Brand Eins
“Open source business apps: Die halbe Miete - Software kann man kaufen. Oder bei Firmen wie
         Salesforce und SugarCRM mieten. Ein Geschäftsmodell, das Giganten wie SAP, Oracle und Microsoft          nachdenklich macht”.
         November 13th, 2009

Unternehmen wie DuPont oder Nokia. Sie beziehen die Software so wie ihren Strom – nur eben aus dem Web. Der jährliche Gesamtumsatz für Unternehmens- Software wird von der Gartner Group auf bis zu 250 Milliarden Dollar geschätzt. Die interessante Frage ist, welchen Anteil die Newcomer abzweigen können. Dabei geht es nicht um die Optionen kaufen oder mieten. Denn es gibt einen Mittelweg, der es jedem Anwender recht macht.



The Economist
“Economist Debates: Cloud Computing”
        November 13th, 2009

Computing is going through a transition as profound as the rise of the web. But as Bill Gates used to say, participants overestimate what can be accomplished in two years and underestimate what can be accomplished in 10 years.




Earth2tech
“MySpace Gets Greener Data Centers with Fusion-io”
        October 13th, 2009

Storage — it’s the unsexy work horse behind social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter that require hundreds of thousands of servers to handle the data of millions of users. Traditionally taking the form of spinning disks, data storage also sucks a whole lot of power. But companies, like Fusion-io, are innovating on more energy efficient forms of solid state storage technology (no moving parts), helping web companies drop their monthly energy bills and cut their carbon footprints. This morning Fusion-io said that MySpace has been using its Flash-based storage tech and managed to cut its energy consumption significantly




CIOZone
“Five Ways the CIO Role Changes in the Cloud”
        October 12th, 2009

It’s too early to gauge the full impact that cloud computing will have on the responsibilities and priorities of chief information officers, but some changes are already evident.




Federal Computer Week
“Joint Forces Command to test new network encryption”
        September 4th, 2009

The U.S. Joint Forces Command plans to begin using a new encryption technology that will allow separate, secure virtual communities to coexist on a single network infrastructure. The move, planned for later this month, will protect data while reducing costs by collapsing local-area networks.




FT.com
EMC wins tussle for Data Domain
         July 8th, 2009

EMC will acquire Data Domain following NetApp’s withdrawal from the bidding war for it, ending
a month-long saga that is set to reshape the data storage industry.

The acquisition will give EMC, already the world’s largest maker of data storage systems and software, a fast-growing company with important new technology, while leaving the smaller NetApp exposed.
“EMC is consolidating its position as a market leader,” said Juergen Urbanski of TechAlpha, a research firm. “It’s not clear what’s next for NetApp now.”




Gigaom
EMC Snagged Data Domain, So What’s Next for NetApp?
         July 8th, 2009

Data Domain today finally agreed to be acquired by EMC for $33.50 per share, triggering payment of a $57 million break-up fee to NetApp. For EMC the buy is very much about “keeping your friends close but your enemies closer.”




Gigaom
Bringing Moore’s Law to the Data Storage Market
         july 1st, 2009

As Mike Speiser discussed recently, flash solid-state drives (SSD) will enable a once-in-a-decade improvement in storage price-performance. Crucially, flash SSDs enable storage to keep up with the rapid advances in CPU speeds driven by Moore’s Law. This may enable customers to dramatically scale back purchases of expensive Fibre Channel (FC) disks and, potentially, high-end FC arrays.
However, some early flash SSDs implementations come with a set of limitations that customers need to be aware of, notably around usability and resilience.




Gigaom
Private Clouds: IT Operations Finally Meet Moore's Law
         june 24, 2009

Moore’s Law has enabled new applications by powering computing on an exponential price/performance curve. But increasingly, the proliferation of a new generation of large-scale applications is being constrained by another price/performance curve that hasn’t shown much improvement: IT operations
and the cost of delivery.




Yahoo Finance
TechAlpha Report Shows VMware Is Changing Course to
         Disrupt Large IT Marketss
         January 26, 2009

A new report from industry research firm TechAlpha illustrates how server virtualization will disrupt the storage, database, and middleware markets while creating large new opportunities in business continuity and cloud computing which VMware is well positioned to exploit.




Reuters
TechAlpha Report Shows VMware Is Changing Course to
         Disrupt Large IT Marketsss
         January 26, 2009

A new report from industry research firm TechAlpha illustrates how server virtualization will disrupt the storage, database, and middleware markets while creating large new opportunities in business continuity and cloud computing which VMware is well positioned to exploit.




FoxBusiness
TechAlpha Report Shows VMware Is Changing Course to
         Disrupt Large IT Marketsss
         January 26, 2009

A new report from industry research firm TechAlpha illustrates how server virtualization will disrupt the storage, database, and middleware markets while creating large new opportunities in business continuity and cloud computing which VMware is well positioned to exploit.




Gigaom
Clouds Looming for Server Software Vendors
         December 9, 2008

As cloud computing moves beyond startups and attracts enterprise users, major software vendors are
being forced to reckon with a new challenge to their current pricing models. Much like the emergence of
software as a service has caused many large software vendors to evaluate existing licensing models that
charge a set price for each software package copy running on a machine, the emergence of cloud
computing is pressuring top server software vendors Microsoft, Oracle and IBM to adopt a subscriptionstyle
type of pricing.




BusinessWeek
Clouds Looming for Server Software Vendors
         December 9, 2008

Cloud computing challenges server software vendors to create new pricing models. The first step is to divorce software from hardware




Economist.com
 Economics of Cloud Computing
         Oct 23rd 2008

EVEN elephants can die. In 1993 extinction came close for IBM, then the world’s largest computer-maker (it has since been overtaken by HP). Its mainframe business was collapsing and profits were plummeting. At that point Louis Gerstner took over as chief executive and managed to turn the company around. “Only a handful of people understand how precariously close IBM came to running out of cash in 1993,” he writes in his memoir, “Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance?” “Whether we would have had to file for bankruptcy, I can’t say.”




SandHill.com
SaaS Suites Struggle in the Enterprise
         September 02nd, 2008

It’s no secret Software as a Service (SaaS) has generated tremendous excitement among many customers for its apparently transformational adoption model and ownership experience. Unlike client-server applications, SaaS delivers faster time to value often via a viral buying cycle as well as lower risk deployment.

The early adopter focus has been on small and midsize businesses (SMBs) because SaaS makes it economical to reach them with broad penetration for the first time.
Where SaaS has carved out successes in large enterprises, it has largely been in more independent, non-mission critical departmental functions that have no CapEx budgets such as HR, CRM, or marketing, not end to end suites.




BrandEins Artikel
Mehr Frische. Mehr Service
        September, 2008

Hewlett-Packard ist wieder da. Die erste Legende des Silicon Valley feiert neue Triumphe, verdrängte Dell bei den PC-Verkäufen vom ersten Platz und nimmt nun den Branchenführer IBM ins Visier.
Aus dem ingenieurgetriebenen Bastlerladen soll der führende IT-Dienstleister werden.




SandHill.com

The Bottom Line on SaaS

August 18th, 2006

As vendors scramble to provide on-demand offerings, an in-depth analysis of the numbers behind one SaaS business show a superior economic model.

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) is a top-of-mind consideration for most software company leaders today. The idea is hot but the reality is challenging (as Ray Lane wrote earlier this year ) leaving many vendors on the sidelines. Although there are several intuitive arguments in favor of the model, there is still disagreement on how and why the SaaS model is superior to the traditional perpetual licensing model.

Few thorough analyses are available on the long-term impact of the SaaS business model. After a careful examination, it was determined that the best way to delve into the strength of the SaaS economic model would be to use SalesForce.com's (SFDC) quarterly figures and analyze them to uncover the company's true profitability.

The numbers told a compelling story: SaaS is not just a superior economic model, but it also has several strategic advantages over the traditional licensing model. Normalizing SFDC's income statement expands operating margins to an implied 33 to 39 percent, up from a currently reported 6 percent. SaaS is economically more efficient for the customers too, as it minimizes their spending on IT infrastructure and services. SaaS also allows vendors to shrink their product innovation cycles and drive innovation across a wider cross section of their customers than the traditional model.

Managing Offshore

When Offshore Support Needs Help?

January 24th, 2005

Over the past few years, the number of companies that have moved their technical-support operations offshore has increased significantly. However, some of the companies that offshore support operations are realizing that the actual savings are much lower than their initial projections. In this article, TechAlpha Principal Rahul Sood, discusses how indiscriminate offshoring of tech support will dilute savings and erode customer satisfaction.

SSPA Research

New mantra for support and maintenance – running IT systems cheaper and more reliably

January 24th, 2005

Traditional support and maintenance contracts today generally offer diminished value to the CIOs. CIOs traditionally have bought support and maintenance contracts for the periodic upgrades and for insurance against product failures. Both the value of these have been diminishing in most software segments.

The Wall Street Journal

How companies are squeezing tech suppliers to get a bigger bang for their software bucks

January 17th, 2005

TechAlpha is cited in this WSJ article on how customers are increasingly demanding more and better software for their investment.

Destination CRM

Consumers have high expectations of customer service, but aren't willing to pay for it

January 4th, 2005

This article features highlights from 2005 Consumer Support Demand Series. As consumers use increasingly complex products, they rely heavily on customer service and support which has large implications vendors support revenues and margins. However, are the consumers willing to pay for support?

Press Release

Rapidly Changing Enterprise Customer Requirements for Technical Support Put New Pressures on Technology Companies, According to Independent Research

October 4th, 2004

Study by the SSPA and TechAlpha reveals enterprise customers are focused on lower costs and greater accountability, open to offshore and web-based support. Enterprise customers are demanding more accountability from vendors on technical service commitments, as well as reductions in Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), according to new research by the Service and Support Professionals Association (SSPA) and TechAlpha. These are a few of the findings in the "2005 Support Demand Research Series" being released by The SSPA and TechAlpha in early October.

Press Release

New Research on Consumer Technical Support Reveals Preference for Phone Service, Fear of Downloads and Age Bias Against Offshore Support

October 4th, 2004

Consumers of software, hardware and peripherals still prefer to get technical support over the phone despite vendors trying to push them to the Web, according to new research by the Service and Support Professionals Association (SSPA) and TechAlpha. The research also shows consumers fear installing downloads and patches might cause problems or infect their systems, younger consumers are more accepting of offshore support than their parents, and most consumers say that good support is an important factor when deciding on what product to buy – although many still refuse to pay for it. These are a few of the findings in the "2005 Support Demand Research Series" being released by The SSPA and TechAlpha in early October.

Wired

India – New Face of the Silicon Age.

February 12th, 2004

Tech jobs are fleeing to India faster than ever. Remember that old Silicon Valley mantra, "Change is good"? In this feature, Chris Anderson, makes the argument of how computers initially threatened jobs, but ultimately made the economy stronger. He argues so will outsourcing and quotes TechAlpha on how offshoring can help drive innovation.

Best practices

For product development offshoring

January 20th, 2004

While offshoring IT projects has been going on for more than a decade and is expected to become a $9bn export market for India in 2003, offshoring software product development is far less mature. Most offshoring consultants or vendors often do not distinguish between offshoring IT projects or software product development. They usually propose a one-size fits all model, not recognizing that while an IT project is a discrete stand alone project, product development is an mulit-stage manufacturing process.

At TechAlpha (TA), we focus on helping software product companies on developing their offshore plans and helping execute them. In this article we share our perspectives on why offshoring product development is radically different from traditional IT projects.

Economist.com

The future of computing

January 18th, 2004

There has been a lot of media attention and industry debate on "utility computing". Also referred to as "on-demand computing" or "adaptive computing", it is often hard to distinguish facts from fiction. In this article TA partner, Rahul Sood is quoted on his views on the challenges with buying computing capability as a service.

CjNET News.com

Outsourcing's offshore myth

December 15th, 2003

Critics have condemned offshore development as everything from shortsighted to un-American--but it may well wind up rescuing the U.S. software industry. To remain competitive in the global market, U.S. software companies must continue to drive innovation. However, innovation today is being strangled through insufficient RandD budgets on the company side and an overspending hangover on the customer side. Offshore development can help on both fronts.

Mercurynews.com

Security threats offshore

December 9th, 2003

The media have recently attributed several cases of intellectual property loss and privacy violation to the outsourcing of work to foreign countries. This has added to the controversy surrounding the growing number of U.S. companies turning to cheaper labor overseas. There are a variety of reasons why offshore labor is unpopular right now. However, security concerns should not be one of them. Most U.S. companies using offshore labor should be able to prevent security issues by taking some precautions.

Post-Bubble demand

Enterprise applications and implications for the industry structure

November 26th, 2003

McKinsey Global Institute estimates that in the last five years of the 20th century companies overspent on IT by more than $250 billion. By 2001, software spending accounted for 21% of the total capital spending in the US. What followed was a sharp decline in corporate IT budgets, as CIOs dramatically cut discretionary spending. The software industry saw the largest drop in license revenue ever between 2001 and 2003. After 2 years of depressed spending the Industry is beginning to see an upturn in IT spending.

How has the enterprise demand for business applications changed in the meantime? Which of these changes are cyclical and which are more structural in nature? How will the axis of competition change as a result of these changes? What will be the impact of these changes on the industry landscape and industry economics? How should vendors respond to the changing axis of competition? To answer these questions, TechAlpha conducted over 40 interviews with CIOs, SIs, leading ISVs and industry experts. In this report we share the findings our work.