I hope you have been enjoying the Opinionated Infrastructure series over the last week or so – I have been exploring what’s going on in the world of big data and integrated systems in a video series sponsored by IBM. The first few shows came out well, but my partner in crime, uh, Benny Crime is more than capable of being a little gonzo. Me too, I guess. So anyway, I would just like to share 3 videos that we made that hopefully have an enjoyable immediacy. The last in particular… well, watch it.

So here I talk about the database market and the current disruption we’re seeing, with in memory computing meeting open source to create new challenges for the incumbent- Oracle.

Or the need to offer servers you can load on a truck and deliver to a data center as pre-integrated modular building blocks.

And finally, the green screen episode, looking at industry economic models, data, integrated systems – show me the value. The Stack is So Money: Age of Data.

This series was sponsored by IBM PureSystems. We’re running a Google Hangout to talk about opinionated infrastructure tomorrow, Wednesday October 3rd. You should check it out.

As you know, we at RedMonk like craft beer. Next week Stephen is running our second Monktoberfest, where craft beer meets craft tech, in Portland Maine. I will run the sister conference Monki Gras in London on January 31st.

There are clear parallels between the craft beer movement and what’s currently happening in tech – startup culture is growing like crazy, in brewing and software. So what’s common between them? In this video I ponder these issues over a pint. Seems appropriate to raise my glass to you all on a Friday afternoon.

Next week IBM PureSystems has a major launch, and IBM is sponsoring this Opinionated Infrastructure series to help foster a conversation behindaround it. So do you think beer and tech infrastructure are related? What can one learn from the other. The Camden Brewery which features in this video is as aggressive as any Silicon Valley startup. The guys at Brewdog also get a mention- they take gonzo marketing to a new level… its a great business, built on the foundations of a really tasty beer – Punk IPA. Craft brewers share yeast (code) and collaborate on product. They compete on implementation, not specification. The parallels work well.

So wait, IBM is sponsoring a video post about beer? Sure – IBM is also the lead sponsor for our developer events. Beer is Social. Tech is Social. IBM is Social. Its all good. I hope you enjoy this video.

Oh yeah one last thing – the launch is the week after next and while I can’t give too much away, but you can expect IBM to do something in the data space. To get your neurons firing about that why not check out yesterday’s video blog How To Not Define Big Data. We will be recording a Google Hangout with practitioners next week on October 3rd.

 

I have written a fair bit over the years about the need for IBM to simplify its products. Its an ongoing theme with me. Achieving product simplicity will require a major cultural shift however, for an organisation that celebrates its ability to deal with complex problems with complex solutions.

I am pleased therefore, that IBM is sponsoring a video series about what I call Opinionated Infrastructure – where simplification and stripping things back are key to scaling systems.

In this first episode I set out the terms for a video series which RedMonk and IBM will be running, preceding a product launch from the PureSystems line next week. I will also be chairing a Google Hangout on the 3rd. I hope you enjoy the video, and the series too.

I tried to keep the videos short, so give them a go.

Dreamforce is a big event. Crazy big. Nearly 90,000 people came to San Francisco this week for the annual celebration of all things salesforce.com.

The city shut down Howard Street between the north and south sides of the Moscone Center so that the company could pack in even more people. Salesforce did a slick job of turning a chunk of the city into a campus with Howard as its relaxing nexus. The street was laid with artificial turf, with bands jamming all day, and folks sitting on bean bags in the sun to watch keynotes on big screens, or just to chill out for a bit. I liked the casual, funky feel of it. There is more to life than software, and a nice touch was the Red Cross setup – a long table of essential items so attendees could walk the line and make a disaster readiness kit. I made one, of course. The Red Cross had lowered the barrier to participation so far that you could potentially save someone’s life just by throwing a few items in a bag.

I am pretty sure when the show is finished Salesforce CEO and chief impresario Marc Benioff will be thinking that 100,000 attendees is the target for next year. The limiting factor for scale will surely be San Francisco’s capacity more than anything else.

It’s easy to scoff at the obsession with size. Wouldn’t it be better to optimise for quality rather than quantity? Last year it seemed to me Benioff wanted to run a huge show primarily to have bragging rights over arch rivals Oracle, which first persuaded SF to close down Howard for its OpenWorld conference. But a conversation with Oren Teich from Heroku helped me see things differently. I had been a bit surprised a number of Salesforce competitors had lined up at Dreamforce 2011 to endorse the company’s Chatter platform. Oren smiled and explained that the Salesforce audience were effectively pre-qualified Cloud purchasers. With an audience that big, of course competitors wanted in, and were willing to pay for the privilege. Network scale is the charm, rather than size for its own sake.

In the press and analyst Q&A this year Benioff made a very interesting point. At most vendor conferences, the PR or analyst relations people are determined to manage your schedule, to keep different groups separate, to prevent conversations that don’t fit a specific corporate agenda. Heaven forbid an analyst would hang out with a customer un-chaperoned. Benioff said Salesforce didn’t take that approach – people were free to come and go as they please, talk to anyone, poll a customer, even, he said, “run a focus group [with my customers] while you’re here”. You have to manage your own schedule at Dreamforce – nobody is going to tell you who to talk to and when. The approach is refreshing. Benioff basically invites you to enjoy SF, rather than just Dreamforce.
Salesforce, then, is a very modern software company – and lives by many of the dictums that RedMonk recommends. The 20th century IT business was about creating barriers to entry for competitors, putting a fence around them, and locking them in with proprietary technology. The 21st century is about lowering barriers to participation and engagement, open networks encouraging scale and network effects – and multibillion dollar market caps.

Salesforce of course has its own proprietary APEX language, for business logic in core applications, but a more important future is being enabled via its PaaS subsidiary Heroku, which is dramatically amping up its Java efforts. Heroku Enterprise for Java, announced this week, brings comprehensive support for Java 6,7, and 8 -with one click deploy to Tomcat, and tighter Eclipse IDE integration.

With scale and network effects in mind some of most interesting news from the week was – introducing Salesforce Identity.

Identity management is a crucial underpinning for any network. Traditional single sign was designed with the enterprise, rather than the internet in mind. By moving forward aggressively with a more consumer web-like approach Salesforce.com is positioning itself to become a login for everything – a global identity provider. As I tweeted at the time –

market chose twitter/FB as login service providers for everything. @salesforce aims for that role in business monk.ly/OF6IZC #df12

— James Governor (@monkchips) September 19, 2012

And then came a great response

@monkchips I’d argue it’s the opposite way round, twitter/FB provided the first scale logins with a large enough network and market followed

— fintanr (@fintanr) September 19, 2012

Of course Salesforce already has a vast network of users in place and the proven ability to work with a range of partners, including companies it competes with. Salesforce is a trusted brand for users. Salesforce had previously allowed customers to login to some apps with their facebook identities, but customers asked the company why they would login using Facebook when they could use their Salesforce IDs. Who would you trust most with your data, whether personal or business-Salesforce or facebook? If you were using a healthcare app would you really want to use a facebook login – this is not an academic question – the UK National Health Service has implemented facebook likes on at least one site, which means facebook is able to track users as they browse for medical information. While not strictly a login mechanism, clearly there is a danger of data leakage between different contexts. I personally prefer to not use facebook as my identity provider. While RedMonk is not a salesforce customer, I am happy to have the company maintain a Chatter identity for me, and I’d log into third party services with it. Salesforce Identity also supports white labelling, so customers can build their own federated identity networks. From a developer perspective Salesforce Identity supports the right standards- SAML for enterprisey stuff, and OAuth2 for web logins. We will know soon enough if the API layer is designed attractively enough that developers get behind it.

The consumerisation of IT is not a one way process, and I can see users and developers taking advantage of salesforce as a general login mechanism alongside Twitter, facebook and Google. Recent moves by Twitter to close its network means many application developers are considering alternative platforms, which creates a market opportunity. Another important aspect of the identity work is that unique IDs are not just for humans – machines need them to, and Salesforce is building momentum with companies like GE, which are network enabling their devices such as Wind Turbines, engines and medical equipment. The Internet of Things will require a strong identity management underpinning.

There was plenty more food for thought at Dreamforce but I wanted to get some thoughts down while they are still fresh in my mind.

Bottom line- Salesforce is getting more interesting as a set of platforms. The company is making a lot of really solid moves. Dreamforce is an epic event, and I left with a good impression of where the firm is.

Disclosure: Salesforce is a client, paid for my T&E, and I gave a talk in the developer zone.

 

If you have been watching RedMonk for any length of time you’ll know that we finally found a quick shorthand name for our core thesis – that bottom up usage led by practitioners is the most powerful force in IT adoption today. New Kingmakers is the theme.

As markets fragment, and new technologies emerge at breakneck pace, the old certainties are falling apart. We need to completely restructure how we develop, manage and use technology. Agile supplants Waterfall. NoSQL supplants and or augments relational. Java vs .NET becomes a historical, rather than future facing decision. New buyers are elbowing aside old ones- app dev is increasingly a marketing spend.  Traditional long term contracts prevent users from adopting new technologies. Outsourcing prevents users from adopting new technologies. FUD prevents users from taking advantage of awesome code written by web companies. Like I say – the old certainties are dashed to pieces.

So in an age of change and confusion- where decision making can’t just be purchase led – the developer and engineer comes into their own. Nobody is asking anybody for permission to get shit done any more. I will be in San Francisco next week and you’ll have two chances to hear me speak on these new realities.

On Monday morning, PST, I will be at SAP in Palo Alto, and will be presenting to a bunch of SAP R&D and management folks, with outsiders invited too. The talk will also be streamed.

Then I will reprise the talk, with more social theming, at Dreamforce on Wednesday at the developer theatre. If you’re at Dreamforce I think you’ll get something out of it. On yeah, if you are Dreamforce then definitely check out John Musser’s talk on Thursday – he knows APIs better than anyone, is an engaging knowledgeable speaker. Want to know what makes a great API (other than developers like it?) – John will tell you.

Both talks will be different, but the core thesis is the same – developers are the best people to make platform choices.

I was hanging out on the web this morning, looking at beard styles, as you do, when I came across a guy called John Dyers, who owns “types of beard” as a Google image search. He is a beard blogger, arguably the beard blogger. When TV news is looking for beard commentary, he is the guy. He turned the beard into what Hugh MacLeod calls a social object. He went on a quest for every beard type. Any good protagonist of course needs a quest.

Now- I am a relative neophyte when it comes to blogging, only having 8 years under my belt, but I certainly recognise most of this excellent list.

A Few Things I’ve Learned In A Decade Of Blogging

• The web loves lists.
• If Mother Theresa had a blog, someone out there would send her hate mail. You’re not Mother Theresa. You’ll get worse.=
• You can say 2+2=4 and someone is going to call you a conspiracy theorist who has been bought by the mainstream media.
• Most of what you hope will do well won’t, and you will shake your head at what succeeds.
• Proper tagging and promotion can more than make up for bad writing and lack of content.
• Over time, blogging will turn you into a writer with no time to actually write.
• Beware of bloggers who blog about blogging. There is a good chance that they are salesmen selling sales seminars.
• Deadlines are more important than perfection because writing is never done perfect.
• Write short, scannable text.
• The web is fickle.
• Give before you ask.
• There are secret cabals of savvy folks out there who cross promote articles for each other to drive traffic. They sometimes work.
• Blogging means that you will never be able to tell a story without someone cutting you off and saying that they read it already.
• People you’ve never met will feel like they know you, but most of the time you’ll wonder if anyone’s really out there.
• Stats can be exciting, but they really don’t matter.
• You need to promote your posts, but promoting your own posts rarely works.
• Your blog can get you in the paper and on TV. But, then what?
• You can have your face circle the web for years and no one will recognize you on the street.
• Whatever you publish in anger will be embarrassing in a couple of years.
• You can be a big beard freak at the top of Google stats and there will be people will still want to hire you.
• If your blog is not a labor of love, your going to have a hard time defining its success.

It was lovely to read the post, which felt like a message from an old friend- the old friend in question being blogging itself. I was reminded what it used to be like, before 140 character status updates on other people’s networks. John clearly became a really good writer in his ten years. What long time blogger won’t recognise the valedictory notes of pipe and slippers?

Now that the site is in its golden years, it’s sluggish and lazy, sleeping in a recliner covered in Cheetos. It occasionally snores itself awake long enough to drop something funny or facial hair related before drifting off again…

Thanks John!

 

A few months back I was in Cupertino, and quite by chance found a truly outstanding coffee shop – Bitter and Sweet. Given I had unsuccessfully tried Yelp, Google and Foursquare for recommendations for decent coffee I was kind of stunned to walk a couple of blocks from the Cypress Hotel and come across a local indie place. Launched by Janice Chua in 2011 Bitter and Sweet is the real deal – celebrating great coffee but also coffee craft.

I have written before about Making Stars of Your Developers, in context of WS02, which has this wonderful /About/Team/Engineering page.

A confident business is not afraid to celebrate its people, and realises that “the team” is more than the executive staff. A confident business celebrates people and skill. A confident business does things like… have a blog called Meet Our Baristas.

This is Allen. He rocks.

My favourite comment from his Q&A?

What do you want to be when you grow up?

I want to be just like Janice.

When your employees want to be like you when they grow up, you’re doing something very right. Janice Chua- I salute you, and your staff. Bitter and Sweet is the only place in Cupertino to have a coffee.

disclosure: i am a mad coffee snob.