Archive for software industry

Predicting 2012: What’s old is new again – or is it?

Maybe I have been around the technology market too long but it appears to me that there is nothing new under the sun. The foundational technologies that are the rage today all have their roots in technology that has been around for decades. That is actually a good thing. Simply put, a unique technology concept often will not be commercially
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Can HP survive its DNA?

This blog was originally published in Harvard Business Review I remember attending a Hewlett-Packard meeting for industry analysts in the early 1990s and hearing HP proudly declare that it was becoming a software company. Software had turned into a stronger driver of revenue in the computer industry than hardware, and HP management had realized that it had to make the
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Is Big Data Real and Can IBM Execute on its Vision?

It is inevitable that data would emerge as the most complex and important topics of the next decade. The expansion of the amount and types of data that we have been accumulating across more systems—physical and virtual, applications, and electronic devices – is astounding.  These environments generate huge amounts of data – from structured to unstructured – and with increasing
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What Are Three Smart Moves Brought LinkedIn This Far?

The following is a guest blog that I wrote for the Harvard Business Review. I joined LinkedIn in 2007. I can’t remember why. After connecting to a few dozen people, I still couldn’t fathom what the purpose of LinkedIn was, especially for an already-established professional. Yes, I knew these people, but to what end were we connecting on this site?
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Can Hewlett Packard Make its Own Luck?

The following is a guest blog that I wrote for the Harvard Business Review. HP finds itself in a complicated position. While the technology giant’s second-quarter revenue increased by 3%, its relatively new CEO, Leo Apotheker, was forced to lower the forecast for revenue for the fiscal year. He blamed the Japan earthquake, the anemic PC market, and a troubled
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Can the Power of Open Source Change Industry Dynamics?

After spending two days at the Red Hat Summit last week, I started thinking about the power of open source software and how it has transformed the software industry. When I was writing my new book, Smart or Lucky, How Technology Leaders Turn Change into Success, I analyzed the success and failures of companies that attempted to cement their offerings
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Can IBM Build a Strong Cloud Partner Ecosystem?

Despite all of the hand wringing surrounding Amazon.com’s service outages last week, it is clear to me that cloud computing is dramatically changing the delivery models of computing forever. We simply will not return to a model where organizations assume that they will consume primarily their own data center resources.  The traditional data center certainly isn’t going away but its
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