Storage Infrastructure: Are You Planning it Smart?

It seems CIOs will have to face an austere 2012. Popular researches and other credible estimates convey that spending on IT will rise on average by just 0.5% worldwide and India isn’t any exception.

Amidst rising speculation and fear of a sluggish growth and therefore this minimalistic rise in IT spend, is the challenge of managing the data overflow. This immediately brings us to a very pertinent question: “What will be the storage uptake in enterprises this year?”

According to Enterprise Strategy Group’s 2012 IT Spending Intentions Survey, 90% of midmarket and enterprise organizations will increase or maintain their spending on storage infrastructure in 2012. This seems logical. With growth in business, the data grows and subsequently the need for data storage and information management grows too. In addition to continually improving economic conditions, the continued uptick in spending is attributable to the struggle organizations face managing and protecting data.

There are a few noticeable trends that will not only give decisive direction to the industry but also help the CIOs to consider storage for the future.

More and more hypervisors are rolled out on the server side. They will be connected together with storage hypervisor layers too. This indicates that the servers and storage can be managed together relieving the CIOs from management woes.

Another important trend taking shape is backup in the cloud. Data protection will be built into the private or public cloud infrastructure and provided as a service again releasing a lot of bandwidth of IT managers.

Tape Media will live more than expected. It is clear that tapes won’t become history anytime soon as they are still the most cost-effective and simplest way to archive data.

Among other things there is a growing momentum towards Ethernet. It means fiber channel drives are soon to be a thing of past. The protocol is becoming less important as 40Gb and 100Gb Ethernet, iSCSI and Infiniband become standard interconnects in the blade servers that run all the virtual servers and the storage network is swallowed up by consolidated network switches.

Important to note, the storage is gradually shifting from being just bigger to being a lot smarter.

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For registration and detailed information you can visit: Dell Storage Forum India 2012 

Sizzling Technologies that Failed in 2011

Not that I am a tech-nerd or an outright fanatic who is submerged into IT products but certainly take avid interest in reading about interesting technology developments to keep myself at pace with the world of gadgets/technologies (that matter).

Here’s my take on some of the products/features that were introduced in 2011 to storm the world but miserably failed to even draw attention and (later on) get a mention beyond a point. I am sure ‘my’ list may appear incomplete but certainly a lot of the below mentioned names will instantly ring a bell in your mind and then you will ghastly wonder what happened to this damn tech!

#1: Chrome OS – In its attempt to challenge Microsoft’s monopoly in the PC market, Google launched a web-based, lightweight Chrome OS. Did it bring cheer for Google? Not really! A meager number of Chrome-based notebooks were sold, I believe. The reason is they aren’t very good and expensive too.

# 2: Facebook Mail – This was launched amid fanfare towards the end of 2010. But are you, like you use FB, using it? It didn’t change a thing – least of all it didn’t even come close email.

# 3: Motorola Xoom – It boomed and then doomed. The advertisements may have ripped Apple apart but Motorola Xoom was a disastrous attempt to displace Apple from its leadership position. It is selling at all? Well, barely.

# 4: HP TouchPad – Poor guy, it could only survive for six-seven weeks. And then one fateful day the IT giant (losing its charm by the day) decided to kill it, along with all the other WebOS-based hardware products.

#5: BlackBerry Playbook – If you are lucky, you might get a playbook in a “lucky draw” else, you may like to give it a pass. This, to me (who swears by BB Phone and its mail services) was the biggest flop of 2011. The company hyped its PlayBook in the market where even Samsung could not make much impact despite Android’s massive success in the phone space. Dethroning Apple and challenging Kindle is tough.

# 6: Windows Phone 7 – For Microsoft, mobile seems to be a bugaboo. Even though MS tried to build a story around Win Phone 7, it didn’t do much to save the company’s downhill journey in the mobile market. It may have put a big bet on Nokia and must be hoping to change its fortune but we will have to see it to believe it.

I won’t stretch this list to make it 10 as I don’t think of other stuff that I came to know failed like the ones listed above. If you know, do add to make it a perfect (round) figure.

Is CIO Indispensable?

Yesterday night, while exchanging a series of mails with one of my old CIO friends, I realized that global economic uncertainty is getting murkier. He (name will remain anonymous) seems to be struggling to retain his position. In past one year, this is the second time my friend is walking the tight rope. Last time he survived by a whisker. This time too he may survive. But he is sure that his position will eventually go. With all this, he has come to terms that when crisis looms large, IT is the most dispensable force in an organization. He is otherwise a guy whom anyone would love to have…meticulous, process-oriented, smart, sharp and business-focused.

This is certainly not a (nor am I competent to) discourse on “how to survive crises” or “10 steps to be indispensable” but this period of uncertainty is similar to a ‘holocaust’ – nothing short of devastation.

The example cited above is true and may have touched many of us at some point. Question here is how we survive the holocaust. How can the position of a CIO (which we feel is coveted in an org structure) be immune to such turbulences in business world?

I am sure any attempt to answer this will turn into a lopsided view. When I grilled this friend a little further, he told that for his MNC, people manning IT are not core/critical.

In today’s business scenario where technology infra can run on an outsourcing model, a costly resource like CIO (until he is managing business functions) can quickly become redundant.

In realm of what I wrote above, does it not appear a big farce when people talk about the growing influence of the CIO? Whether CIO is dead or alive is not the point here. Also, it is nonsense that successful IT leaders are avoiding the traditional management of IT operations and instead concentrating on the strategic use of IT for the benefit of the business.

If this position is so critical for an organization, why is that the CIO or the IT organization (in most organizations) get the last priority?

I hear it every day that the CIO is the executive who is responsible for information flowing across all channels of an enterprise and that information is (supposedly) the lifeblood. But this seem to be changing drastically in the on-demand, cloud-based technology models. Now the network on which this information flows is less of owned and more of leased. Those who manage this network are the vendors who get paid to maintain the service levels agreed upon.

So, where does the CIO fit? Which is the role s/he is best suited for? In cases where the enterprise is large, and is run by a vision and mission, the CIO has started the journey of moving on to the next level and has assumed the role of a business executive where IT is a part. In rest of the cases, where the CIO is still the one tangled in the wires, the situation is precarious. That’s why I feel the ‘tech-only’ role is more prone to dispensation than a tech+ role.

Forecast Business, Stay in Contention

I have seen this personally that most of the seasoned business leaders and boards of the large organizations are able to absorb the negatives. But very little are equipped to survive shocks. If you, as a CIO, have so much data in store, and you can use it for forecasting trends, business, sales cycles…not only will you impress the boss but also become the most strategic asset for the company. Imagine, can someone think of living without you if you are so vital? Though it is bad to aim at indispensability but being vital in the system something you can be proud of.

Most severe downturns (as we have witnessed in the recent years) create a window for cleansing the system. In that cleansing, the first things considered to be thrown out are redundant things and redundant workforces. I don’t say that IT is redundant but if that is the premise (think for a moment) then you are the first one in the line of fire.

Won’t you like to make yourself stand last in the queue so that you are not even in the sight of being fired?

From Carly to Meg: Is HP Having its Last Laugh?

“HP matters – it matters to Silicon Valley, California, the country and the world,” said Meg Whitman, the new CEO of HP – a company that has seems to have lost faith in itself.

I too feel that “HP Matters” but to its shareholders who invested heavily into the company only to lose heavily. In last one year the company has lost – market, reputation and share value – everything.
I strongly feel that its tagline “Invent” should now read “Destroy”. No puns attached. A giant, which gave tough time to IBM a few years ago [under Mark Hurd], seems to have lost faith, direction and sheen.
The company has fired 2 CEOs in past one year. Hasn’t done anything newsworthy in any product domain be it cloud, storage, management software, imaging or personal devices.

It shows lack of leadership and vision at the Board level. The CEOs of HP have no idea which direction should the company go.

Meg reminds me of Carly Fiorina. Jokes apart (or may be jokingly) the HP Board seems to be missing a female on the hot seat. In less than six years they gave the command in the hands of a female.
How similar these two women are…Both are from the flamboyant State of California (Although Carly was born in Texas). Both of them Republicans and ran for the elections. Both got defeated.

Meg may be wealthier than Fiorina but beyond a point it doesn’t matter. But unlike Fiorina, Meg has a better track record. During her decade long tenure with eBay Meg oversaw expansion from 30 employees and $4 million in annual revenue to more than 15,000 employees and $8 billion in annual revenue. On the other hand Carly, who completed the contentious merger with rival computer company Compaq during her tenure as CEO of HP, ruined the company.

Technology Czars or Real Inventors: Who is more important?

A few days ago I stumbled upon a survey report in Business Insider (http://www.businessinsider.com/yes-microsoft-did-change-the-world-more-than-apple-2011-9) [appears very PR-centric] which announced that Bill Gates-led Microsoft changed the world more than Steve Jobs-led Apple. I really don’t know the genesis of this report but some poll in France said proved that 7 out of 10 people think Microsoft did more to change the world than Apple.

Without getting into this tug-of-war of who was greater than whom, I will come straight to the point: Do tech czars make more impact than the “real inventors”?

In case of Microsoft, the company is known for “Windows” and then a whole fleet of products but certainly windows is what made Microsoft and subsequently Bill Gates what they are today. But who invented Windows? Did Gates invent it? Did he pioneer the fundamental research to give world its first user-friendly OS? No. At least the resources on the web say so.

If you search the web, you will come across a name Gary Killdal. Wiki answer says Killdal invented windows and a bit of exaggerated fact is that Bill Gates just bought it by paying 50,000 bucks. Do we remember Killdal? At least I don’t.

There could be many who will refute my writing at its origin and I will not try to engage with them to prove myself correct. But my basic question here is that more than the real inventor, the business czar who “patronize” or “buy” tech becomes synonym with the stuff.

Here’s my second question. Who invented Macintosh? All popular resources on the web point towards a guy called Jef Raskin. The resources say that Apple’s Macintosh project was started in the late 1970s by Jef Raskin who built up a team of Apple engineers and designers including George Crow, Chris Espinosa, Joanna Hoffman, Bruce Horn, Susan Kare, Andy Hertzfeld, Guy Kawasaki, Daniel Kottke, and Jerry Manock. Steve Jobs joined the Macintosh team much later in 1980′s and then Raskin left the team in 1981 due to his conflicts with Jobs. But today who cares about Raskin. At least I don’t. I feel that Jobs is the god. As far as any Apple product innovation is concerned, I (and like me millions) think that it is Job’s creation. Certainly the Story of “Apple II” was scripted by Jobs and Wozniak” and there aren’t many claimants because by then the information was channelized in such a way that there is no clemency beyond the czars of technology.

I believe it is a very complicated issue. Human beings have a tendency to want to ascribe genius or credit to a single person or the person who has a higher glamour quotient. For example Alexander Graham Bell didn’t invent the telephone solitarily.

I know this discussion has no end and I don’t want to wreck my brain on where I can prove any point. But certainly would like to know from you if you have a different opinion.

Interactive Kiosks: Wasteful innovation or yet not matured?

I have been thinking of expressing my thoughts on a particular technology innovation for quite some time. This one could have really been a massive innovation had it been marketed, promoted and maintained well. I am talking about Interactive Kiosks.

In 1977 a University of Illinois [at Urbana-Champaign] student Murray Lappe, designed and created the first interactive kiosk using PLATO (Programmed Logic for Automated Teaching Operations) computer system. Donald L. Bitzer, from the same University, designed its plasma display panel.

These kiosks have a history now. It was in 1991 that the first commercial kiosks came into being and then some sort of mass deployment started only in the middle of last decade.

Today [not from any verified source] there are over 130,000 kiosks in the US alone. I am not sure whether this figure is encouraging or disheartening. I also don’t know whether such a figure is available for India or not but certainly there are attempts being made for mass deployments of these kiosks here.

I strongly feel these kiosks never gained momentum.

For example the kiosks at bank branches [and otherwise] could have been revolutionary. They could have worked as great “queue busters” and alternatives to teller counters but even today there are either “drop boxes”, which are most scary form of transactions or there are those old-world teller counters where you test the proficiency of human beings every now and then. A classic example is a cheques deposit kiosk that I used in the past at some ICICI bank branches. They were convenient, easy to use and quick. But today these machines either don’t work, or are dumped and [may be] not viable for their investment. The concept of a “bank in the box” [keep ATMs aside because certain complex functions aren’t just possible there] could have been a major revolution in the banking industry but I guess not many takers…

Second big example is of the Kiosks deployed by major telecom service providers for information, convenience and self-service so much so that you can recharge your phones, pay bills etc. These telekiosks could have been considered as the technical successors to the old telephone booths but these are rarely seen or heard.

For passengers traveling by air, the major Airports in India have deployed interactive kiosks. These are decent ones but with a few handicaps. One, the passenger must be without a check-in baggage only then s/he can benefit and save time. Two, people shall be willing to learn how to use these kiosks. Third, the kiosks should be maintained well.
A few more examples are of kiosks at movie halls, children amusement parks and parking lot.

You go to a PVR cinema in New Delhi or elsewhere and probably you’ll surely find a kiosk there for self-service. If you have booked your ticket online, it can save you a great deal of time and save you from frustration as well. In just one swipe, your tickets can be with you. But I have seen people standing in queues (with the code number) to get the tickets issued.

Only a few places in India have the facility of “pay and park” – the automated parking slots in public places. These places can benefit hugely from the interactive kiosks but here also the deployment and adoption is negligible.
Government of India has been pushing hard the concept of the “Citizen Service Centers” (CSCs) – mostly automated, interactive kiosks. I have organized/attended numerous sessions around it so I know the excitement, plans and the benefits. But somehow the queues at the utility bill pay centers, tax offices etc. don’t seem to testify the adoption of these CSCs.

Other few places where these kiosks could do wonders are Hospitals, Universities/Educational Institutions and Retail stores but I am yet to see noticeable deployments in these areas.

I don’t want to sound judgmental but I believe this is one innovation which is not marketed well and thus failed to catch the attention of masses. Or is it that the innovation itself hasn’t reached the stage of maturity curve from where mass adoption is the only natural fallout?

What do you think?

Do you have examples where these kiosks have been massively successful?

What type of CIO are you?

What should a CIO be made of? What composition makes him/her a wannabe CIO? How s/he should hone the skills to be future ready?

These and many more questions have been asked, argued and debated in almost any and all CIO debates that I have been part of. Possibility is that if there are 10 people participating in a discussion, we will get 10 different opinions. Is it possible to combine those 10 opinions and construct one that describes the completely perfect CIO?

At least I am convinced it is NOT possible.

The most challenging question that arises out of such debates is: Should a CIO possess a strong technology background or should s/he be from a strong business background? Associated with it is a very ‘aspirational and sentimental’ question: Would CIOs not like to become CEOs?

Make no mistake, though we are trying to sculpt a perfect CIO here but with a sense that we only have a few essential ingredients and that too are scarce available. Also, I would like to make it clear that my thoughts are not based on/supported by any ‘empirical data’ and they are my personal views.

True that we can’t find CIO’s with a perfect blend of business and technology knowhow and an appropriate exposure in the two but it is about the approach and appropriate quantity of an ingredient.

But similar to the religious fundamentalists there are people divided into three camps pertaining to this debate.
Firstly group has extreme views on tech-focused CIOs. Second group has extreme views on business-focused CIOs. Third group (like me) would like to find a ‘perfect blend’ from the available ingredients.

Tech-focused CIO: Those who favor tech-focused CIOs argue that a CIO focused more on business is likely to start with ROI, TCO, Outsourcing, Opex model etc. There is a strong possibility that they show reluctance to replace the redundant technology until it has given the returns.

As opposed to it, a CIO focused more on technology is likely to exploit the latter for its strategic advantage. These types of CIOs remain more contemporary, and keep their technology up to date to give their company a strategic advantage.

The above argument proves that a technology-focused CIO is a better option in the long haul. This makes us believe that if a CIO is not technologically sound it could be disastrous down the road. This is an extreme view in favor of a technology-focused CIO.

Business-focused CIO: The second school of thought strongly feels that there a problem with CIO’s being confined to just technology. A CIO should be from a business background. They can at best stay current with technology. It’s all about the application of technology to business, they argue. Ultimately it is that strategic vision of the business-focused CIO that decides where the business is going and what it will need. “A CIO with strong business skills can surround himself with an army of IT experts but it can’t happen the other way around,” they argue.

If we go with the above extreme argument then a CIO without a business background is nothing else but a liability.

Blended CIO: The third (and more rational) school of thought is which I subscribe to. To me, the CIOs today are broadly divided into three camps:

• Operational CIOs: Those who support the organization, keep the lights on without major challenges and run the IT infra optimally (with costs under control).

• Reformist CIOs: Those who are ready to bring and manage change, rearchitect the processes and reposition technology to solve business problems.

• Innovational CIOs: Those who are determined to add extra value to business, have a deep understanding of business processes and therefore want to exploit IT as a strategic tool.

All the above types are great in specific environments.

In a conventional enterprise where a CIO is expected to run the organization with minimum or no disruptions, the first category is suitable.

In progressive enterprises where the management looks upon a CIO to bring change, the second category of CIOs scores very high.

In enterprises where innovation is important and is considered the most important asset, the third category fits well.

What type of a CIO are you?

Mobile Health: Is anybody listening?

Patient care today is confined to hospitals – large or small, swanky or average, near or remote. There have been a lot of discussions about how to make Mobile Health (mHealth) all pervasive but it is yet to take its feet off the ground.
At present, the total world population served by mHealth services is probably less than a few hundred thousand (I may be inaccurate), though 80 percent of the world’s population lives in areas with mobile phone coverage. Ironical, isn’t it?

Read another amusing fact: By 2013, more people will access the internet through their mobile phone than their desktop.

According t o a report, five hundred million of a total of 1.4 billion smartphone users will be using mobile health applications in 2015.

Again, although it is a reality that technology-driven data channels can open up tremendous opportunity for the entire medical supply chain from hospitals to doctors to pharmacist but not much of it has come into practice.

Today the patients are demanding a greater role in treatment decisions. They seek information from a range of sources which can result in a new era of consumerism in healthcare.

Gartner (depending on how much we believe in these forecasting machines), says that mHealth will be one of the key applications that will catch the fire in next few years. The agency further says that mHealth will help governments, care delivery organizations (CDOs) and healthcare payers reduce costs related to chronic diseases and improve the quality of life of their patients.

Interestingly a few years ago McKinsey polled 3,000 people in Brazil, China, Germany, India, South Africa, and the United States to find out how will people respond to mHealth services and it found out that 1/3rd of respondents were willing to pay for mHealth services such as drug delivery, physician phone consultations, and remote monitoring with alerts.

McKinsey in its report estimated that the global market opportunity for mHealth in 2010 was a whopping $50 billion – by far the highest amount to be quoted by a forecasting machine on mHealth. But this was just an “opportunity”. There is a difference between the opportunity and reality.

The reality ( though not quoted from any trustworthy source) is the total revenue from mHealth was nearly US$1.7 billion in 2010 which may grow to US$5.7 in 2015 – 4 years from now.

For patients suffering from obesity, chronic diseases and those who are elderly, mHealth can be a boon in disguise. On the other hand imagine how this will impact the equipment and IT industry. The vendors who make digital still cameras, PCs, energy meters, communication device manufacturers will all be in brisk business.

I know it is not so easy. For a moment, imagine a doctor (sitting remotely) and asking his patient to cough in the phone and prescribes him the right medicine. Now the patient (though mobile) connects with the druggist and places order for medicines and then pays to both channels. It is an interesting story, but not so easy to accomplish.

Even weird an idea could be urinate on a specific phone chip to know about STDs (sexually contracted diseases or in case of a female, she can know about pregnancy.

Imagine, in the future you have to embrace in-body sensing. A small, battery-free sensor (of the size of a rice grain) fitted in your body for remote monitoring of your health. These sensors can gather all the data pertaining to any change in the normal physiological conditions and refer to a health practitioner for an immediate health prescription.

I was reading about a few interesting mHealth apps (you have to qualify them yourself) in the US. Since this is not my IP I must reveal the site from where I am going to copy the next 3 paragraphs.

The site URL is: http://barnraisersllc.com/?p=3861

JANSSEN (PSORIASIS 360): Launched a mobile phone app to help psoriasis patients track the severity of their condition. The index helped them know when to seek professional care and allowed their medical professional assess to the severity of their patient’s condition. Janssen also opened a Facebook page, which they moderated for regulatory reasons, to let patients tell personal stories and had over 30,000 posts and comments. According to Janssen, the investment in the mobile app overachieved ROI but more important delivered the right therapy to the right patient at crucial times.

CARITAS HOME CARE: Boston-based home healthcare agency used mobile health devices to enhance communications and data collection with its 150 mobile clinicians. Caritas documented how the mobile devices were able to save 19,200 hours or 98 hours per clinicians per year. Although Caritas didn’t release salaries of clinicians, if we estimated $50/hour, which would be conservative, Caritas saved $960,000. If the devices were $100 each for 150 clinicians at $15,000, which would also be conservative, the ROI would be 64-to-1.

CLEVELAND CLINIC: Used MedApps and an app-based solution called HealthPAL to remotely monitor patients with chronic diseases. The results were:

• HEART FAILURE patients participating in the program were able to visit their doctor 27 percent more often to better detect problems that required medical attention
• DIABETIC patients were able to increase the number of days between their appointments by 71 percent.
• HYPERTENSION patients were able to do so by 26 percent.

 

Those were some of the examples how mHealth can be the next wave for both society and the IT industry (both hardware and apps). Like these there are various other examples of mHealth/eHealth but these are not all pervasive.
Apple’s Face Time app and video support by the telecom operators can be of tremendous help in mass proliferation of mHealth.

Tell me why should a patient of diabetes and/or blood pressure need to see a doctor every time there’s something wrong with him/her? mHealth can make it more convenient and time saving.

In India (and countries like ours) there is a huge potential to leapfrog to an integrated national mHealth platform. We have very little infrastructure (read physical technology infra) which we can claim as word-class. But with reduced needs for cables and their maintenance, wireless infrastructure can prove less expensive and faster to deploy. Mobile health solutions can be augmented using newer technologies like high-speed packet access (HSPA) for faster patient care.

With telecom operators in India now claiming that 3G is all pervasive (if it is true even 50%) they can be crucial due to their broad geographical coverage and widely deployed infrastructure, which significantly expand the telemedicine system’s reach. In fact mHealth could be an excellent example of public-private partnership.

To give you an example, Apollo (one of the premier healthcare organizations in India) uses telemedicine to make secondary and tertiary medical expertise available to rural and semi-urban areas in India. The hospital uses audiovisual-enabled delivery system to accomplish this. Due to shortage of qualified doctors, tele-medicine has come pretty handy.

From the year 2000 to 2009, over 57,000 tele-consultations were performed across various disciplines, from sexual health to neurology. The hospital now offers round the clock consultations (for as low as Rs 50) and has nearly 80 tele-medicine centers across India.

To me mHealth is the answer to replicate “anyone, anywhere, anytime” motto in the healthcare segment…

What do you think?

Vegas, VMware, Virtualization – The 3V Assault

Last year around the same time I was part of the VMworld 2010. It was held at San Francisco. The big event alternates between Vegas and SFO. To me SFO is a great choice. Vegas don’t suit for conferencing and you know why I am saying this. The six-mile long strip offers a perfect holiday and conferencing is just not the desirable thing amidst the glittering neon lights and buzzing casinos.

But it is such a rhythmical coincidence: Vegas, VMware and Virtualization.

I am personally a big fan of Paul Maritz, CEO of VMware. He is one of those no-nonsense, much focused guys I have seen in the industry.

Last year I had a chance to see him during VMworld at SFO…

Today morning I saw his inaugural speech at VMworld 2011 and some of the noticeable highlights were:

• One VM being deployed every six seconds (that’s faster than babies being born in the US)
• 20 million VMs running on vSphere
• More VMs in flight using vMotion than there are aircraft in flight
• Greater than 800,000 vSphere administrators worldwide
• More than 68,000 VMware Certified Professionals (across 146 countries)
• More than 1,650 ISV partners and more than 3,000 apps certified on VMware

Quite a universe this company has created around a technology that has stormed the enterprise users across the world.

More so, Paul’s speech indicated where’s VMware heading in the future?

Maritz spoke about the tasks that need to be completed to help the company move into the cloud. He beautifully tied that to vSphere versions that have been delivered by VMware in recent years (4.0 in 2009, 4.1 in 2010, 5.0 in 2011). The introduction of vSphere 5 is key to modernize IT infrastructure and operations.

If we believe Paul, the company is aggressively targeting the public cloud-based services running on vCloud Director.

[For example, Dell announced its first public cloud-based data storage offering at VMworld 2011. Simply named as Dell Cloud, the offering is based upon the VMware vCloud Datacenter Services architecture, which is designed for secure enterprise-grade public, private and hybrid clouds. Dell and VMware will provide Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) solutions for enterprises, hosting and outsourcing firms, system integrators and service providers.]

SMEs seem to be the way forward for VMware. In his speech Paul mentioned about the new release of vSphere Essentials and touched upon VMware Go – a SaaS-based service to assist in infrastructure setup.

To address the end-user access issues Paul announced the View 5.0, with improvements in bandwidth usage, availability of View clients (for almost all devices) and greater integration with VoIP/unified communications providers and services.

I am sure the next three days will be great for the virtualization users and VMware enthusiasts. At least for me it is true. I will keep you updated on some of those breakthroughs.

CIO Shouts: Is the CEO Listening?

Unlike other top executives of a corporation (read COO, CFO, CMO etc.) CIO seems underprivileged. I know my statement can irk CIOs and I shouldn’t generalize this but I am confident that not many of you can confront it with valid reasoning.

Let me clarify upfront that I know what a CIO’s contribution to business is and how important s/he is for the corporation but in my limited exposure (over a decade) with this community of great people, I have seldom found a CEO making an emphatic mention of his CIO like they often do for other C-level executives. On the other hand, I have mostly found a great deal of dissatisfaction among CIOs whenever I spoke about their relationship with their respective CEOs.

I wonder why is it that a CEO accepts his CIO’s contribution with a pinch of salt or great degree of reluctant (treating it as nothing extraordinary). I have myself written a lot of success stories wherein technology implemented by CIOs had not only saved the respective companies millions of dollars but also given tremendous boost to productivity. But rarely do I come across a CEO making an extraordinary mention – at least not in open and not to my knowledge.

I am quite compelled to call it an odd pair unlike the CEO-CFO or CEO-COO etc. Both CIO and CEO (again this is my personal view) have different agendas which create a rift from the beginning. Despite being super critical for a CIO to engage with his CEO and other business leaders in a corporation, there has been little success. For example, when a corporation takes calls on IT investments, it is yet not very clear whether it is a CIO’s domain or a CFO’s prerogative.

Rarely does any important IT project gets axed because of an impasse between the CIO and another decision maker but why is it that every IT project has to be scrutinized by the CFO or an equivalent and then naturally question the CIO and/or IT organization for its sanctity. CIOs may not accept this in open but this gives birth to a ‘not-so-conducive’ environment which grows further and creates drift between business on one side and IT on the other.

In most of my conversations with CIOs they either give a very neutral or (in extreme cases) a negative perception of their bonhomie with the CEO and other C level peers.

It leaves me absolutely perplexed. I need to understand what the truth is.

Is it a problem area for the CIO and that s/he should do something about it?” Or we shall simply assume that the problem is with the perception of the CEO and likes who need to be matured in thinking and talk sense about IT. Should only a CIO bother how to create a good working relationship with his CEO or it is about time that the latter should bend a little and welcome CIO in his C-club?