger volumes in the global data buckets or as Google calls WSCs (Warehouse Scale Computers).

We are entering an age (2010-2020) of a typical active-active psychology, where the engagement rules are changing. Basic human psychological actions will be “optimized” by the omnipresent digital age where commercial decisions — whether individual, group or organizational — will be measured/weighed on relevance, referenceability and comparability.

And all this will require a platform where the engine designed to handle those “transactions” based on atleast these two key drivers — immediacy and brevity. These platforms will become paramount for procurement teams within all firms, be it pharmaceuticals, energy, public, governmental, telco, all of them.

In the past year or so, businesses have spent good amount of time exploring twitter, facebook and on the parallel end building their own social platforms. 2010-2015 will see this being used as part of a key strategy and will be an esential part of the board room discussions.

So what will be required from the buyer-supplier ecosystem in this, now-become reality global sourced society?

- New breed of business-technology leaders will be required

- New breed of consultative engagements will be needed to facilitate this big changes

A new breed of buyer is already born and we all have to adapt top his/her choices. S/he is in Brazil, China, India, Russia, Africa, Europe or North America. S/he is probably also in your house.

Wishing you all a successful year 2011!

P.S: If you are bored and have some time to kill, you can watch my online generic cloud computing presentation on BrightTalk (http://www.brighttalk.com/webcast/1467), alternatively you can download the slide deck (http://www.ideationcloud.com/2009/01/29/download-my-brighttalk-cloud-computing-the-new-new-deal-here/)

Thanks much and be good to each other!


Tarry Singh

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Dear CEO — Have you thought of Future of Work and IT’s new new role in it?

Posted on November 21, 2010 by Tarry Singh

While CEOs are sending their executives to events filled with non-sensical laughter, wine and plastic award ceremonies, I was tempted to add this to the story where the world is changing rapidly and how some industries might face extinction. So consider this an open letter to the CEOs. CEOs of Telcos, consumer products and even firms that sell milk, chocolates, leather goods, transportation, steel, basics, life sciences, pharma — well practically everything!

CIOs who are prioritizing are key associates to CEOs/CFOs

Like when we had organized our second buyer private forum in Zurich, one of the CIO told me that only one person was allowed to go from the company and since that person had to do reposting back to the CFO and/or CIO, in her case CFO, she preferred to be there herself to truly understand what her peers were doing and adapting to the emergence of clouds. She also told me that she was tired of visiting those CxO events where speakers from Davos or high-profile economists came but in the end it was a waste of time.

This was a CIO of a firm managing €200 Bn worth assets!

That got me thinking… Me and my co-author Mr. Yara [of "Smart Metering the Clouds", a research vision paper which you can get from the IEEE website] have had several discussions in the past and we continue to share many mega-game-changing visions once in a while on what is really the future of the “providers” of these services and what happens to the “buyers” when this mega-shift is upon us. He also wrote an article on my blog on the “Rise of Clouds”http://bit.ly/9O57tY which I recommend you to read.

Advent of Clouds and industries to be affected directly by it

A. Post Sector

We are clearly seeing that the traditional brink-n-mortar approach is dying. Let’s not deny it, it is really dying! Post industry is one perfect example. Look at the dutch TNT post or belgian Bpost or any other postal firm, they want to embrace the social web but the whole ecosystem is changing. The question if the brick and mortar approach can continue is not really the question anymore, turning around while re-establishing

B. Media firms – Print, Ink vs iPad, SmartPads

Same is to be said of the media firms that sell magazines serving to the local or regional public. They too suffer to accept reality and adapt to changing environment. Many of such firms are going through a major revamp across europe and we have witnessed to highly publicized boardroom dramas where executives have failed to propose a internet-based strategy vs the print/ink. Such firms risk existence with the advent of mobile devices should they not change now!

C. Telecom providers

I was reading this article on how Apple is slowly taking over control of the consumer’s wishes by winning their hearts with their design. So is Google with its extremely smart and instant services. Both these firms and also lets not forget Facebook, which came out of nowhere to increase competition or at-least add the competition.

What does that mean to telecom providers? I think telcos have a lot to lose but also a lot to gain. Telcos willing to lose non-core assets — such as irrelevant products/services — and eventually start moving aggressively towards consumer services by servicizing and productizing the “new” needs, are poised for a future where they still will emerge as survivors and live to fight another market/consumer share battle, the ones who don’t will witness a painful demise. So instead of me doing gloom-n-doom think of this:
- What will you do when Google would have launched the free, 100Gbits network, all free?
- What will you do in Apple offers its own telenet services for free to its growing eco-system and subsidization might become a non-issue altogether.
- What if Facebook launches its telenet services with packed collab-based services, mail is the beginning of the rest

So clearly the playing field is being leveled, Where are you?

P.S: Part 2 will discuss other industries affected indirectly like Healthcare, IT Service providers etc.

Posted in 2010, Cloud, Computing, Economy, Emerging Trends, Globalization, Ideation, Markets, Strategy | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Global Sourcing with Cloud Computing and Virtualization

Posted on October 28, 2010 by Tarry Singh


Normally cloud computing is still being seen as a fad, a hype word and something you’d associate with the Homer Simpson’s “Do’h” the minute you hear someone talking about it. Virtualization was same about 10 years ago when I started dabbling with this little tool.

10 years ahead we have had two economic recessions, 9/11, Iraq/Afgan war and obviously the star of it all the Great Recession, which could have been depressions if TARP etc wasn’t put in place by countries on a global level.

Today I see cloud computing or actually to be very fair, the Internet-Based Computing, still as a hype when it comes to the enterprise. It works excellent on a consumer level, where you can challenge suppliers on price, compare prices and get the best product. This has happened for a long time with players like Amazon doing rather well by selling you cheap stuff while pushing their suppliers under extreme pressure. End result? You and I could buy cheaper prices.

For instance, at Quantum Step we were holding our private-buyer forum at Renaissance Hotel, at Zurich where we had several large companies such as Roche, Novartis, UBS, Credit Suisse, Syngenta, Swiss Re, Lonza etc. In the hotel I used the flexible price-per-minute to check-in for my flight. That was great! I spent 4 minutes and paid and left.

Now large global companies are engaging with us because we are carefully evaluating the effect of the clouds/internet for large enterprise that have traditionally been in a typical brick-and-mortar business mode. That is changing slowly although the security, privacy, transparency and control are still key issues on the internet.

Whether you are in oil/gas, chemicals, plastics, pharma, steel, it really comes down to sourcing your activities and work in a dynamically evolving world economy. You cannot just shift your employees or work to India alone, you must adopt an “elastic strategy” where your growth tells you where you are and opportunities tell you where you should be.

We will soon be publishing our new book called “Emerging Models in Infrastructure Sourcing” where we have invited several players from all sectors to participate in it.

To conclude

The world is changing dramatically. Workers are getting mobile and entrepreneurial. Enterprises cannot solely rely on technology or some leaders but generally cross-functionally collaborative workforce that is “thinking global sourcing” in the way they conduct business in public and private lives.

Old models and old advisories are struggling to find a place in this new emerging world where countries like India, China, Brasil etc will be the growth-motors for the global economy.

Posted in 2010, Cloud, Computing, DataCenter, Economy, Globalization, Strategy, Virtualization | Tagged , , | Leave a comment