The Wall Street Journal
Venture capitalists are still investing in flashy Internet start-ups, but the "Next Big Thing" is more likely to be a maker of humdrum Internet plumbing for businesses.
The Wall Street Journal's third annual ranking of the top 50 venture-capital-backed companies shows a crop of contenders that overall are focused less on online consumers than in years past.
The top three ranked companies are all business-product makers: Genband Inc., a supplier of voice-over-Internet-protocol technology to telecom companies; Xirrus Inc., a provider of wireless networking equipment; and Tabula Inc., which makes semiconductors for electronic products.
Several other companies on the list offer products or services designed to help businesses run more efficiently, such as data-storage company Nimble Storage Inc. (No. 26) and business-analytics software provider Marketo Inc. (No. 20), cloud-computing services provider Appirio Inc. (No. 29)...
Appirio in the News
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
5 ways to think like a cloud architect
ZDNet
In a new post, Chris Bruzzi and Nick Hamm, both with Appirio, a cloud services provider, share their experiences in cloud application development. They point to the five changes in mindset that needs to take place as application development and deployment evolves to the cloud world.
For architects and developers who have been working within the service-oriented architecture realm, most of these best practices will look terribly familiar. But Bruzzi and Hamm point out that SOA in the past was more constrained, since it typically stopped at the enterprise walls. Now, as more and more of IT gets hooked up into the cloud, it's time to really promote "service-oriented" thinking...
In a new post, Chris Bruzzi and Nick Hamm, both with Appirio, a cloud services provider, share their experiences in cloud application development. They point to the five changes in mindset that needs to take place as application development and deployment evolves to the cloud world.
For architects and developers who have been working within the service-oriented architecture realm, most of these best practices will look terribly familiar. But Bruzzi and Hamm point out that SOA in the past was more constrained, since it typically stopped at the enterprise walls. Now, as more and more of IT gets hooked up into the cloud, it's time to really promote "service-oriented" thinking...
Thursday, September 20, 2012
The State of Social Media at Work In One Quick Infographic
Forbes
After surveying over 300 professionals, technology service provider Appirio determined that most people are far more social personally than they are at work.
Interestingly, 41% believe their company should be doing more to become a social enterprise, and twice as many managers are using social media compared to their employees they manage. So the takeaway here seems to be that employees either are not allowed to engage in social networking activities at work, or don't see the value in it.
Most importantly, as the survey suggests, enterprise workers now understand that culture and ownership of the social business transformation are key factors to the success of a social enterprise. That's a welcome shift from past surveys I have seen.
After surveying over 300 professionals, technology service provider Appirio determined that most people are far more social personally than they are at work.
Interestingly, 41% believe their company should be doing more to become a social enterprise, and twice as many managers are using social media compared to their employees they manage. So the takeaway here seems to be that employees either are not allowed to engage in social networking activities at work, or don't see the value in it.
Most importantly, as the survey suggests, enterprise workers now understand that culture and ownership of the social business transformation are key factors to the success of a social enterprise. That's a welcome shift from past surveys I have seen.
Appirio on the state of social at work: It needs more time
ZDNet
As Salesforce.com's annual Dreamforce conference continues this week, Appirio has released a new report examining the state of social technologies in the workplace.
The bottom line is that the social enterprise/revolution/whatever-you-want-to-call-it concept has a long way to go before it is consider the de facto way of doing business.
Before that can happen, the concept of social enterprise might need to be defined better as a recent Bluewolf survey also concluded that many businesses still don't understand what this means exactly.
Overall, Appirio's results concur with those of Bluewolf. For example, nearly a third of businesses surveyed had no idea what the term "social enterprise" meant.
That doesn't mean that businesses aren't on-board with the idea of integrating social media throughout work infrastructures. Researchers found that more than 35 percent of respondents said their companies had set aside budgets or resources to make business processes more social. Furthermore, 57 percent of respondents said they currently use social tools to do their job.
As Salesforce.com's annual Dreamforce conference continues this week, Appirio has released a new report examining the state of social technologies in the workplace.
The bottom line is that the social enterprise/revolution/whatever-you-want-to-call-it concept has a long way to go before it is consider the de facto way of doing business.
Before that can happen, the concept of social enterprise might need to be defined better as a recent Bluewolf survey also concluded that many businesses still don't understand what this means exactly.
Overall, Appirio's results concur with those of Bluewolf. For example, nearly a third of businesses surveyed had no idea what the term "social enterprise" meant.
That doesn't mean that businesses aren't on-board with the idea of integrating social media throughout work infrastructures. Researchers found that more than 35 percent of respondents said their companies had set aside budgets or resources to make business processes more social. Furthermore, 57 percent of respondents said they currently use social tools to do their job.
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Appirio's CloudSpokes: an update
ZDNet
Apart from the fact that Appirio puts on by far the best party at Dreamforce, it also happens to be one of the real disrupters in the SI market. One of the ways it does this is through the CloudSpokes community. In this 4:04 minute video, co-founder Narinder Singh talks through how the company is going about disrupting cloud implementation and development consulting.
This is impressive by any standards. Off camera, Singh said the company has taken its foot off the gas a little bit as it manages community growth. Of greater interest to me was the Singh's claim that on certain projects, it doesn't make sense to use Appirio's own development teams but to turn the project over to CloudSpokes with Appirio maintaining a watching brief.
He gave the example of one project where CloudSpokes brought the project in at a significant reduction to the fully loaded cost that Appirio would have needed to charge but at higher margin. "We believe that if you're going to disrupt the SI market then you have to apply it to yourself in order for it to make sense. We're doing that by putting our own work into challenges. It's producing better results for us and customers. It's a genuine win-win," said Singh.
I asked about engagement given that of the reported 50,000 members it seems that there have only been some 2,600 submitted entries. "You've got to remember that developers sign up for communities for more than one reason. Money certainly helps but they like to learn from their peers. Despite what the numbers suggest, when we take out the skewed results. the median number of entries per challenge is four. That's four different ideas per challenge. We think that's pretty good going...
Apart from the fact that Appirio puts on by far the best party at Dreamforce, it also happens to be one of the real disrupters in the SI market. One of the ways it does this is through the CloudSpokes community. In this 4:04 minute video, co-founder Narinder Singh talks through how the company is going about disrupting cloud implementation and development consulting.
This is impressive by any standards. Off camera, Singh said the company has taken its foot off the gas a little bit as it manages community growth. Of greater interest to me was the Singh's claim that on certain projects, it doesn't make sense to use Appirio's own development teams but to turn the project over to CloudSpokes with Appirio maintaining a watching brief.
He gave the example of one project where CloudSpokes brought the project in at a significant reduction to the fully loaded cost that Appirio would have needed to charge but at higher margin. "We believe that if you're going to disrupt the SI market then you have to apply it to yourself in order for it to make sense. We're doing that by putting our own work into challenges. It's producing better results for us and customers. It's a genuine win-win," said Singh.
I asked about engagement given that of the reported 50,000 members it seems that there have only been some 2,600 submitted entries. "You've got to remember that developers sign up for communities for more than one reason. Money certainly helps but they like to learn from their peers. Despite what the numbers suggest, when we take out the skewed results. the median number of entries per challenge is four. That's four different ideas per challenge. We think that's pretty good going...
Appirio tallies the technical debt in your Salesforce instance
ZDNet
...Today, cloud integrator Appirio is unveiling a tool that for the first time allows Salesforce customers to quantify the technical debt built into their instances. Cloud Metrics is an automated test that uses OAuth credentials to access a Salesforce.com instance and compare it to Appirio's database of over 1,000 Salesforce implementations it has worked on. The tool generates a report that compares what it finds to the norms in its database, highlighting areas where the instance has become more complex or cumbersome than it probably needs to be. The basic tool is free at launch, and Appirio offers a paid service to assess and map out a plan for eliminating the debt. Whether the customer does so will depend on the business impact of the debt when set against other priorities.
"We think about, is it worth paying down that technical debt now? How that plays out is very situationally dependent," Appirio's chief strategy officer Narinder Singh explained to me in a pre-briefing late last week. "By running our tool, you can count your technical debt. [We give you] a path that shows you where you're at, where you're going and lets you take corrective action where appropriate...
...Today, cloud integrator Appirio is unveiling a tool that for the first time allows Salesforce customers to quantify the technical debt built into their instances. Cloud Metrics is an automated test that uses OAuth credentials to access a Salesforce.com instance and compare it to Appirio's database of over 1,000 Salesforce implementations it has worked on. The tool generates a report that compares what it finds to the norms in its database, highlighting areas where the instance has become more complex or cumbersome than it probably needs to be. The basic tool is free at launch, and Appirio offers a paid service to assess and map out a plan for eliminating the debt. Whether the customer does so will depend on the business impact of the debt when set against other priorities.
"We think about, is it worth paying down that technical debt now? How that plays out is very situationally dependent," Appirio's chief strategy officer Narinder Singh explained to me in a pre-briefing late last week. "By running our tool, you can count your technical debt. [We give you] a path that shows you where you're at, where you're going and lets you take corrective action where appropriate...
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Employees See Big Potential For Social Business
InformationWeek
Appirio study shows disconnect between how companies and individuals use social technologies.
Employees are interested in the potential of social business, but often unclear about what their employer is doing to take advantage of it, according to a survey.
The study sponsored by Appirio, a services firm that helps organizations with their cloud computing initiatives, was conducted by the independent research firm iTracks based on responses from 300 managers and employees from across the U.S. and U.K.
Although the study showed awareness of the potential of social media and social tools, only 57% of respondents said they used social tools in their daily work, whereas about 90% used them in their personal lives. Thirteen percent of respondents would go as far as to label their company "anti-social," meaning it is making no investment in social. Forty-four percent say their company is still just researching or testing social tools or strategies, and 43% are using one or more social tools.
Appirio study shows disconnect between how companies and individuals use social technologies.
Employees are interested in the potential of social business, but often unclear about what their employer is doing to take advantage of it, according to a survey.
The study sponsored by Appirio, a services firm that helps organizations with their cloud computing initiatives, was conducted by the independent research firm iTracks based on responses from 300 managers and employees from across the U.S. and U.K.
Although the study showed awareness of the potential of social media and social tools, only 57% of respondents said they used social tools in their daily work, whereas about 90% used them in their personal lives. Thirteen percent of respondents would go as far as to label their company "anti-social," meaning it is making no investment in social. Forty-four percent say their company is still just researching or testing social tools or strategies, and 43% are using one or more social tools.
Monday, September 10, 2012
Top 4 gamification apps
NetworkWorld
Companies should not attempt to jump into gamification all at once. Here are four specific applications that are excellent places to start your gamification program...
...3. Crowdsourcing
Appirio is a 500-person Silicon Valley cloud solutions vendor that was trying to compete against much larger consulting firms, like Accenture and Deloitte. Two years ago the company launched CloudSpokes, an online community that now counts around 45,000 developers as members - developers who compete to solve programming challenges.
To make it work, the company involved the developers themselves in making sure that there were no loopholes in the contests and in judging the results, says Narinder Singh, the company's chief strategy officer...
Companies should not attempt to jump into gamification all at once. Here are four specific applications that are excellent places to start your gamification program...
...3. Crowdsourcing
Appirio is a 500-person Silicon Valley cloud solutions vendor that was trying to compete against much larger consulting firms, like Accenture and Deloitte. Two years ago the company launched CloudSpokes, an online community that now counts around 45,000 developers as members - developers who compete to solve programming challenges.
To make it work, the company involved the developers themselves in making sure that there were no loopholes in the contests and in judging the results, says Narinder Singh, the company's chief strategy officer...
Friday, September 7, 2012
Appirio Defining Systems Integration in the Cloud
SaaS in the enterprise
Ever wonder why a business looking to adopt a cloud-based application would need a systems integrator? Doesn't the cloud shift systems complexity to the provider?
Appirio, a six-year old cloud integrator, is not just redefining systems integration, it is in the hunt for a big chunk of the $500 billion spent globally on SI services.
Cloud systems integration (SI) is very different from traditional SI. SI in the cloud does not require a team of engineers at the customer site. In fact, the engineers or developers could be anywhere in the world. In the case of San Francisco-based Appirio, the engineer or developer could be working on a customer's Workday or a Salesforce.com instance from Singapore, Ireland, India, UK, or Japan. One of the sharp differences between cloud SI and traditional SI is the fact that everyone's Salesforce.com or Workday application is the same. There are no trade secrets buried in the configuration.
"A developer anywhere in the world can spin up an instance of a Google App engine or whatever and you can start building code for me," Nara Balakrishna, Appirio's senior director of strategy and business operations, told SaaS in the Enterprise. "You could not do that if you had SAP. There is no way I can expose my configuration to you somewhere in the world where I don't even know you."
That allowed Appirio to assemble a cloud-sourcing community of 45,000 developers located all over the world to supplement its staff of 500.
Ever wonder why a business looking to adopt a cloud-based application would need a systems integrator? Doesn't the cloud shift systems complexity to the provider?
Appirio, a six-year old cloud integrator, is not just redefining systems integration, it is in the hunt for a big chunk of the $500 billion spent globally on SI services.
Cloud systems integration (SI) is very different from traditional SI. SI in the cloud does not require a team of engineers at the customer site. In fact, the engineers or developers could be anywhere in the world. In the case of San Francisco-based Appirio, the engineer or developer could be working on a customer's Workday or a Salesforce.com instance from Singapore, Ireland, India, UK, or Japan. One of the sharp differences between cloud SI and traditional SI is the fact that everyone's Salesforce.com or Workday application is the same. There are no trade secrets buried in the configuration.
"A developer anywhere in the world can spin up an instance of a Google App engine or whatever and you can start building code for me," Nara Balakrishna, Appirio's senior director of strategy and business operations, told SaaS in the Enterprise. "You could not do that if you had SAP. There is no way I can expose my configuration to you somewhere in the world where I don't even know you."
That allowed Appirio to assemble a cloud-sourcing community of 45,000 developers located all over the world to supplement its staff of 500.
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