SOA filling the Gaps

  More than 4 years ago I was asked if Public Cloud Core Banking is a Hype or a Short Term Reality? If you had read the post, you would probably find the answer that it was probably Hype and not Short Term Reality . This post Revisits the same issue. Size Matters The issue is a major issue for Large Banks. Those banks use IBM Mainframe for executing their Core Banking systems.  Smaller Banks used two decades ago UNIX based Core Banking Packages.  The Systems Availability, Scalability and Security was not as high as the Mainframe based Core Banking Systems, but it was probably good enough. My very limited Study I looked for real Case Studies of deployments of Core Banking system in the Public Cloud . I looked for articles and Research Notes by Googling. I did not find much. No real Case Studies of Large Banks transforming their Core Banking to Cloud Based systems. I refer to the following articles: Mckinsey's  Core systems strategy for banks   Deloitte's Cloud ...

According to recent Gartner CRM Market Report Salesforce.com is the Worldwide CRM Software Spendings market leader with 16%  in 2013. SAP is second with 13% and Oracle third with 10%. As far as Revenue Growth from 2012 to 2013 is concerned, Salesforce.com is leading with 30.3%. Microsoft following with 22.8% and IBM with 22% Revenues Growth. SAP growth rate is 12.7%. Oracle is lagging with 4%.  According to the same Gartner 's report, 41% of CRM Systems are SaaS-based. Seven years ago     Seven years ago the data was not resembling current data. Oracle after acquiring Siebel and PeopleSoft was the biggest CRM vendor. SAP was its main competitor.  The growth rate   of a new market player, Microsoft ,    in the  SMB  market  was high. New SaaS CRM players emerged. The most sinificant SaaS CRM player was Salesforce.com .   SaaS is Mainstream The CRM market data is indicating that SaaS is Mainstream . R...

Four years ago I wrote a post titled: SaaS is Going Mainstream . It was based upon Burton Group (now part of Gartner )'s SaaS survey. Three years later I wrote a post titled: ERP as a SaaS Maturity Indicator  and a post titled: Fall is a Season not the future of SaaS . The last post cited, was my answer to an article titled: The Rise of Big Data and The Fall of SaaS . My opinion as well as the data, I based my opinion upon, supported the idea that SaaS market is growing and it is Going to be Mainstream. The Time is Changing, SaaS is no longer Going Mainstream: It is Mainstream . Read the following IBM study titled: While Many Companies Try SaaS for Cost Savings, Top Performers Discover Competitive Advantage ... Nearly half of IBM's survey participants are alreasy using SaaS. Global spending on SaaS is expected to reach 45.4 Billion USDs by 2017. IBM's paper includes an interesting Industry Analyst's estimate that by 2017, Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) will...

Shadow IT is growing and growing. In this post I explain what Shadow IT is and how it is related to the Business-IT Gap.  What is Shadow IT? Shadow IT is Information Technology   Applications , Systems and Infrastructure, which are developed and/or used without decisions and without approval of the Enterprise Management Team and the CIO .  Sometimes the Enterprise Management don't even know that these "Shadows" are executed as part of the Enterprise Information Technology. Shadow IT Trends and Directions Shadow IT is almost as old as Information Technology. When I worked on Y2K Bug , IT assets mapping was a necessary step.  We discovered Shadow IT applications such as Microsoft Excel applications, Reports using orphan tools (The company which built the tool was out of Business), Microsoft Access Applications and Data (The End User who developed them was no longer an employee of that Enterprise) etc.  If you read Alex Salazar's article: A little L...

Why SOA is implemented by more enterprises than BPM ?  SOA is an Architecture, so an enterprise may use an Architecture or not.  Many Enterprises without any architecture, begin their SOA initiative, when SOA was only Hype and buzzword. Other Enterprises followed when it matured. Some realized measurable SOA benefits.  Unfortunately, many of them executed it wrongly, and therefore their SOA benefits were limited or even non-existent.  Managing Business Processes is not an option it is a must . Therefore Enterprises managed their Processes manually or by usage of  code  embedded in Systems' Business Logic Layer. It is difficult to convince them to change their Process Management practices by implementing BPM. The company's management team may use the slogan: If it is not broken do not fix it.   The significant value of BPM is not Business Process Automation. It is Business Process Change or Improvement or Flexibility. In order to change a Bus...

I recently  read a TechCrunch article titled: The Rise of Big Data Apps and the Fall of SaaS written by Raj De Datta. I do agree with the prefix. As far as the suffix is concerned, I can only explain why  Raj De Datta's opinion is wrong.  I usually tend not to agree with statements about premature End of Life of technologies or architectures or trends. In most cases, it easier to kill a concept in writing, than to persuade a large number of users to change their habits. The root of the opinion that Business Logic Centered Applications are in conflict with Data Centered Applications, derived from specialization of IT experts. The approach of experts specialized in Data is different from the approach experts specialized in Applications. I also read an interesting related  Gartner Research Note titled: Overlaps in Data Integration and Application Integration Represent Significant Opportunities . This Research Note written by Gartner's Analysts Ted F...

On March 19th I participated in STKI Summit . participating in this Israeli Market analysis conference is  an habit. I aprticpated in 2011 , 2010  and 2008 . My consist particiaption indicates that, at  least in my opinion, it is a valuable event.  This year theme was IT Revolution Consumer Power . The Consumer centirc IT revolution is not totally new, it was discussed in previous year Summit Presentations, as one of the driving forces. I am attaching links to the presentations: Jimmy Schwarzkopf - IT Market in Israel 2012 Pini  Cohen - Trends in Infrastructure: Paradigm Shift Shahar Geiger Maor - Networking Trends , EndPoints Trends Einat Shimoni - Trends in Enterprise Applications, Web & Analytics Galit Fein - Office of the CIO Office of the CMO market Trends 2012 I did not find a link to the new analyst and Research Assistant  Liza Bodogin 's presentation on ECM, Talent Training and Social Applications. Probably it is included in Ein...

I recently read Tien Tzue 's post titled The End of ERP . As usual, I suspect the validity of statements beginning with the End of ... without a question mark in the end. Tien Tzue's statement is not an exception. According to Tien Tzue there is a shift from 20th century products based economy to 21th century Service subscription economy, therefore ERP is doomed. He refers to the acquisitions of Cloud ERP solutions companies,  Successful Factors by SAP and Taleo by Oracle , as an End Of Life signs of traditional ERP.   No ERP company can afford to ignore Cloud based ERP, but that does not mean that SAP, Oracle and other traditional vendor, are going to kill the goose who lays golden eggs i.e. their traditional On-Premise ERP suits. SaaS based ERP is a better fit for some enterprises and Traditional ERP fits better for other enterprises. Three years ago I already discussed the issue of Future Applications: SaaS or Traditional .   Basically it i...

What are the most Hyped Cloud Technologies? This was the question asked in a survey of ReadWrite Cloud readers.  As no details about the sample characteristics are disclosed the results couls be misleading. The results could be biased due to some of the following factors: 1. the number of people surveyed is unknown and could be too small for supporting any conclusion. 2. The sample could be biased. Do not forget that the site is sponsored by Intel and VMware and therefore you may find relatively more customers of these companies. 3. No sample characteristics were defined, so the people answering the survey questions voluntarily may not represent the whole population. The Results The most hyped Cloud technologies were in decending order: 1. NOSQL 2. Software as a Service (SaaS) 3. Private Clouds 4-5. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) 4-5. Platform as a Service (PaaS) Least Hyped technologies were Infrastructure Apps and API and Data as a Service . Acco...