Cloud and Service Catalog Blog

May I Take Your Order? Lack of Service Offering Definitions Slowing Cloud Projects. Yeah. Really.

Over the last few months, I've noticed a number of service service providers and enterprises that are building cloud offerings struggling to articulate  their offerings, often late in the project.

These are all smart people who've spent months or years planning their cloud project (public and private).  They've bought servers, networks, storage, various software (but not self-service) and then are somewhat stumped as to what their packages should be.

They are know the general class of service: infrastructure as a service. They know what the core elements are: computing, network and storage.  They know it should be on-demand, but it isn't yet (which is why they are talking to newScale).

Beyond that there's less certainty about what packages to offer, what boundaries those packages have and what to do with all traditional configuration. And they are unsure as to how to enable their customers to order, consume, and configure the offerings.

To use an analogy, they know they'll be selling burgers, but don't know exactly the business model.   Are they are going to be like MacDonalds (no change, fixed bundles), Burger King (have it your way), 4 star restaurant (foie gras with rare unicorn cheese) or catering (what kind of food would you like?).

What's missing is the product marketing and product management view to accompany the technical and process views. In other words, someone to figure out who are the customers, what do they want, and what are the competitive offers they need to match and exceed.

In the spirit of helping out, these are my working observations thus far on how to approach a cloud service definition.

First, the service offering should be consistent with accepted customeror competitive market definitions.

This means the offering should match, be like or somewhat like exising offerings from well-known vendors.They should be measured, priced according to common measures that are accepted.

For example, AWS uses VM instances prices which have become the new benchmark so it's not a bad beginning. Others use RAM, or GIgabytes of storage. The whole point is that the offering should be comparable to what's in the market. Doesn't have to be a copy, but roughly comparable. It can't be both a dessert topping and a floor wax.

Recently, I talked to the engineering head of a data center who was convinced the right metric for charging was IOPS (don't ask me)  because it was a more accurate picture of customer value. Maybe. But there are no other providers out there offering that metric so going with that metric would result in long sales cycles as the customers tried to figure out comparison models.

As a first step, put your offering on a grid vs a few others. Here's one from a newScale page.

See where your offering matches features of existing offerings. Your offering can't be so unique that you don't play the game, because you'll be out of the game. Check out "What T-Shirt Sizes Taught Me About Cloud Standards" for some ideas on packaging.

Second, extend the Service Offering definiton with unique, value-add differentiators.

Unless you are the lowest cost provider, you need a reason why a customer should choose you. You need features that differentiate you from your competitors and that the customer considers valuable. 

The good news is that cloud computing is not going to be a commodity for a long while.  For the next few years, there's going to be a fair amount opportunities of innovation and differentiation.

There are differentiation opportunities in service levels, network performance, complementary service offerings, professional services, bundles, security and configurations available. And that's just a list off the top of my head.

As I wrote on "Differentiated Service Levels," just the basic add on service of picking up the phone for support is subject to differentiation. In the case of Amazon it's the difference between Bronze Level at $49/month or Platinum level at $15,000/month.

The network another juicy area for differentiation. As Chris Hoff writes in his blog about the current state of public clouds.

Not supporting multiple virtual interfaces, not supporting multiple IP addresses per instance/VM, not supporting multicast or broadcast capabilities for software-based load balancing (and resiliency of the LB engines themselves)…these are nasty issues that in many cases require wholesale re-engineering of app stacks and push things like resiliency and high availability into uncertain waters.

So there you have a nice list of differentiation just for the network.  But don't focus solely on being different and ignore features your competitors tout. 

For example, a hosting company started their cloud offering with very strong network and security configurations as their differentiator.  This makes a lot of sense, as security is real customer concern.

But the customer also wanted the storage options they saw other vendors. So they had to go back and fill in the basics of their offering and then figure out how to provide a storage self-service interface in record time. Which they did.

Third, your Service Offering needs be delivered via self-service

And this means automation needs to be considered. Which causes the team to look at their processes and... get paralyzed.

The cloud teams tend to have strong technical staff and good process people but don't have any customer experience or product marketing people to help create packages, experiences and guides.

The paralysis sets because all the configurations possibilities look like an overwhelming number of choices. Which they are.

It is the job of product marketing to figure out which packages to offer and which variations to allow.  And it's the job of the service catalog tool to enable the self-service configuration, guided shopping experience which results in an order than can delivered automatically.

So in a nutshell, the obstacles to self-service tend to be:

• What packages and how much variability will offer?
• How do we make it "easy" for the customer to select, configure and order?
• How do we automate the back end to maket it automagical for the customer?
• What do we do with all manual steps, API-less firewall, and other stuff we never worried when provisioning was a multi-week process?

If the variability of service offerings is infinite, automation is impossible, but if your offerings are more like Burger King--base models with variability (extra cheese)--then self-service automation becomes very straight-forward.

There are other issues, like the fear of the fat finger aka capacity management. And how to create a compelling end user experience (See "I can mathematically prove you are attractive" for a good tip on that.) 

And finally there's a whole bunch of information that needs to be presented to the customer and they are unclear. They need a service portal that mashes up different sources of information, like this:

These are my observation thus far. Service Offerings need to be worked on ahead of time or the hardware is going to sit on that datacenter and not get much utilization for a while. The servers are humming, the hypervisor is working, etc, etc. It's just waiting for an order. May I take your order?

 I'll update as I learn more

Introducing newScale 9 – The Sexiest IT StoreFront Ever!

Yesterday we announced our new release of the newScale IT Front Office suite, newScale 9. An articlee covering the launch by Linda Leung at DataCenter Knowledge had this to say: Can NewScale Make IT Service Catalogs Sexy?

I'm happy to report the answer is YES. There are so many great new capabilities in newScale 9, that I'm going to blog about the major ones individually over the next few days.

Since sexy seemed to catch, I'll start with our new Marketing Library.

Starting from a blank slate can be challenging — it's often easier to be an editor rather than an author. Traditionally, we have had over 1300 services defined, documented, with forms and graphics.

With the libraries of newScale Service Catalog templates, IT organizations can leverage out-of-the-box content to jump start their Service Catalog deployment.

IT organizations can also leverage the newScale Service Catalog Marketing Library™ to drive even higher user adoption and IT customer satisfaction. This library includes includes professionally designed Service Catalog layout templates, premium reusable images for marketing the value of IT's services, and best practice guidelines and examples on incorporating Web 2.0 technology into a Service Catalog.

Let's see what this means.

Layouts

We have modernized and created a whole bunch of new layouts to enable IT to present a professional face to its customers. They are very cool. And this is what they looks like:

 

Marketing Templates

We've added several standard marketing templates to the catalog. A marketing template is a set layout, content, graphics and smart behaviours that provided what we call a guided-shopping experience for users.

If you've used the Apple Store, Amazon, Dell or other high quality e-commerce sites, you'll recognize the style and look. As you can see below, they are ready to edited with your content, but they already have the appropriate content for common data center packages.

These pre-made templates help you provide consumer reports-style service comparisons and describe service details

 

Image Library

Images are core to delivering a professional Web 2.0 e-commerce experience. Unfortunately, they are a source of much difficulty in delivering that service catalog.

Finding the right images, in the right size, in the right color families is near impossible, if you are not a graphic designer. And of course it's not just time consuming, it's expensive to license…ahem if you want to be "legal" about it.

So we have provided a whole new image library with hundreds of IT and datacenter specific images. We have commissioned spectacular artwork in proper families to enable you to deliver that WOW user experience.

This is an example of four families. And they come with guidance on how to use them to convey the proper emotion. Yes. I said emotion.

 

There are a whole bunch of other features in the Marketing library for levarging technologies to increase usability of your Service Catalog. We provide examples of how to take advantage of these tools, inside our newScale9 catalog.

You can connect and tons of external resources into a newScale9 catalog such as Blog, surveys, site usage statistics, youTube embedding, documents, currency conversion, language translation, etc.

Here's a Video is added to a tab of a service definition.

 

newScale 9 is huge major release. I've started with the smallest part of it, to give you a flavor of what a modern, web 2.0 self-service IT storefront needs to be.

Next, we'll tackle Lifecycle Center.

Beware these risks of cloud computing, from no SLAs to vendor lock-in. I Say: BEWARE COMPLACENCY

This is a good article about the state of cloud computing, beware these risks of cloud computing, from no SLAs to vendor lock-in.  All the issues raised are very valid and should be considered. 

But many of these issues have relatively straight-forward solutions and counter arguments. I've picked a  few paragraphs below to illustrate the ones I'm most familiar with. First:

The on-demand computing model in itself is a dilemma. With the on-demand utility model, enterprises often gain a self-service interface so users can self-provision an application, or extra storage from an Infrastructure as a Service provider. This empowers users and speeds up projects.

The flip side: Such services may be too easy to consume. Burton Group Inc. analyst Drue Reeves, speaking at the firm's Catalyst show last week, shared a story of a CIO receiving bills for 25 different people in his company with 25 different accounts with cloud services providers. Is finance aware of this, or will it be in for a sticker shock?

I don't see a dilemma. The business has objectives and goals to accomplish. These carry risks: take too long and the opportunity passes. Spend too much ahead of demand and your cost structure buries you. And so forth. 

Cloud computing alleviates those two risks (and others) to such a degree that, I claim, the other risks are much smaller and easier.  Elasticity, standardization, and transparent pricing have such HUGE value, the problems are worth the effort.

It's true that you can have sprawl. Too many accounts, but these are EASY to deal with.  For example, if you use VMware, just get our self-service catalog for VMware.  You'll have your Amazon-like site running in about an hour.

This technology balances convenience and control. A dev group can request servers, get automatically provisioned. But you can put approvals, control and charges. Additionally, newScale lifecycle manager tracks subscriptions, due dates for VM expirations, and reports consumption so you can prevent sprawl.

I know it sounds like an ad for our product, which it is, but the punchline is this: it costs about $30 per VM.  Very cheap. So you can now get the benefits of cloud computing, have the controls, implement self-service. You can even try it for free. Question: why wouldn't you do it? 

The article continues:

Lack of governance can thus be a problem. The finance department may have to address users simply putting services on a credit card, and there's also the issue of signing up for services without following corporate-mandated procedures and policies for security and data privacy. Does the information being put in the cloud by these rogue users contain sensitive data? Does the cloud provider have any regulatory compliance responsibility, and if not, then is it your problem?

These are all good points. But it's pretty straight-forward to address in steps with a service catalog These are the steps.

1. Put your existing standard configurations in the service catalog
2. Enable self-service ordering and life-cycle control by your users.
3. Provide wizard guides to workloads so workloads with sensitive data get internal servers; others may get cloud servers.

Once you provide steps #1 and 2 -- there is NO reason for your customers to go rogue. They are going rogue because IT's provisioning process is BROKEN -- takes weeks and months to get an environment. It takes massive amount of documents, Kafkaesque meetings, and opaque processes to get the needed resources.

Without a catalog that defines standard environments, allowed configurations, easy ordering, some sort of provisioning and self-service, customers are going to go their own way, as I've written before on 16 digits to freedom and Amazon has written your technical services catalog.

So while I completely agree with the issues raised in the article, I fear that the lesson is wrong. The lesson seems to be: You should wait because there's all these issues.  I say, there are not issues. There are opportunities to deliver big benefit to the business and there are obstacles to address.

This is not the time to be complacent. Those issues are being solved very fast and cheaply.  When the time comes, IT can be the enabler, or they'll be by-passed.

Beware these risks of cloud computing, from no SLAs to vendor lock-in. I Say: BEWARE COMPLACENCY

This is a good article about the state of cloud computing, beware these risks of cloud computing, from no SLAs to vendor lock-in.  All the issues raised are very valid and should be considered. 

But many of these issues have relatively straight-forward solutions and counter arguments. I've picked a  few paragraphs below to illustrate the ones I'm most familiar with. First:

The on-demand computing model in itself is a dilemma. With the on-demand utility model, enterprises often gain a self-service interface so users can self-provision an application, or extra storage from an Infrastructure as a Service provider. This empowers users and speeds up projects.

The flip side: Such services may be too easy to consume. Burton Group Inc. analyst Drue Reeves, speaking at the firm's Catalyst show last week, shared a story of a CIO receiving bills for 25 different people in his company with 25 different accounts with cloud services providers. Is finance aware of this, or will it be in for a sticker shock?

I don't see a dilemma. The business has objectives and goals to accomplish. These carry risks: take too long and the opportunity passes. Spend too much ahead of demand and your cost structure buries you. And so forth. 

Cloud computing alleviates those two risks (and others) to such a degree that, I claim, the other risks are much smaller and easier.  Elasticity, standardization, and transparent pricing have such HUGE value, the problems are worth the effort.

It's true that you can have sprawl. Too many accounts, but these are EASY to deal with.  For example, if you use VMware, just get our self-service catalog for VMware.  You'll have your Amazon-like site running in about an hour.

This technology balances convenience and control. A dev group can request servers, get automatically provisioned. But you can put approvals, control and charges. Additionally, newScale lifecycle manager tracks subscriptions, due dates for VM expirations, and reports consumption so you can prevent sprawl.

I know it sounds like an ad for our product, which it is, but the punchline is this: it costs about $30 per VM.  Very cheap. So you can now get the benefits of cloud computing, have the controls, implement self-service. You can even try it for free. Question: why wouldn't you do it? 

The article continues:

Lack of governance can thus be a problem. The finance department may have to address users simply putting services on a credit card, and there's also the issue of signing up for services without following corporate-mandated procedures and policies for security and data privacy. Does the information being put in the cloud by these rogue users contain sensitive data? Does the cloud provider have any regulatory compliance responsibility, and if not, then is it your problem?

These are all good points. But it's pretty straight-forward to address in steps with a service catalog These are the steps.

1. Put your existing standard configurations in the service catalog
2. Enable self-service ordering and life-cycle control by your users.
3. Provide wizard guides to workloads so workloads with sensitive data get internal servers; others may get cloud servers.

Once you provide steps #1 and 2 -- there is NO reason for your customers to go rogue. They are going rogue because IT's provisioning process is BROKEN -- takes weeks and months to get an environment. It takes massive amount of documents, Kafkaesque meetings, and opaque processes to get the needed resources.

Without a catalog that defines standard environments, allowed configurations, easy ordering, some sort of provisioning and self-service, customers are going to go their own way, as I've written before on 16 digits to freedom and Amazon has written your technical services catalog.

So while I completely agree with the issues raised in the article, I fear that the lesson is wrong. The lesson seems to be: You should wait because there's all these issues.  I say, there are not issues. There are opportunities to deliver big benefit to the business and there are obstacles to address.

This is not the time to be complacent. Those issues are being solved very fast and cheaply.  When the time comes, IT can be the enabler, or they'll be by-passed.

Beware these risks of cloud computing, from no SLAs to vendor lock-in. I Say: BEWARE COMPLACENCY

This is a good article about the state of cloud computing, beware these risks of cloud computing, from no SLAs to vendor lock-in.  All the issues raised are very valid and should be considered. 

But many of these issues have relatively straight-forward solutions and counter arguments. I've picked a  few paragraphs below to illustrate the ones I'm most familiar with. First:

The on-demand computing model in itself is a dilemma. With the on-demand utility model, enterprises often gain a self-service interface so users can self-provision an application, or extra storage from an Infrastructure as a Service provider. This empowers users and speeds up projects.

The flip side: Such services may be too easy to consume. Burton Group Inc. analyst Drue Reeves, speaking at the firm's Catalyst show last week, shared a story of a CIO receiving bills for 25 different people in his company with 25 different accounts with cloud services providers. Is finance aware of this, or will it be in for a sticker shock?

I don't see a dilemma. The business has objectives and goals to accomplish. These carry risks: take too long and the opportunity passes. Spend too much ahead of demand and your cost structure buries you. And so forth. 

Cloud computing alleviates those two risks (and others) to such a degree that, I claim, the other risks are much smaller and easier.  Elasticity, standardization, and transparent pricing have such HUGE value, the problems are worth the effort.

It's true that you can have sprawl. Too many accounts, but these are EASY to deal with.  For example, if you use VMware, just get our self-service catalog for VMware.  You'll have your Amazon-like site running in about an hour.

This technology balances convenience and control. A dev group can request servers, get automatically provisioned. But you can put approvals, control and charges. Additionally, newScale lifecycle manager tracks subscriptions, due dates for VM expirations, and reports consumption so you can prevent sprawl.

I know it sounds like an ad for our product, which it is, but the punchline is this: it costs about $30 per VM.  Very cheap. So you can now get the benefits of cloud computing, have the controls, implement self-service. You can even try it for free. Question: why wouldn't you do it? 

The article continues:

Lack of governance can thus be a problem. The finance department may have to address users simply putting services on a credit card, and there's also the issue of signing up for services without following corporate-mandated procedures and policies for security and data privacy. Does the information being put in the cloud by these rogue users contain sensitive data? Does the cloud provider have any regulatory compliance responsibility, and if not, then is it your problem?

These are all good points. But it's pretty straight-forward to address in steps with a service catalog These are the steps.

1. Put your existing standard configurations in the service catalog
2. Enable self-service ordering and life-cycle control by your users.
3. Provide wizard guides to workloads so workloads with sensitive data get internal servers; others may get cloud servers.

Once you provide steps #1 and 2 -- there is NO reason for your customers to go rogue. They are going rogue because IT's provisioning process is BROKEN -- takes weeks and months to get an environment. It takes massive amount of documents, Kafkaesque meetings, and opaque processes to get the needed resources.

Without a catalog that defines standard environments, allowed configurations, easy ordering, some sort of provisioning and self-service, customers are going to go their own way, as I've written before on 16 digits to freedom and Amazon has written your technical services catalog.

So while I completely agree with the issues raised in the article, I fear that the lesson is wrong. The lesson seems to be: You should wait because there's all these issues.  I say, there are not issues. There are opportunities to deliver big benefit to the business and there are obstacles to address.

This is not the time to be complacent. Those issues are being solved very fast and cheaply.  When the time comes, IT can be the enabler, or they'll be by-passed.

"The service catalog will make or break my service portfolio. If I can't describe it and let you order it then I sure as hell can't sell it to you."

Best quote ever about the impact of a service catalog from a service provider

 "The service catalog will make or break my service portfolio. If I can't describe it and let you order it then I sure as hell can't sell it to you."

Which makes a lot of sense, no?  Internal IT organizations take for granted that no matter what, they'll still be needed.  That day is soon ending. 

"The service catalog will make or break my service portfolio. If I can't describe it and let you order it then I sure as hell can't sell it to you."

Best quote ever about the impact of a service catalog from a service provider

 "The service catalog will make or break my service portfolio. If I can't describe it and let you order it then I sure as hell can't sell it to you."

Which makes a lot of sense, no?  Internal IT organizations take for granted that no matter what, they'll still be needed.  That day is soon ending. 

"The service catalog will make or break my service portfolio. If I can't describe it and let you order it then I sure as hell can't sell it to you."

Best quote ever about the impact of a service catalog from a service provider

 "The service catalog will make or break my service portfolio. If I can't describe it and let you order it then I sure as hell can't sell it to you."

Which makes a lot of sense, no?  Internal IT organizations take for granted that no matter what, they'll still be needed.  That day is soon ending. 

Service Catalog for VMware Now Available for Free Test Drive. Mass Hysteria! Cats and Dogs Living Together

Always loved this quote from Ghostbusters (via IMDB)

Dr Ray Stantz: What he means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor, real wrath of God type stuff.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!

Starting Friday (today for my readers), newScale is offering free trials of its brand new service catalog tool for VMWare deployments.

With VMware, you can quickly provision new virtual machines. But do you have the right controls and approvals in place for self-service VM requests? (Probably not). Do your users think VMs are free? (They probably do).

Lifecycle management is a hot topic, but do you know who requested each VM when and for what purpose? Can you tell who is still using what VMs and why? Do you know which VMs you can turn off to free up capacity?

Unlike physical assets, VM's are running until someone turns them off. This is tough without a service lifecycle record.  Our new Service Catalog software provide visibility and control for VMware environments - to ensure effective governance, optimize resource utilization, prevent virtual server sprawl, and maximize your ROI from virtualization.

Essentially, it provides an Amazon cloud front end to your datacenter.  These are really tough times for people to get money for projects, so we worked real hard to deliver a new class of product.

• It's an appliance. So there are no installation issues, database, app servers to buy or install. It's all in the box. 
• It works out the box with VMware VCenter.
• It has a large set of complete, pre-packaged service request definitions for the most common request and actions QA and Dev request from the server group.
• It has our high-end service catalog editor to enable customization of forms and workflows without coding.
• You can deploy and be operational in an hour
• It's available for free trial
• And we made it very, very inexpensive to get started. Like $30 per VM?        

This is a screenshot that shows how the service catalog guides a user between choosing between different classes of VM's.

It will show comparison table with different times to provision: 2 days for standard, 4 weeks for custom. Also support levels, costs, etc will be clearly compared.

newScale is considered the top product in the service catalog world but maybe too expensive. This new package is our sports sedan that gets you going in hours.

You can start your trial here.  Mass hysteria!

Service Catalog for VMware Now Available for Free Test Drive. Mass Hysteria! Cats and Dogs Living Together

Always loved this quote from Ghostbusters (via IMDB)

Dr Ray Stantz: What he means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor, real wrath of God type stuff.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!

Starting Friday (today for my readers), newScale is offering free trials of its brand new service catalog tool for VMWare deployments.

With VMware, you can quickly provision new virtual machines. But do you have the right controls and approvals in place for self-service VM requests? (Probably not). Do your users think VMs are free? (They probably do).

Lifecycle management is a hot topic, but do you know who requested each VM when and for what purpose? Can you tell who is still using what VMs and why? Do you know which VMs you can turn off to free up capacity?

Unlike physical assets, VM's are running until someone turns them off. This is tough without a service lifecycle record.  Our new Service Catalog software provide visibility and control for VMware environments - to ensure effective governance, optimize resource utilization, prevent virtual server sprawl, and maximize your ROI from virtualization.

Essentially, it provides an Amazon cloud front end to your datacenter.  These are really tough times for people to get money for projects, so we worked real hard to deliver a new class of product.

• It's an appliance. So there are no installation issues, database, app servers to buy or install. It's all in the box. 
• It works out the box with VMware VCenter.
• It has a large set of complete, pre-packaged service request definitions for the most common request and actions QA and Dev request from the server group.
• It has our high-end service catalog editor to enable customization of forms and workflows without coding.
• You can deploy and be operational in an hour
• It's available for free trial
• And we made it very, very inexpensive to get started. Like $30 per VM?        

This is a screenshot that shows how the service catalog guides a user between choosing between different classes of VM's.

It will show comparison table with different times to provision: 2 days for standard, 4 weeks for custom. Also support levels, costs, etc will be clearly compared.

newScale is considered the top product in the service catalog world but maybe too expensive. This new package is our sports sedan that gets you going in hours.

You can start your trial here.  Mass hysteria!

Service Catalog for VMware Now Available for Free Test Drive. Mass Hysteria! Cats and Dogs Living Together

Always loved this quote from Ghostbusters (via IMDB)

Dr Ray Stantz: What he means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor, real wrath of God type stuff.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!

Starting Friday (today for my readers), newScale is offering free trials of its brand new service catalog tool for VMWare deployments.

With VMware, you can quickly provision new virtual machines. But do you have the right controls and approvals in place for self-service VM requests? (Probably not). Do your users think VMs are free? (They probably do).

Lifecycle management is a hot topic, but do you know who requested each VM when and for what purpose? Can you tell who is still using what VMs and why? Do you know which VMs you can turn off to free up capacity?

Unlike physical assets, VM's are running until someone turns them off. This is tough without a service lifecycle record.  Our new Service Catalog software provide visibility and control for VMware environments - to ensure effective governance, optimize resource utilization, prevent virtual server sprawl, and maximize your ROI from virtualization.

Essentially, it provides an Amazon cloud front end to your datacenter.  These are really tough times for people to get money for projects, so we worked real hard to deliver a new class of product.

• It's an appliance. So there are no installation issues, database, app servers to buy or install. It's all in the box. 
• It works out the box with VMware VCenter.
• It has a large set of complete, pre-packaged service request definitions for the most common request and actions QA and Dev request from the server group.
• It has our high-end service catalog editor to enable customization of forms and workflows without coding.
• You can deploy and be operational in an hour
• It's available for free trial
• And we made it very, very inexpensive to get started. Like $30 per VM?        

This is a screenshot that shows how the service catalog guides a user between choosing between different classes of VM's.

It will show comparison table with different times to provision: 2 days for standard, 4 weeks for custom. Also support levels, costs, etc will be clearly compared.

newScale is considered the top product in the service catalog world but maybe too expensive. This new package is our sports sedan that gets you going in hours.

You can start your trial here.  Mass hysteria!

The Cloud and the Service Catalog

Yesterday, we added newScale to the list of supporters of the Open Cloud Manifesto. 

I'd like to explain why this manifesto is important to the IT service management community and to us at newScale. 

In simple terms, when we talk about "cloud-computing" we are speaking of the next generation Data-center-as-a-service. Which is exactly the point of an IT Service Catalog: turn IT assets and activities into services which hide the underlying complexity of the supporting technology from our internal customers.

I've written about this before in "Amazon has Written Your Technical Service Catalog," and it's also what drove our recent product announcement.

First a word on the what and why of cloud computing.

The cloud is economically and operationally different from our traditional data center . A cloud provides the ability to scale and provision computing power dynamically, in a cost efficient and cost variable manner without the customer having to manage the underlying complexity of the technology. Cloud providers rigorously define their server, storage, network, service levels, prices and allowed variations to make provisioning fast and cost predictable. 

A benefit for service catalog practitioners is the market-ready packages and prices defined by the cloud providers can then be used as components to define higher level business services.  They are also useful to benchmark internal data center services for quality, price, and comprehensiveness.

The purpose of the Open Cloud manifesto is to frame a discussion about what we mean by cloud computing, what services we should expect from cloud providers, and what challenges and obstacles need to be addressed.  It is not a "standards" document.

The four goals of the manifesto are to establish open standards that enable customer choice, flexibility, agility, and skill-transference.

The point of choice is that over time, IT will need to change or add providers. If the organization needs to change providers because of new partnerships, acquisition, customer requests or government regulations, they should be able to do so.

IT will also need flexibility, because it will have different cloud providers, private cloud and its traditional data centers. I don't see cloud computing replacing traditional data centers, but rather augmenting them for scalability, testing, security, disaster recovery and for non-critical applications in the next two years.

And we can't take 180 days of architecture review to get an app-hosting environment deployed or our customers will dial their sixten digits to freedom. Speed and agility means IT can deploy new solutions that integrate public clouds, private clouds and current IT systems. And this means that we need really well structured and rigorous service definitions in our service catalogs.

While many think of cloud computing as a techie thing, in fact it has significant ramifications for governance and management. The manifesto addresses this directy.   

As IT departments introduce cloud solutions in the context of their traditional datacenter, new challenges arise. Standardized mechanisms for dealing with lifecycle management, licensing, and chargeback for shared cloud infrastructure are just some of the management and governance issues cloud providers must work together to resolve.

With cloud computing, we will still need to define standards, workflow for authorizations, manage lifecycles, and chargebacks.  We will need to provide self-service portals for our user to request and get provisioned; portfolio and financial management to our business customers to make visible service levels, costs, and usage drivers.   We will need to have system of record to define our service bundles, underpinning technical and professional services, automated provisioning, subscription life cycle management and billing.

In other words, we'll need an actionable service catalog that can work with the internal data center, the private cloud and the public cloud.

We'll need to put aside our cynicism and vendor distrust that sometimes permeates this type of conversations.  Cloud computing presents a financially and operationally compelling new addition to the IT portfolio.  It's not ready to replace our traditional data center and it may never be; but it will provide marginal competitive advantage much sooner than expected.  We'll need to have standards and governance to take full advantage of it.

I think this community, by defining IT services and standards, can have a big impact in this conversation.  This is why I felt it was important to add our voice of support on behalf of both newScale and the community that has grown around IT service catalogs. 

What do you think?

The Cloud and the Service Catalog

Yesterday, we added newScale to the list of supporters of the Open Cloud Manifesto. 

I'd like to explain why this manifesto is important to the IT service management community and to us at newScale. 

In simple terms, when we talk about "cloud-computing" we are speaking of the next generation Data-center-as-a-service. Which is exactly the point of an IT Service Catalog: turn IT assets and activities into services which hide the underlying complexity of the supporting technology from our internal customers.

I've written about this before in "Amazon has Written Your Technical Service Catalog," and it's also what drove our recent product announcement.

First a word on the what and why of cloud computing.

The cloud is economically and operationally different from our traditional data center . A cloud provides the ability to scale and provision computing power dynamically, in a cost efficient and cost variable manner without the customer having to manage the underlying complexity of the technology. Cloud providers rigorously define their server, storage, network, service levels, prices and allowed variations to make provisioning fast and cost predictable. 

A benefit for service catalog practitioners is the market-ready packages and prices defined by the cloud providers can then be used as components to define higher level business services.  They are also useful to benchmark internal data center services for quality, price, and comprehensiveness.

The purpose of the Open Cloud manifesto is to frame a discussion about what we mean by cloud computing, what services we should expect from cloud providers, and what challenges and obstacles need to be addressed.  It is not a "standards" document.

The four goals of the manifesto are to establish open standards that enable customer choice, flexibility, agility, and skill-transference.

The point of choice is that over time, IT will need to change or add providers. If the organization needs to change providers because of new partnerships, acquisition, customer requests or government regulations, they should be able to do so.

IT will also need flexibility, because it will have different cloud providers, private cloud and its traditional data centers. I don't see cloud computing replacing traditional data centers, but rather augmenting them for scalability, testing, security, disaster recovery and for non-critical applications in the next two years.

And we can't take 180 days of architecture review to get an app-hosting environment deployed or our customers will dial their sixten digits to freedom. Speed and agility means IT can deploy new solutions that integrate public clouds, private clouds and current IT systems. And this means that we need really well structured and rigorous service definitions in our service catalogs.

While many think of cloud computing as a techie thing, in fact it has significant ramifications for governance and management. The manifesto addresses this directy.   

As IT departments introduce cloud solutions in the context of their traditional datacenter, new challenges arise. Standardized mechanisms for dealing with lifecycle management, licensing, and chargeback for shared cloud infrastructure are just some of the management and governance issues cloud providers must work together to resolve.

With cloud computing, we will still need to define standards, workflow for authorizations, manage lifecycles, and chargebacks.  We will need to provide self-service portals for our user to request and get provisioned; portfolio and financial management to our business customers to make visible service levels, costs, and usage drivers.   We will need to have system of record to define our service bundles, underpinning technical and professional services, automated provisioning, subscription life cycle management and billing.

In other words, we'll need an actionable service catalog that can work with the internal data center, the private cloud and the public cloud.

We'll need to put aside our cynicism and vendor distrust that sometimes permeates this type of conversations.  Cloud computing presents a financially and operationally compelling new addition to the IT portfolio.  It's not ready to replace our traditional data center and it may never be; but it will provide marginal competitive advantage much sooner than expected.  We'll need to have standards and governance to take full advantage of it.

I think this community, by defining IT services and standards, can have a big impact in this conversation.  This is why I felt it was important to add our voice of support on behalf of both newScale and the community that has grown around IT service catalogs. 

What do you think?

The Cloud and the Service Catalog

Yesterday, we added newScale to the list of supporters of the Open Cloud Manifesto. 

I'd like to explain why this manifesto is important to the IT service management community and to us at newScale. 

In simple terms, when we talk about "cloud-computing" we are speaking of the next generation Data-center-as-a-service. Which is exactly the point of an IT Service Catalog: turn IT assets and activities into services which hide the underlying complexity of the supporting technology from our internal customers.

I've written about this before in "Amazon has Written Your Technical Service Catalog," and it's also what drove our recent product announcement.

First a word on the what and why of cloud computing.

The cloud is economically and operationally different from our traditional data center . A cloud provides the ability to scale and provision computing power dynamically, in a cost efficient and cost variable manner without the customer having to manage the underlying complexity of the technology. Cloud providers rigorously define their server, storage, network, service levels, prices and allowed variations to make provisioning fast and cost predictable. 

A benefit for service catalog practitioners is the market-ready packages and prices defined by the cloud providers can then be used as components to define higher level business services.  They are also useful to benchmark internal data center services for quality, price, and comprehensiveness.

The purpose of the Open Cloud manifesto is to frame a discussion about what we mean by cloud computing, what services we should expect from cloud providers, and what challenges and obstacles need to be addressed.  It is not a "standards" document.

The four goals of the manifesto are to establish open standards that enable customer choice, flexibility, agility, and skill-transference.

The point of choice is that over time, IT will need to change or add providers. If the organization needs to change providers because of new partnerships, acquisition, customer requests or government regulations, they should be able to do so.

IT will also need flexibility, because it will have different cloud providers, private cloud and its traditional data centers. I don't see cloud computing replacing traditional data centers, but rather augmenting them for scalability, testing, security, disaster recovery and for non-critical applications in the next two years.

And we can't take 180 days of architecture review to get an app-hosting environment deployed or our customers will dial their sixten digits to freedom. Speed and agility means IT can deploy new solutions that integrate public clouds, private clouds and current IT systems. And this means that we need really well structured and rigorous service definitions in our service catalogs.

While many think of cloud computing as a techie thing, in fact it has significant ramifications for governance and management. The manifesto addresses this directy.   

As IT departments introduce cloud solutions in the context of their traditional datacenter, new challenges arise. Standardized mechanisms for dealing with lifecycle management, licensing, and chargeback for shared cloud infrastructure are just some of the management and governance issues cloud providers must work together to resolve.

With cloud computing, we will still need to define standards, workflow for authorizations, manage lifecycles, and chargebacks.  We will need to provide self-service portals for our user to request and get provisioned; portfolio and financial management to our business customers to make visible service levels, costs, and usage drivers.   We will need to have system of record to define our service bundles, underpinning technical and professional services, automated provisioning, subscription life cycle management and billing.

In other words, we'll need an actionable service catalog that can work with the internal data center, the private cloud and the public cloud.

We'll need to put aside our cynicism and vendor distrust that sometimes permeates this type of conversations.  Cloud computing presents a financially and operationally compelling new addition to the IT portfolio.  It's not ready to replace our traditional data center and it may never be; but it will provide marginal competitive advantage much sooner than expected.  We'll need to have standards and governance to take full advantage of it.

I think this community, by defining IT services and standards, can have a big impact in this conversation.  This is why I felt it was important to add our voice of support on behalf of both newScale and the community that has grown around IT service catalogs. 

What do you think?

Sixteen Digits to Freedom

Cloud computing represents one of the bigger challenges and opportunities to IT organizations. This change is as big as the introduction of the IBM PC was to the Mainframe groups; computing power was democratized, decentralized and made available under the cover of expense reports.

With new cloud computing services providers appearing everyday, IT's customers are only sixteen digits from freedom They only need a credit card.

Sixteen digits to on-demand computing, storage, network and security; delivered at a predictable cost, with detailed service definitions. All of this dynamically available, on demand, and on variable cost basis.

Why wouldn't a department just do it?

Well, there are a number of additional requirements. For example, there's very Important Requirement #1, not mention Infallible Need #3, and let's not even talk about Security Issue #67. 

Now, I'm being a bit tongue-in-cheek, not because there aren't real obstacles to adopting cloud computing; there are.  But because each of the objections noted above are features the cloud vendors are feverishly working to add. 

So maybe not tomorrow, nor next week or month, but sometime soon, Innefable Mandate #81 will not be an obstacle, and Important Requirement #8 will turn out to be not so important.

And this deep RECESSION is forcing the business to recasting and revisit priorities. Your customer will say, "This cost structure is very compelling. Its' the difference between doing the project and not doing it."  You can't say, "Heavenly instruction #59 is not supported in the cloud," because you customer might say, "Thank you. You may go." Softly adding, as you walk away, "permanently."

And they'll punch their sixteen digits to freedom.

Sixteen Digits to Freedom

Cloud computing represents one of the bigger challenges and opportunities to IT organizations. This change is as big as the introduction of the IBM PC was to the Mainframe groups; computing power was democratized, decentralized and made available under the cover of expense reports.

With new cloud computing services providers appearing everyday, IT's customers are only sixteen digits from freedom They only need a credit card.

Sixteen digits to on-demand computing, storage, network and security; delivered at a predictable cost, with detailed service definitions. All of this dynamically available, on demand, and on variable cost basis.

Why wouldn't a department just do it?

Well, there are a number of additional requirements. For example, there's very Important Requirement #1, not mention Infallible Need #3, and let's not even talk about Security Issue #67. 

Now, I'm being a bit tongue-in-cheek, not because there aren't real obstacles to adopting cloud computing; there are.  But because each of the objections noted above are features the cloud vendors are feverishly working to add. 

So maybe not tomorrow, nor next week or month, but sometime soon, Innefable Mandate #81 will not be an obstacle, and Important Requirement #8 will turn out to be not so important.

And this deep RECESSION is forcing the business to recasting and revisit priorities. Your customer will say, "This cost structure is very compelling. Its' the difference between doing the project and not doing it."  You can't say, "Heavenly instruction #59 is not supported in the cloud," because you customer might say, "Thank you. You may go." Softly adding, as you walk away, "permanently."

And they'll punch their sixteen digits to freedom.

Sixteen Digits to Freedom

Cloud computing represents one of the bigger challenges and opportunities to IT organizations. This change is as big as the introduction of the IBM PC was to the Mainframe groups; computing power was democratized, decentralized and made available under the cover of expense reports.

With new cloud computing services providers appearing everyday, IT's customers are only sixteen digits from freedom They only need a credit card.

Sixteen digits to on-demand computing, storage, network and security; delivered at a predictable cost, with detailed service definitions. All of this dynamically available, on demand, and on variable cost basis.

Why wouldn't a department just do it?

Well, there are a number of additional requirements. For example, there's very Important Requirement #1, not mention Infallible Need #3, and let's not even talk about Security Issue #67. 

Now, I'm being a bit tongue-in-cheek, not because there aren't real obstacles to adopting cloud computing; there are.  But because each of the objections noted above are features the cloud vendors are feverishly working to add. 

So maybe not tomorrow, nor next week or month, but sometime soon, Innefable Mandate #81 will not be an obstacle, and Important Requirement #8 will turn out to be not so important.

And this deep RECESSION is forcing the business to recasting and revisit priorities. Your customer will say, "This cost structure is very compelling. Its' the difference between doing the project and not doing it."  You can't say, "Heavenly instruction #59 is not supported in the cloud," because you customer might say, "Thank you. You may go." Softly adding, as you walk away, "permanently."

And they'll punch their sixteen digits to freedom.

The current global economic crisis has taken away the luxury of operational inefficiencies

A bit off topic, but still relevant...  I was reading about Cisco's new server strategy and there were some interesting take aways.  First a quote:

"A similar trend has started to emerge inside corporations. Take the beleaguered financial sector as an example. The chaos unleashed by the subprime mortgage crisis has resulted in the formation of super banks such as JP Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo...

At the same time, the geographically and demographically diverse nature of global corporations is forcing companies to move their business processes online.

Many will have no option but to turn to the web and web-based software to unite its far-flung operations because they would need to be operationally efficient. The current global economic crisis has taken away the luxury of operational inefficiencies, regardless of the size of the company.

In a nutshell, the massive consolidation of this economic slowdown, is driving organizations to look for operational inefficiencies. 

If you can reduce your servers through virtualization, why wouldn't you? If you can shape demand with a service catalog why wouldn't you? If you can implement effective self-service and automate request fulfillment, why wouldn't you?

Is there a better use for that money?

The article: With a New Server, Cisco Pushes “Comm-puting” Strategy.

The current global economic crisis has taken away the luxury of operational inefficiencies

A bit off topic, but still relevant...  I was reading about Cisco's new server strategy and there were some interesting take aways.  First a quote:

"A similar trend has started to emerge inside corporations. Take the beleaguered financial sector as an example. The chaos unleashed by the subprime mortgage crisis has resulted in the formation of super banks such as JP Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo...

At the same time, the geographically and demographically diverse nature of global corporations is forcing companies to move their business processes online.

Many will have no option but to turn to the web and web-based software to unite its far-flung operations because they would need to be operationally efficient. The current global economic crisis has taken away the luxury of operational inefficiencies, regardless of the size of the company.

In a nutshell, the massive consolidation of this economic slowdown, is driving organizations to look for operational inefficiencies. 

If you can reduce your servers through virtualization, why wouldn't you? If you can shape demand with a service catalog why wouldn't you? If you can implement effective self-service and automate request fulfillment, why wouldn't you?

Is there a better use for that money?

The article: With a New Server, Cisco Pushes “Comm-puting” Strategy.

The current global economic crisis has taken away the luxury of operational inefficiencies

A bit off topic, but still relevant...  I was reading about Cisco's new server strategy and there were some interesting take aways.  First a quote:

"A similar trend has started to emerge inside corporations. Take the beleaguered financial sector as an example. The chaos unleashed by the subprime mortgage crisis has resulted in the formation of super banks such as JP Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo...

At the same time, the geographically and demographically diverse nature of global corporations is forcing companies to move their business processes online.

Many will have no option but to turn to the web and web-based software to unite its far-flung operations because they would need to be operationally efficient. The current global economic crisis has taken away the luxury of operational inefficiencies, regardless of the size of the company.

In a nutshell, the massive consolidation of this economic slowdown, is driving organizations to look for operational inefficiencies. 

If you can reduce your servers through virtualization, why wouldn't you? If you can shape demand with a service catalog why wouldn't you? If you can implement effective self-service and automate request fulfillment, why wouldn't you?

Is there a better use for that money?

The article: With a New Server, Cisco Pushes “Comm-puting” Strategy.

Webinar: IT cost transparency and control

Another great webinar is coming up. I'd like to highly recommend this one if you are being asked about IT cost controls. 

Barclays Global Advisors is a newScale customer and they have one of the more thoughtful, complete visions and execution plan for transforming IT.  Given the stress financial markets are undergoing -- stresses other industries are also beginning to feel -- this is a timely topic.

The business demands more visibility into the cost of IT services. Yet most IT shops struggle to answer questions like "What services does IT offer?" - and now more than ever, "Where can you cut another 5% out of the IT budget?" Attend this case study Webinar to learn the answers!

Find out how Barclays Global Investors – one of the world’s largest investment firms with $2 trillion under management – achieved greater control over IT costs with their Service Catalog and Service Portfolio initiative.

Topic: Service Catalog – IT Cost Transparency and Control

Date: Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Time: 9:00 am PT / 12:00 noon ET / 5:00 pm UK

Duration: 1 hour

Click here to convert the Webinar time to your local time zone

Speakers: Nilesh Patel Barclays Global Investors Principal Ramshankar Ramdattan Infosys Technologies Principal Consultant Nick Schneider newScale, Inc. Senior Director

Attend this Webinar and learn how Barclays Global Investors moved IT from a “black box” to a “glass box” – to gain visibility into IT spend and improve credibility with the business. Hear first-hand from the experts on how to:

	Define a standard portfolio of IT services;
	Create a service-based cost model for your Service Catalog;
	Provide a more effective IT budgeting and allocation process;
	Measure IT performance and align IT with business demand.

Don't miss this Webinar! Learn from a real-world Service Catalog case study to achieve IT cost transparency and improve control over your IT budget.

Webinar: IT cost transparency and control

Another great webinar is coming up. I'd like to highly recommend this one if you are being asked about IT cost controls. 

Barclays Global Advisors is a newScale customer and they have one of the more thoughtful, complete visions and execution plan for transforming IT.  Given the stress financial markets are undergoing -- stresses other industries are also beginning to feel -- this is a timely topic.

The business demands more visibility into the cost of IT services. Yet most IT shops struggle to answer questions like "What services does IT offer?" - and now more than ever, "Where can you cut another 5% out of the IT budget?" Attend this case study Webinar to learn the answers!

Find out how Barclays Global Investors – one of the world’s largest investment firms with $2 trillion under management – achieved greater control over IT costs with their Service Catalog and Service Portfolio initiative.

Topic: Service Catalog – IT Cost Transparency and Control

Date: Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Time: 9:00 am PT / 12:00 noon ET / 5:00 pm UK

Duration: 1 hour

Click here to convert the Webinar time to your local time zone

Speakers: Nilesh Patel Barclays Global Investors Principal Ramshankar Ramdattan Infosys Technologies Principal Consultant Nick Schneider newScale, Inc. Senior Director

Attend this Webinar and learn how Barclays Global Investors moved IT from a “black box” to a “glass box” – to gain visibility into IT spend and improve credibility with the business. Hear first-hand from the experts on how to:

	Define a standard portfolio of IT services;
	Create a service-based cost model for your Service Catalog;
	Provide a more effective IT budgeting and allocation process;
	Measure IT performance and align IT with business demand.

Don't miss this Webinar! Learn from a real-world Service Catalog case study to achieve IT cost transparency and improve control over your IT budget.

Webinar: IT cost transparency and control

Another great webinar is coming up. I'd like to highly recommend this one if you are being asked about IT cost controls. 

Barclays Global Advisors is a newScale customer and they have one of the more thoughtful, complete visions and execution plan for transforming IT.  Given the stress financial markets are undergoing -- stresses other industries are also beginning to feel -- this is a timely topic.

The business demands more visibility into the cost of IT services. Yet most IT shops struggle to answer questions like "What services does IT offer?" - and now more than ever, "Where can you cut another 5% out of the IT budget?" Attend this case study Webinar to learn the answers!

Find out how Barclays Global Investors – one of the world’s largest investment firms with $2 trillion under management – achieved greater control over IT costs with their Service Catalog and Service Portfolio initiative.

Topic: Service Catalog – IT Cost Transparency and Control

Date: Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Time: 9:00 am PT / 12:00 noon ET / 5:00 pm UK

Duration: 1 hour

Click here to convert the Webinar time to your local time zone

Speakers: Nilesh Patel Barclays Global Investors Principal Ramshankar Ramdattan Infosys Technologies Principal Consultant Nick Schneider newScale, Inc. Senior Director

Attend this Webinar and learn how Barclays Global Investors moved IT from a “black box” to a “glass box” – to gain visibility into IT spend and improve credibility with the business. Hear first-hand from the experts on how to:

	Define a standard portfolio of IT services;
	Create a service-based cost model for your Service Catalog;
	Provide a more effective IT budgeting and allocation process;
	Measure IT performance and align IT with business demand.

Don't miss this Webinar! Learn from a real-world Service Catalog case study to achieve IT cost transparency and improve control over your IT budget.

EMA Publishes Impact Brief on newScale Front Office 2008. And Yes, They Like It, They Really, Really Like It.

I'm a bit behind on my blogging about our new product suite, newScale FrontOffice 2008. I was planning to get to it this week, but EMA beat me to the punch.

The analysts at EMA reviewed our new versions of newScale's PortfolioCenter™, DemandCenter™, and RequestCenter® applications and found that “newScale has established a benchmark” for Service Catalog solutions. "

And,  "the latest release of the newScale FrontOffice™ Suite provides leading Service Catalog and Service Portfolio Management solutions with rapid return on investment (ROI) and even greater transparency and control over IT services and spending.”  Which is something that's very, very valuable right now.

It's a comprehensive report and we have it at our website (free, registration required). 

Here are a few quotes:

In this current climate of economic volatility and IT budget cuts, newScale delivers a suite of Service Catalog and Service Portfolio Management solutions that can both reduce IT cost and improve control over IT spending – for rapid ROI, greater financial transparency, and immediate business impact.

And it really does a nice job setting the stage as to why the Front Office of IT is different and defining it.

... In fact, most ITIL processes – think configuration management or release management – are meant to remain hidden from end users. When IT organizations focus on these back office processes, they can indeed see some improvements in cost and quality. But more is needed.

Two processes introduced in ITIL v3, Service Portfolio Management and Service Catalog Management, are the cornerstone of a new business- oriented front office for IT. The IT front office is that portion of the IT organization – including the related people, processes and technology – that hides the technical complexities of IT and at the same time provides greater transparency and control over IT services and spending.

It gives users a clear understanding of what services are available at various combinations of quality and cost, and it provides a mechanism to users for accessing and ordering the services they need. The IT front office also helps business executives by allowing better insight to the value provided by IT as well as increasing control and influence over service levels and IT spending.

Full report at newScale FrontOffice Suite 2008. Enjoy.

EMA Publishes Impact Brief on newScale Front Office 2008. And Yes, They Like It, They Really, Really Like It.

I'm a bit behind on my blogging about our new product suite, newScale FrontOffice 2008. I was planning to get to it this week, but EMA beat me to the punch.

The analysts at EMA reviewed our new versions of newScale's PortfolioCenter™, DemandCenter™, and RequestCenter® applications and found that “newScale has established a benchmark” for Service Catalog solutions. "

And,  "the latest release of the newScale FrontOffice™ Suite provides leading Service Catalog and Service Portfolio Management solutions with rapid return on investment (ROI) and even greater transparency and control over IT services and spending.”  Which is something that's very, very valuable right now.

It's a comprehensive report and we have it at our website (free, registration required). 

Here are a few quotes:

In this current climate of economic volatility and IT budget cuts, newScale delivers a suite of Service Catalog and Service Portfolio Management solutions that can both reduce IT cost and improve control over IT spending – for rapid ROI, greater financial transparency, and immediate business impact.

And it really does a nice job setting the stage as to why the Front Office of IT is different and defining it.

... In fact, most ITIL processes – think configuration management or release management – are meant to remain hidden from end users. When IT organizations focus on these back office processes, they can indeed see some improvements in cost and quality. But more is needed.

Two processes introduced in ITIL v3, Service Portfolio Management and Service Catalog Management, are the cornerstone of a new business- oriented front office for IT. The IT front office is that portion of the IT organization – including the related people, processes and technology – that hides the technical complexities of IT and at the same time provides greater transparency and control over IT services and spending.

It gives users a clear understanding of what services are available at various combinations of quality and cost, and it provides a mechanism to users for accessing and ordering the services they need. The IT front office also helps business executives by allowing better insight to the value provided by IT as well as increasing control and influence over service levels and IT spending.

Full report at newScale FrontOffice Suite 2008. Enjoy.

EMA Publishes Impact Brief on newScale Front Office 2008. And Yes, They Like It, They Really, Really Like It.

I'm a bit behind on my blogging about our new product suite, newScale FrontOffice 2008. I was planning to get to it this week, but EMA beat me to the punch.

The analysts at EMA reviewed our new versions of newScale's PortfolioCenter™, DemandCenter™, and RequestCenter® applications and found that “newScale has established a benchmark” for Service Catalog solutions. "

And,  "the latest release of the newScale FrontOffice™ Suite provides leading Service Catalog and Service Portfolio Management solutions with rapid return on investment (ROI) and even greater transparency and control over IT services and spending.”  Which is something that's very, very valuable right now.

It's a comprehensive report and we have it at our website (free, registration required). 

Here are a few quotes:

In this current climate of economic volatility and IT budget cuts, newScale delivers a suite of Service Catalog and Service Portfolio Management solutions that can both reduce IT cost and improve control over IT spending – for rapid ROI, greater financial transparency, and immediate business impact.

And it really does a nice job setting the stage as to why the Front Office of IT is different and defining it.

... In fact, most ITIL processes – think configuration management or release management – are meant to remain hidden from end users. When IT organizations focus on these back office processes, they can indeed see some improvements in cost and quality. But more is needed.

Two processes introduced in ITIL v3, Service Portfolio Management and Service Catalog Management, are the cornerstone of a new business- oriented front office for IT. The IT front office is that portion of the IT organization – including the related people, processes and technology – that hides the technical complexities of IT and at the same time provides greater transparency and control over IT services and spending.

It gives users a clear understanding of what services are available at various combinations of quality and cost, and it provides a mechanism to users for accessing and ordering the services they need. The IT front office also helps business executives by allowing better insight to the value provided by IT as well as increasing control and influence over service levels and IT spending.

Full report at newScale FrontOffice Suite 2008. Enjoy.

Momentum Builds: newScale Selected by Ford Motor Company for Service Catalog and Service Request Management

Momentum is building for us at newScale.  We are happy to have Ford join other stellar newScale customers like Boeing, Starbucks, HP and 100's of others. As we say around here, Americas' best loved brands choose newScale. 

So am I happy about this?  YOU BETCHA.

The Ford selection team chose newScale as its best-of-breed solution to meet their aggressive time line (time to value, as I wrote last week) and return on investment goals of their enterprise-wide request management project.

The ability to rapidly configure and deploy standard service request forms – leveraging pre-built service request templates and an easy-to-use service design module – was one of the primary considerations in the evaluation. 

Ford also selected newScale RequestCenter for its ease-of-use to drive adoption, support for key ITIL version 3 requirements, and proven ability to integrate seamlessly with its existing back-end IT service management tools. And our full range of “front office” functionality for IT Service Portfolio Management was another important deciding factor as all the different views of the service catalog are important eventually.

Here's the full release.

newScale Selected by Ford Motor Company for Service Catalog and Service Request Management

Automotive Industry Leader Standardizes on newScale RequestCenter® To Comply with ITIL Version 3 Request Fulfillment Process

San Mateo, CA – October 20, 2008 – newScale®, Inc., the market leader in IT Service Catalog and Service Portfolio Management software solutions, today announced that Ford Motor Company, a global automotive industry leader, will implement newScale RequestCenter® to streamline the request management process for IT services across the enterprise.

"As a highly scalable and mature request management solution, newScale RequestCenter is ideally suited to helping us achieve our IT service management goals in the timeframe we required," said Jeff Lemmer, Manager of Global IT Infrastructure Services Delivery at Ford Motor Company.

This request management initiative is one of the strategic projects in Ford’s IT service management program. The objective is to implement a global service request management process to improve IT operational efficiency, reduce request fulfillment cycle times, and drive down costs. This required a Web-based self-service software system to streamline the input of all IT requests, track forecasted demand patterns, and analyze service request metrics to optimize fulfillment. The company selected the newScale RequestCenter software solution after an in-depth selection process, including a pilot of the service request management module offered by its service desk vendor.

"It is important to note that, despite the marketing hype to the contrary, the service request and self-service portal capabilities offered by IT service desk vendors do not address the full range of ITSPM requirements," according to the Gartner, Inc. report "Conference Polling Reveals Top-Priority Functions Being Evaluated in Early-Stage IT Service Portfolio Management (ITSPM) Implementations" (April 29, 2008) by analysts Kris Brittain and Debra Curtis.

“Innovation is a hallmark at Ford Motor Company, and they have an excellent reputation for optimizing complex and global manufacturing processes,” said Scott Hammond, CEO of newScale. “We are delighted that Ford has chosen to rely on newScale to optimize its IT request fulfillment process, improve the quality of service delivery, and provide better insight into its IT service operations across the enterprise. This latest addition to our customer base underscores our leadership in the Service Catalog market.”

About Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F)

Ford Motor Company, a global automotive industry leader based in Dearborn, Mich., manufactures or distributes automobiles across six continents. With about 229,000 employees and about 90 plants worldwide, the company’s core and affiliated automotive brands include Ford, Lincoln, Mercury, Volvo and Mazda. The company provides financial services through Ford Motor Credit Company. For more information regarding Ford's products, please visit www.ford.com.

About newScale, Inc. newScale, Inc. is the leader in IT Service Catalog and Service Portfolio Management software solutions, with more than 1.5 million users worldwide. newScale solutions enable IT organizations to catalog their portfolio of services, govern demand for services, manage delivery of services, and optimize service quality. newScale customers - including more than twenty percent of the Fortune 50 - benefit from increased operational efficiency, reduced costs, improved service levels, and greater IT/business alignment. For more information, please visit the newScale web site at www.newscale.com or call 650-403-7700.

Momentum Builds: newScale Selected by Ford Motor Company for Service Catalog and Service Request Management

Momentum is building for us at newScale.  We are happy to have Ford join other stellar newScale customers like Boeing, Starbucks, HP and 100's of others. As we say around here, Americas' best loved brands choose newScale. 

So am I happy about this?  YOU BETCHA.

The Ford selection team chose newScale as its best-of-breed solution to meet their aggressive time line (time to value, as I wrote last week) and return on investment goals of their enterprise-wide request management project.

The ability to rapidly configure and deploy standard service request forms – leveraging pre-built service request templates and an easy-to-use service design module – was one of the primary considerations in the evaluation. 

Ford also selected newScale RequestCenter for its ease-of-use to drive adoption, support for key ITIL version 3 requirements, and proven ability to integrate seamlessly with its existing back-end IT service management tools. And our full range of “front office” functionality for IT Service Portfolio Management was another important deciding factor as all the different views of the service catalog are important eventually.

Here's the full release.

newScale Selected by Ford Motor Company for Service Catalog and Service Request Management

Automotive Industry Leader Standardizes on newScale RequestCenter® To Comply with ITIL Version 3 Request Fulfillment Process

San Mateo, CA – October 20, 2008 – newScale®, Inc., the market leader in IT Service Catalog and Service Portfolio Management software solutions, today announced that Ford Motor Company, a global automotive industry leader, will implement newScale RequestCenter® to streamline the request management process for IT services across the enterprise.

"As a highly scalable and mature request management solution, newScale RequestCenter is ideally suited to helping us achieve our IT service management goals in the timeframe we required," said Jeff Lemmer, Manager of Global IT Infrastructure Services Delivery at Ford Motor Company.

This request management initiative is one of the strategic projects in Ford’s IT service management program. The objective is to implement a global service request management process to improve IT operational efficiency, reduce request fulfillment cycle times, and drive down costs. This required a Web-based self-service software system to streamline the input of all IT requests, track forecasted demand patterns, and analyze service request metrics to optimize fulfillment. The company selected the newScale RequestCenter software solution after an in-depth selection process, including a pilot of the service request management module offered by its service desk vendor.

"It is important to note that, despite the marketing hype to the contrary, the service request and self-service portal capabilities offered by IT service desk vendors do not address the full range of ITSPM requirements," according to the Gartner, Inc. report "Conference Polling Reveals Top-Priority Functions Being Evaluated in Early-Stage IT Service Portfolio Management (ITSPM) Implementations" (April 29, 2008) by analysts Kris Brittain and Debra Curtis.

“Innovation is a hallmark at Ford Motor Company, and they have an excellent reputation for optimizing complex and global manufacturing processes,” said Scott Hammond, CEO of newScale. “We are delighted that Ford has chosen to rely on newScale to optimize its IT request fulfillment process, improve the quality of service delivery, and provide better insight into its IT service operations across the enterprise. This latest addition to our customer base underscores our leadership in the Service Catalog market.”

About Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F)

Ford Motor Company, a global automotive industry leader based in Dearborn, Mich., manufactures or distributes automobiles across six continents. With about 229,000 employees and about 90 plants worldwide, the company’s core and affiliated automotive brands include Ford, Lincoln, Mercury, Volvo and Mazda. The company provides financial services through Ford Motor Credit Company. For more information regarding Ford's products, please visit www.ford.com.

About newScale, Inc. newScale, Inc. is the leader in IT Service Catalog and Service Portfolio Management software solutions, with more than 1.5 million users worldwide. newScale solutions enable IT organizations to catalog their portfolio of services, govern demand for services, manage delivery of services, and optimize service quality. newScale customers - including more than twenty percent of the Fortune 50 - benefit from increased operational efficiency, reduced costs, improved service levels, and greater IT/business alignment. For more information, please visit the newScale web site at www.newscale.com or call 650-403-7700.

Momentum Builds: newScale Selected by Ford Motor Company for Service Catalog and Service Request Management

Momentum is building for us at newScale.  We are happy to have Ford join other stellar newScale customers like Boeing, Starbucks, HP and 100's of others. As we say around here, Americas' best loved brands choose newScale. 

So am I happy about this?  YOU BETCHA.

The Ford selection team chose newScale as its best-of-breed solution to meet their aggressive time line (time to value, as I wrote last week) and return on investment goals of their enterprise-wide request management project.

The ability to rapidly configure and deploy standard service request forms – leveraging pre-built service request templates and an easy-to-use service design module – was one of the primary considerations in the evaluation. 

Ford also selected newScale RequestCenter for its ease-of-use to drive adoption, support for key ITIL version 3 requirements, and proven ability to integrate seamlessly with its existing back-end IT service management tools. And our full range of “front office” functionality for IT Service Portfolio Management was another important deciding factor as all the different views of the service catalog are important eventually.

Here's the full release.

newScale Selected by Ford Motor Company for Service Catalog and Service Request Management

Automotive Industry Leader Standardizes on newScale RequestCenter® To Comply with ITIL Version 3 Request Fulfillment Process

San Mateo, CA – October 20, 2008 – newScale®, Inc., the market leader in IT Service Catalog and Service Portfolio Management software solutions, today announced that Ford Motor Company, a global automotive industry leader, will implement newScale RequestCenter® to streamline the request management process for IT services across the enterprise.

"As a highly scalable and mature request management solution, newScale RequestCenter is ideally suited to helping us achieve our IT service management goals in the timeframe we required," said Jeff Lemmer, Manager of Global IT Infrastructure Services Delivery at Ford Motor Company.

This request management initiative is one of the strategic projects in Ford’s IT service management program. The objective is to implement a global service request management process to improve IT operational efficiency, reduce request fulfillment cycle times, and drive down costs. This required a Web-based self-service software system to streamline the input of all IT requests, track forecasted demand patterns, and analyze service request metrics to optimize fulfillment. The company selected the newScale RequestCenter software solution after an in-depth selection process, including a pilot of the service request management module offered by its service desk vendor.

"It is important to note that, despite the marketing hype to the contrary, the service request and self-service portal capabilities offered by IT service desk vendors do not address the full range of ITSPM requirements," according to the Gartner, Inc. report "Conference Polling Reveals Top-Priority Functions Being Evaluated in Early-Stage IT Service Portfolio Management (ITSPM) Implementations" (April 29, 2008) by analysts Kris Brittain and Debra Curtis.

“Innovation is a hallmark at Ford Motor Company, and they have an excellent reputation for optimizing complex and global manufacturing processes,” said Scott Hammond, CEO of newScale. “We are delighted that Ford has chosen to rely on newScale to optimize its IT request fulfillment process, improve the quality of service delivery, and provide better insight into its IT service operations across the enterprise. This latest addition to our customer base underscores our leadership in the Service Catalog market.”

About Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F)

Ford Motor Company, a global automotive industry leader based in Dearborn, Mich., manufactures or distributes automobiles across six continents. With about 229,000 employees and about 90 plants worldwide, the company’s core and affiliated automotive brands include Ford, Lincoln, Mercury, Volvo and Mazda. The company provides financial services through Ford Motor Credit Company. For more information regarding Ford's products, please visit www.ford.com.

About newScale, Inc. newScale, Inc. is the leader in IT Service Catalog and Service Portfolio Management software solutions, with more than 1.5 million users worldwide. newScale solutions enable IT organizations to catalog their portfolio of services, govern demand for services, manage delivery of services, and optimize service quality. newScale customers - including more than twenty percent of the Fortune 50 - benefit from increased operational efficiency, reduced costs, improved service levels, and greater IT/business alignment. For more information, please visit the newScale web site at www.newscale.com or call 650-403-7700.

Time to Value: Like Your Job Depends on It... Because It Does.

The last recession hit silicon valley and the tech economy pretty hard.  Then it was the "tech-implosion" that led the economy down.

Now we have the "sub-prime / credit / CDO / banking" implosion leading the economy to even worse lows. 

Like last time, we'll see IT budget cuts, layoffs, project cancellations, increased scrutiny on IT's value proposition, and a fresh look at outsourcing IT operations.  As company look to reduce operational costs they'll look at IT with both a scalpel on one hand and a viking axe on the other.

So what does it mean for me and my IT career? What does it mean for the service catalog project? Get ready for some turbulence in your career; it's time to focus on VISIBLE, SHORT term wins both organizational and personal.

The project and roles that will survive the cuts are the ones that can delivers relevant value in months rather than years.  So let's define what we mean by value in such a project.  This project has to:

1. Increase the positive identity of IT with its customers (if they don't like you,  they won't defend your budget).  This means it has to visible to the your users.
2. Reduce operational costs (Absolutely you will have to show hard dollar savings).
3. Have low total cost of ownership.  This is part of time to value.
4. Can pay back within the current planning horizon of your company (6 months? 12 months? probably no more).
5. Will get user adoption. Without it, you fail to attain value.

In other words, delivering a service catalog in 90 days that users can see, that shows IT is on the ball, is more valuable than a back office improvement three years from now (like a CMDB). A service catalog that reduces call to the help desk, automates delivery steps, and can serve as control point to expenditures is a sure fire way to reduce hard dollar costs.

You need to really force your vendors to show why their time to value matches your urgency and insist on out-of-the box configuration and stong pre-built content rather coding.  And if you are looking to automate your request fulfillment process, you don't want to start a development project that takes 80 years. You won't make it. 

Your project and job are at risk in these times.   You need to put your vendors to work. Force them to show you a proof-of-concept--it's the only way to really, really see what's the actual time to value.Skip this step at your own peril in these times.  Unlike regular times, there won't be much room for failure.

Some vendors will try to address your economic issue by offering catalog tools for free or low cost.  But that's only one of the five value criteria for request fulfillment.  If it's free, but doesn't deploy there's no value. If it's cheap, but unusable there's no value. If it's cheap to buy, but expensive to build and maintain it won't deliver value.  Management will be looking at results, not good intentions.  So it's imperative to look at the above five criteria as a whole. 

Plus there's that dark side to being dependent on one vendor at a times like this -- which is you have no pricing power.  Last recession, Microsoft actually increased prices. This time SAP is increasing maintenance prices. Why? Because they can.

And with regards to outsourcing?  You can get ahead of the curve by positioning the service catalog as a key tool to manage those relationships.

We are living in unprecedented times for our generation. But those events are out of our control.  We have to focus on what we can control.  This means focus on a catalog project that is visible, reduces costs, and can have an impact in months, not years.

PS: You may want to network in our LinkedIn Service Catalog and Service Portfolio Group

Time to Value: Like Your Job Depends on It... Because It Does.

The last recession hit silicon valley and the tech economy pretty hard.  Then it was the "tech-implosion" that led the economy down.

Now we have the "sub-prime / credit / CDO / banking" implosion leading the economy to even worse lows. 

Like last time, we'll see IT budget cuts, layoffs, project cancellations, increased scrutiny on IT's value proposition, and a fresh look at outsourcing IT operations.  As company look to reduce operational costs they'll look at IT with both a scalpel on one hand and a viking axe on the other.

So what does it mean for me and my IT career? What does it mean for the service catalog project? Get ready for some turbulence in your career; it's time to focus on VISIBLE, SHORT term wins both organizational and personal.

The project and roles that will survive the cuts are the ones that can delivers relevant value in months rather than years.  So let's define what we mean by value in such a project.  This project has to:

1. Increase the positive identity of IT with its customers (if they don't like you,  they won't defend your budget).  This means it has to visible to the your users.
2. Reduce operational costs (Absolutely you will have to show hard dollar savings).
3. Have low total cost of ownership.  This is part of time to value.
4. Can pay back within the current planning horizon of your company (6 months? 12 months? probably no more).
5. Will get user adoption. Without it, you fail to attain value.

In other words, delivering a service catalog in 90 days that users can see, that shows IT is on the ball, is more valuable than a back office improvement three years from now (like a CMDB). A service catalog that reduces call to the help desk, automates delivery steps, and can serve as control point to expenditures is a sure fire way to reduce hard dollar costs.

You need to really force your vendors to show why their time to value matches your urgency and insist on out-of-the box configuration and stong pre-built content rather coding.  And if you are looking to automate your request fulfillment process, you don't want to start a development project that takes 80 years. You won't make it. 

Your project and job are at risk in these times.   You need to put your vendors to work. Force them to show you a proof-of-concept--it's the only way to really, really see what's the actual time to value.Skip this step at your own peril in these times.  Unlike regular times, there won't be much room for failure.

Some vendors will try to address your economic issue by offering catalog tools for free or low cost.  But that's only one of the five value criteria for request fulfillment.  If it's free, but doesn't deploy there's no value. If it's cheap, but unusable there's no value. If it's cheap to buy, but expensive to build and maintain it won't deliver value.  Management will be looking at results, not good intentions.  So it's imperative to look at the above five criteria as a whole. 

Plus there's that dark side to being dependent on one vendor at a times like this -- which is you have no pricing power.  Last recession, Microsoft actually increased prices. This time SAP is increasing maintenance prices. Why? Because they can.

And with regards to outsourcing?  You can get ahead of the curve by positioning the service catalog as a key tool to manage those relationships.

We are living in unprecedented times for our generation. But those events are out of our control.  We have to focus on what we can control.  This means focus on a catalog project that is visible, reduces costs, and can have an impact in months, not years.

PS: You may want to network in our LinkedIn Service Catalog and Service Portfolio Group

Time to Value: Like Your Job Depends on It... Because It Does.

The last recession hit silicon valley and the tech economy pretty hard.  Then it was the "tech-implosion" that led the economy down.

Now we have the "sub-prime / credit / CDO / banking" implosion leading the economy to even worse lows. 

Like last time, we'll see IT budget cuts, layoffs, project cancellations, increased scrutiny on IT's value proposition, and a fresh look at outsourcing IT operations.  As company look to reduce operational costs they'll look at IT with both a scalpel on one hand and a viking axe on the other.

So what does it mean for me and my IT career? What does it mean for the service catalog project? Get ready for some turbulence in your career; it's time to focus on VISIBLE, SHORT term wins both organizational and personal.

The project and roles that will survive the cuts are the ones that can delivers relevant value in months rather than years.  So let's define what we mean by value in such a project.  This project has to:

1. Increase the positive identity of IT with its customers (if they don't like you,  they won't defend your budget).  This means it has to visible to the your users.
2. Reduce operational costs (Absolutely you will have to show hard dollar savings).
3. Have low total cost of ownership.  This is part of time to value.
4. Can pay back within the current planning horizon of your company (6 months? 12 months? probably no more).
5. Will get user adoption. Without it, you fail to attain value.

In other words, delivering a service catalog in 90 days that users can see, that shows IT is on the ball, is more valuable than a back office improvement three years from now (like a CMDB). A service catalog that reduces call to the help desk, automates delivery steps, and can serve as control point to expenditures is a sure fire way to reduce hard dollar costs.

You need to really force your vendors to show why their time to value matches your urgency and insist on out-of-the box configuration and stong pre-built content rather coding.  And if you are looking to automate your request fulfillment process, you don't want to start a development project that takes 80 years. You won't make it. 

Your project and job are at risk in these times.   You need to put your vendors to work. Force them to show you a proof-of-concept--it's the only way to really, really see what's the actual time to value.Skip this step at your own peril in these times.  Unlike regular times, there won't be much room for failure.

Some vendors will try to address your economic issue by offering catalog tools for free or low cost.  But that's only one of the five value criteria for request fulfillment.  If it's free, but doesn't deploy there's no value. If it's cheap, but unusable there's no value. If it's cheap to buy, but expensive to build and maintain it won't deliver value.  Management will be looking at results, not good intentions.  So it's imperative to look at the above five criteria as a whole. 

Plus there's that dark side to being dependent on one vendor at a times like this -- which is you have no pricing power.  Last recession, Microsoft actually increased prices. This time SAP is increasing maintenance prices. Why? Because they can.

And with regards to outsourcing?  You can get ahead of the curve by positioning the service catalog as a key tool to manage those relationships.

We are living in unprecedented times for our generation. But those events are out of our control.  We have to focus on what we can control.  This means focus on a catalog project that is visible, reduces costs, and can have an impact in months, not years.

PS: You may want to network in our LinkedIn Service Catalog and Service Portfolio Group

How bad is it for you? (response)

Bill who writes the IT Governance Blog writes about my question last week:

"one of the impacted areas of the economy" - that's the scary thing, we are all going to be impacted. So far we've just got a freeze but let's see how the quarter comes in and the pipeline looks and I think we'll be under pressure to make cuts.

Anybody else? Leave a comment please

How bad is it for you? (response)

Bill who writes the IT Governance Blog writes about my question last week:

"one of the impacted areas of the economy" - that's the scary thing, we are all going to be impacted. So far we've just got a freeze but let's see how the quarter comes in and the pipeline looks and I think we'll be under pressure to make cuts.

Anybody else? Leave a comment please

How bad is it for you? (response)

Bill who writes the IT Governance Blog writes about my question last week:

"one of the impacted areas of the economy" - that's the scary thing, we are all going to be impacted. So far we've just got a freeze but let's see how the quarter comes in and the pipeline looks and I think we'll be under pressure to make cuts.

Anybody else? Leave a comment please

Let's give all our business to one vendor. Let's act surprised when they raise prices!

IT seems that SAP is the latest to increase their maintenance support costs from 17% to 22%.  If you are a long time SAP customer with many modules you really can't switch.  From the AMR article:

They have been very loyal SAP customers longer than the United States have, so they were really taken by surprise by the July news. Both of these user groups think that a huge number of companies simply don’t need higher levels of support compared to what they currently already get.

.... customers in Camps 1 and 2 are still smarting and are still distinctly unhappy. They think that existing support of traditional SAP products is great, but that support of the new stuff is already a problem. It appears that the new BI 7.0 will have hardly any enhancement until the new Business Objects product is ready. Then along comes an overall price rise.

FTM: CIOs are under growing pressure to deliver more value at lower cost. Is this new support plan coming at a bad time?

DP: It’s not just more value at lower cost that CIOs have to deliver. It’s really more value, much faster, at a lower cost. I think this is a particularly bad time for this announcement, simply because of the economic downturn that most of us are heading into.

So let's see.  No new functionality. Support levels that are not needed or wanted.  And the effective maintenance bill goes up by 29%.  Sweet. Don't you wish we could all do that?  I've written about this before on The Dark Side of Vendor Consolidation: No Pricing Power for Customers.  I'm repeating it because it keeps on happening.

Now how does IT explain that to the business without appearing less than business savvy, less than fully aligned with the reality of the business? The conversations tend to go like this. 

IT:  You know all those painful cuts we now need to make? It will be more painful because one of our vendors is raising prices.

Customer: What's going to happen to the new innovation project, the one that was going to give us pricing edge?'

IT: Well we have to cancel it and a few others.  We have to reduce costs.

Customer: They are raising prices? What?! In these economic conditions?  FIRE THEM.

IT: We can't because we made them our preferred provider for everything they sold. A huge part of our business operations are dependent on them. 

Customer: What kind of business decision is that? Nowhere in our business are we dependent on one supplier. It's too risky. What were you guys thinking about?

This is not meant to pick on SAP. They are doing what everyone else is doing--looking to increase revenue in tough times.  And others charge 22%. It's not the amount. It's the lack of competition for your money that is the issue.

This type of issue goes to the heart of a service portfolio conversation: balancing risk and benefits.  You ought to think twice, thrice before declaring that you are going to go with one vendor for all your ITSM needs.  The vendor now has the upper hand in negotiation with you. And no incentive to give you a better deal or spend more on innovation.

It's going to cost you money -- money that has to come from your innovation budget in the short term. 

And that is no way to run a business.

So what should you do?  The same thing you do with your other investments: diversify. 

Let's give all our business to one vendor. Let's act surprised when they raise prices!

IT seems that SAP is the latest to increase their maintenance support costs from 17% to 22%.  If you are a long time SAP customer with many modules you really can't switch.  From the AMR article:

They have been very loyal SAP customers longer than the United States have, so they were really taken by surprise by the July news. Both of these user groups think that a huge number of companies simply don’t need higher levels of support compared to what they currently already get.

.... customers in Camps 1 and 2 are still smarting and are still distinctly unhappy. They think that existing support of traditional SAP products is great, but that support of the new stuff is already a problem. It appears that the new BI 7.0 will have hardly any enhancement until the new Business Objects product is ready. Then along comes an overall price rise.

FTM: CIOs are under growing pressure to deliver more value at lower cost. Is this new support plan coming at a bad time?

DP: It’s not just more value at lower cost that CIOs have to deliver. It’s really more value, much faster, at a lower cost. I think this is a particularly bad time for this announcement, simply because of the economic downturn that most of us are heading into.

So let's see.  No new functionality. Support levels that are not needed or wanted.  And the effective maintenance bill goes up by 29%.  Sweet. Don't you wish we could all do that?  I've written about this before on The Dark Side of Vendor Consolidation: No Pricing Power for Customers.  I'm repeating it because it keeps on happening.

Now how does IT explain that to the business without appearing less than business savvy, less than fully aligned with the reality of the business? The conversations tend to go like this. 

IT:  You know all those painful cuts we now need to make? It will be more painful because one of our vendors is raising prices.

Customer: What's going to happen to the new innovation project, the one that was going to give us pricing edge?'

IT: Well we have to cancel it and a few others.  We have to reduce costs.

Customer: They are raising prices? What?! In these economic conditions?  FIRE THEM.

IT: We can't because we made them our preferred provider for everything they sold. A huge part of our business operations are dependent on them. 

Customer: What kind of business decision is that? Nowhere in our business are we dependent on one supplier. It's too risky. What were you guys thinking about?

This is not meant to pick on SAP. They are doing what everyone else is doing--looking to increase revenue in tough times.  And others charge 22%. It's not the amount. It's the lack of competition for your money that is the issue.

This type of issue goes to the heart of a service portfolio conversation: balancing risk and benefits.  You ought to think twice, thrice before declaring that you are going to go with one vendor for all your ITSM needs.  The vendor now has the upper hand in negotiation with you. And no incentive to give you a better deal or spend more on innovation.

It's going to cost you money -- money that has to come from your innovation budget in the short term. 

And that is no way to run a business.

So what should you do?  The same thing you do with your other investments: diversify. 

Let's give all our business to one vendor. Let's act surprised when they raise prices!

IT seems that SAP is the latest to increase their maintenance support costs from 17% to 22%.  If you are a long time SAP customer with many modules you really can't switch.  From the AMR article:

They have been very loyal SAP customers longer than the United States have, so they were really taken by surprise by the July news. Both of these user groups think that a huge number of companies simply don’t need higher levels of support compared to what they currently already get.

.... customers in Camps 1 and 2 are still smarting and are still distinctly unhappy. They think that existing support of traditional SAP products is great, but that support of the new stuff is already a problem. It appears that the new BI 7.0 will have hardly any enhancement until the new Business Objects product is ready. Then along comes an overall price rise.

FTM: CIOs are under growing pressure to deliver more value at lower cost. Is this new support plan coming at a bad time?

DP: It’s not just more value at lower cost that CIOs have to deliver. It’s really more value, much faster, at a lower cost. I think this is a particularly bad time for this announcement, simply because of the economic downturn that most of us are heading into.

So let's see.  No new functionality. Support levels that are not needed or wanted.  And the effective maintenance bill goes up by 29%.  Sweet. Don't you wish we could all do that?  I've written about this before on The Dark Side of Vendor Consolidation: No Pricing Power for Customers.  I'm repeating it because it keeps on happening.

Now how does IT explain that to the business without appearing less than business savvy, less than fully aligned with the reality of the business? The conversations tend to go like this. 

IT:  You know all those painful cuts we now need to make? It will be more painful because one of our vendors is raising prices.

Customer: What's going to happen to the new innovation project, the one that was going to give us pricing edge?'

IT: Well we have to cancel it and a few others.  We have to reduce costs.

Customer: They are raising prices? What?! In these economic conditions?  FIRE THEM.

IT: We can't because we made them our preferred provider for everything they sold. A huge part of our business operations are dependent on them. 

Customer: What kind of business decision is that? Nowhere in our business are we dependent on one supplier. It's too risky. What were you guys thinking about?

This is not meant to pick on SAP. They are doing what everyone else is doing--looking to increase revenue in tough times.  And others charge 22%. It's not the amount. It's the lack of competition for your money that is the issue.

This type of issue goes to the heart of a service portfolio conversation: balancing risk and benefits.  You ought to think twice, thrice before declaring that you are going to go with one vendor for all your ITSM needs.  The vendor now has the upper hand in negotiation with you. And no incentive to give you a better deal or spend more on innovation.

It's going to cost you money -- money that has to come from your innovation budget in the short term. 

And that is no way to run a business.

So what should you do?  The same thing you do with your other investments: diversify. 

Interesting research from EMA on Service Catalogs

This is worth reading

Service catalogs have transformed from simple IT tools into critical enterprise business applications used across the enterprise. More service catalog implementations are driven by combined business and IT interests than are driven solely by IT. And, many respondents indicated that they include non-IT services (for example, human resources, facilities, legal, etc.) in their service catalogs. The service catalog is indeed moving into the category of enterprise application, and rising above its previous label as simply an IT tool.

The service catalog market is evolving and service catalog tools are starting to specialize. Solutions from different vendors have notable strengths and weaknesses depending on the purpose for which they are needed. Some of the differences involve the various needs and perspectives of three primary service catalog constituents: users, IT, and the business.

Those interested in pursuing a service catalog implementation would be well served to understand which type of service catalog product they should focus their learning and acquisition efforts. Vendors should understand clearly where they fit within this marketplace and adjust their product positioning and marketing accordingly.

Simply put, “a service catalog” is no longer simply “a service catalog” – and differentiation of functionality is upon us.

See the rest here.

Interesting research from EMA on Service Catalogs

This is worth reading

Service catalogs have transformed from simple IT tools into critical enterprise business applications used across the enterprise. More service catalog implementations are driven by combined business and IT interests than are driven solely by IT. And, many respondents indicated that they include non-IT services (for example, human resources, facilities, legal, etc.) in their service catalogs. The service catalog is indeed moving into the category of enterprise application, and rising above its previous label as simply an IT tool.

The service catalog market is evolving and service catalog tools are starting to specialize. Solutions from different vendors have notable strengths and weaknesses depending on the purpose for which they are needed. Some of the differences involve the various needs and perspectives of three primary service catalog constituents: users, IT, and the business.

Those interested in pursuing a service catalog implementation would be well served to understand which type of service catalog product they should focus their learning and acquisition efforts. Vendors should understand clearly where they fit within this marketplace and adjust their product positioning and marketing accordingly.

Simply put, “a service catalog” is no longer simply “a service catalog” – and differentiation of functionality is upon us.

See the rest here.

Interesting research from EMA on Service Catalogs

This is worth reading

Service catalogs have transformed from simple IT tools into critical enterprise business applications used across the enterprise. More service catalog implementations are driven by combined business and IT interests than are driven solely by IT. And, many respondents indicated that they include non-IT services (for example, human resources, facilities, legal, etc.) in their service catalogs. The service catalog is indeed moving into the category of enterprise application, and rising above its previous label as simply an IT tool.

The service catalog market is evolving and service catalog tools are starting to specialize. Solutions from different vendors have notable strengths and weaknesses depending on the purpose for which they are needed. Some of the differences involve the various needs and perspectives of three primary service catalog constituents: users, IT, and the business.

Those interested in pursuing a service catalog implementation would be well served to understand which type of service catalog product they should focus their learning and acquisition efforts. Vendors should understand clearly where they fit within this marketplace and adjust their product positioning and marketing accordingly.

Simply put, “a service catalog” is no longer simply “a service catalog” – and differentiation of functionality is upon us.

See the rest here.

The dark side of vendor consolidation: no pricing power for customers

I've always been struck by customers announcing they are consolidating vendors, choosing one provider for all their needs.  I mean what sweet music to vendors ears it must be:  "Hey we will only buy from you. Feel free to charge us whatever you want!"  The counter argument, of course, is that with fewer vendors you reduce integration costs. But this is not real because the big vendor don't really have integrated suites.

Well, the chickens have come roost.  After years of vendor consolidation in the ERP space, customers have no pricing power.   Read this ComputerWorld article for the whole story:

Vendors to IT: No economic stimulus package for you.

On the same day last week that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke gave a gloomy assessment of the U.S. economy to members of a House committee, SAP AG announced plans to shift all of its users to a new support plan that will increase their software maintenance fees. SAP's price increase isn't the only one users are facing.

Oracle Corp. raised the list prices of some of its key products by 15% or more last month. And last week, Emerson Network Power hiked the price of some of its data-center cooling and power systems by 5%, passing along the higher costs it's paying for raw materials.

If customers eliminate competition for their business, they will get higher costs. How is that smart? Or good governance? This ability to reduce competition, duplicate development and sales efforts is at the heart of why vendors consolidate.  They want to be able to maintain pricing power vis-a-vis their customers.  I just don't think customers need benefit at all.

What are your thoughts?

The dark side of vendor consolidation: no pricing power for customers

I've always been struck by customers announcing they are consolidating vendors, choosing one provider for all their needs.  I mean what sweet music to vendors ears it must be:  "Hey we will only buy from you. Feel free to charge us whatever you want!"  The counter argument, of course, is that with fewer vendors you reduce integration costs. But this is not real because the big vendor don't really have integrated suites.

Well, the chickens have come roost.  After years of vendor consolidation in the ERP space, customers have no pricing power.   Read this ComputerWorld article for the whole story:

Vendors to IT: No economic stimulus package for you.

On the same day last week that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke gave a gloomy assessment of the U.S. economy to members of a House committee, SAP AG announced plans to shift all of its users to a new support plan that will increase their software maintenance fees. SAP's price increase isn't the only one users are facing.

Oracle Corp. raised the list prices of some of its key products by 15% or more last month. And last week, Emerson Network Power hiked the price of some of its data-center cooling and power systems by 5%, passing along the higher costs it's paying for raw materials.

If customers eliminate competition for their business, they will get higher costs. How is that smart? Or good governance? This ability to reduce competition, duplicate development and sales efforts is at the heart of why vendors consolidate.  They want to be able to maintain pricing power vis-a-vis their customers.  I just don't think customers need benefit at all.

What are your thoughts?

The dark side of vendor consolidation: no pricing power for customers

I've always been struck by customers announcing they are consolidating vendors, choosing one provider for all their needs.  I mean what sweet music to vendors ears it must be:  "Hey we will only buy from you. Feel free to charge us whatever you want!"  The counter argument, of course, is that with fewer vendors you reduce integration costs. But this is not real because the big vendor don't really have integrated suites.

Well, the chickens have come roost.  After years of vendor consolidation in the ERP space, customers have no pricing power.   Read this ComputerWorld article for the whole story:

Vendors to IT: No economic stimulus package for you.

On the same day last week that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke gave a gloomy assessment of the U.S. economy to members of a House committee, SAP AG announced plans to shift all of its users to a new support plan that will increase their software maintenance fees. SAP's price increase isn't the only one users are facing.

Oracle Corp. raised the list prices of some of its key products by 15% or more last month. And last week, Emerson Network Power hiked the price of some of its data-center cooling and power systems by 5%, passing along the higher costs it's paying for raw materials.

If customers eliminate competition for their business, they will get higher costs. How is that smart? Or good governance? This ability to reduce competition, duplicate development and sales efforts is at the heart of why vendors consolidate.  They want to be able to maintain pricing power vis-a-vis their customers.  I just don't think customers need benefit at all.

What are your thoughts?

ERP for IT: customers have little confidence on the big 4

It seems customers are not really happy with the big 4 infrastructure vendors. First, they don't think they are doing a good job, and second, despite their size, customers don't buy much from them.  Heck, even Pizza Hut has a bigger market share than they do.  Here are a couple of quotes from the Network World article:

"An impromptu poll of more than 355 attendees (exact number of responses were difficult to calculate on-the-fly) at the Gartner Infrastructure and Operations Management Summit in Orlando Monday showed that 50% of attendees in the keynote session would give the market-leading big four management vendors a grade of C. Some 17% gave the big four a D grade, 4% determined they deserved an F and 15% offered the "incomplete" option."

Ouch. You have to admit, that's gotta hurt a little bit.   Additionally......

"Considering the big four management vendors make up about 60% of the $13 billion market -- which Scott says is very fragmented with 40% market share up for grabs -- BMC, CA, HP and IBM must consume start-up contenders while avoiding attacks from the sharks looking to get a piece of the management market."

So the big 4 ITSM vendors share 60% of this market.  Say 15% each (Pizza Hut has 20% -- Pizza is in no danger of consolidation).  They don't have much market power. As a customer, you are in charge, no the vendors.

There are excellent reasons for why the ITSM market offers so many choices: IT is the key engine for innovation and productivity in the global economy. Organizations stands still at its own peril.  Every company out there is trying to be more competitive, more innovative, more efficient. 

IT is core to 21st century organizations.  And innovation usually comes from smaller vendors, not big ones.

Here is one practical example:  Should your organization use the new Apple iPhone and/or Amazon's cloud computing infrastructure? This is an innovation question not an efficiency question. How can the business deploy these technologies to support new business offers? What are the new business processes we can enable with these technologies? What is the margin, TCO, agility these technologies enable?

This is what service portfolio management is all about; this is not an infrastructure management question.  

Companies like newScale are at the forefront of innovation in IT. That's not what the big guys do;  the big guys are not innovators, but consolidators of commodity products.  Once everyone decides that the iPhone or cloud computing are important, they'll go buy someone to add to their offerings. Their job is to make stuff the stuff that is not relevant to business innovation, cheaper. By the time, they go buy a company that manages cloud computing, this technology will no longer be a competitive advantage.

The market needs both: technology that drives innovation and technology that drives down perational costs.  No matter how much the big vendors try to say the market is "consolidating," as long as the science that underpins IT keeps on innovating, the big guys are not going to dominate. They certainly don't do it for cloud computing or the iPhone platform today. This Network World research shows that customers understand this very well.

In short, in the ITSM market it's a great time to be a customer -- choice, competition, and innovation are in the hands of the customer, not vendors. It will remain this way for at least the next decade -- don't let a vendor tell you otherwise.

For the whole thing article see here: Big 4 management vendors squeak by with a passing grade, garner little confidence from Gartner attendees | NetworkWorld.com Community.

ERP for IT: customers have little confidence on the big 4

It seems customers are not really happy with the big 4 infrastructure vendors. First, they don't think they are doing a good job, and second, despite their size, customers don't buy much from them.  Heck, even Pizza Hut has a bigger market share than they do.  Here are a couple of quotes from the Network World article:

"An impromptu poll of more than 355 attendees (exact number of responses were difficult to calculate on-the-fly) at the Gartner Infrastructure and Operations Management Summit in Orlando Monday showed that 50% of attendees in the keynote session would give the market-leading big four management vendors a grade of C. Some 17% gave the big four a D grade, 4% determined they deserved an F and 15% offered the "incomplete" option."

Ouch. You have to admit, that's gotta hurt a little bit.   Additionally......

"Considering the big four management vendors make up about 60% of the $13 billion market -- which Scott says is very fragmented with 40% market share up for grabs -- BMC, CA, HP and IBM must consume start-up contenders while avoiding attacks from the sharks looking to get a piece of the management market."

So the big 4 ITSM vendors share 60% of this market.  Say 15% each (Pizza Hut has 20% -- Pizza is in no danger of consolidation).  They don't have much market power. As a customer, you are in charge, no the vendors.

There are excellent reasons for why the ITSM market offers so many choices: IT is the key engine for innovation and productivity in the global economy. Organizations stands still at its own peril.  Every company out there is trying to be more competitive, more innovative, more efficient. 

IT is core to 21st century organizations.  And innovation usually comes from smaller vendors, not big ones.

Here is one practical example:  Should your organization use the new Apple iPhone and/or Amazon's cloud computing infrastructure? This is an innovation question not an efficiency question. How can the business deploy these technologies to support new business offers? What are the new business processes we can enable with these technologies? What is the margin, TCO, agility these technologies enable?

This is what service portfolio management is all about; this is not an infrastructure management question.  

Companies like newScale are at the forefront of innovation in IT. That's not what the big guys do;  the big guys are not innovators, but consolidators of commodity products.  Once everyone decides that the iPhone or cloud computing are important, they'll go buy someone to add to their offerings. Their job is to make stuff the stuff that is not relevant to business innovation, cheaper. By the time, they go buy a company that manages cloud computing, this technology will no longer be a competitive advantage.

The market needs both: technology that drives innovation and technology that drives down perational costs.  No matter how much the big vendors try to say the market is "consolidating," as long as the science that underpins IT keeps on innovating, the big guys are not going to dominate. They certainly don't do it for cloud computing or the iPhone platform today. This Network World research shows that customers understand this very well.

In short, in the ITSM market it's a great time to be a customer -- choice, competition, and innovation are in the hands of the customer, not vendors. It will remain this way for at least the next decade -- don't let a vendor tell you otherwise.

For the whole thing article see here: Big 4 management vendors squeak by with a passing grade, garner little confidence from Gartner attendees | NetworkWorld.com Community.

ERP for IT: customers have little confidence on the big 4

It seems customers are not really happy with the big 4 infrastructure vendors. First, they don't think they are doing a good job, and second, despite their size, customers don't buy much from them.  Heck, even Pizza Hut has a bigger market share than they do.  Here are a couple of quotes from the Network World article:

"An impromptu poll of more than 355 attendees (exact number of responses were difficult to calculate on-the-fly) at the Gartner Infrastructure and Operations Management Summit in Orlando Monday showed that 50% of attendees in the keynote session would give the market-leading big four management vendors a grade of C. Some 17% gave the big four a D grade, 4% determined they deserved an F and 15% offered the "incomplete" option."

Ouch. You have to admit, that's gotta hurt a little bit.   Additionally......

"Considering the big four management vendors make up about 60% of the $13 billion market -- which Scott says is very fragmented with 40% market share up for grabs -- BMC, CA, HP and IBM must consume start-up contenders while avoiding attacks from the sharks looking to get a piece of the management market."

So the big 4 ITSM vendors share 60% of this market.  Say 15% each (Pizza Hut has 20% -- Pizza is in no danger of consolidation).  They don't have much market power. As a customer, you are in charge, no the vendors.

There are excellent reasons for why the ITSM market offers so many choices: IT is the key engine for innovation and productivity in the global economy. Organizations stands still at its own peril.  Every company out there is trying to be more competitive, more innovative, more efficient. 

IT is core to 21st century organizations.  And innovation usually comes from smaller vendors, not big ones.

Here is one practical example:  Should your organization use the new Apple iPhone and/or Amazon's cloud computing infrastructure? This is an innovation question not an efficiency question. How can the business deploy these technologies to support new business offers? What are the new business processes we can enable with these technologies? What is the margin, TCO, agility these technologies enable?

This is what service portfolio management is all about; this is not an infrastructure management question.  

Companies like newScale are at the forefront of innovation in IT. That's not what the big guys do;  the big guys are not innovators, but consolidators of commodity products.  Once everyone decides that the iPhone or cloud computing are important, they'll go buy someone to add to their offerings. Their job is to make stuff the stuff that is not relevant to business innovation, cheaper. By the time, they go buy a company that manages cloud computing, this technology will no longer be a competitive advantage.

The market needs both: technology that drives innovation and technology that drives down perational costs.  No matter how much the big vendors try to say the market is "consolidating," as long as the science that underpins IT keeps on innovating, the big guys are not going to dominate. They certainly don't do it for cloud computing or the iPhone platform today. This Network World research shows that customers understand this very well.

In short, in the ITSM market it's a great time to be a customer -- choice, competition, and innovation are in the hands of the customer, not vendors. It will remain this way for at least the next decade -- don't let a vendor tell you otherwise.

For the whole thing article see here: Big 4 management vendors squeak by with a passing grade, garner little confidence from Gartner attendees | NetworkWorld.com Community.

Major Industry Analyst's Poll: NewScale Voted Number One!

One of my colleagues recently attended a major industry analyst's data center conference session on IT Service Portfolio Management where an interesting audience poll was conducted. 

In a nutshell, attendees at this conference voted newScale the leader in Service Catalog software.

There's also a whole report available for purchase ($195) or it may be available to subscribers of this major analyst research as part of their package.

The document itself is pretty interesting because it confirms much of what we have been discussing this last year:   the catalog products from the big vendors are NOT service catalogs that can be used in ITIL Portfolio implementations.  Therefore they'll have to be thrown away and re-implemented when the customer organization decides to implement an ITIL v3 Service Catalog and Portfolio management process.

Unfortunately, I can't quote directly from the report, but in a nutshell, the analysts claim that 80% of IT departments that create service catalogs without a view to their service portfolio will need to revamp the content.

Why? Because although the big vendors are hyping their new self-service request portals, these products do not address the full set of features needed to do ITIL-based service portfolio and catalog management. These include creating and managing service definitions, costs, financial vies and reports on service levels.

In a nutshell: the current offering from the big guys don't let you define services that are useful for Portfolio Management.

The race is on to look at best-in-breed vendors like newScale for solutions. The report compares the recent results to their last set of results and the results are shocking. Nearly double of the respondents now believe that their best bet is a pure-play vendor.

The poll, like all polls, should be understood in context: It applies to large organizations that attend this particular analyst's event.  The most interesting part is not the relative percentages, but the trend -- a doubling of the people who have concluded the Service Portfolio is important and needs a serious solution and not a "barely enough" web form with workflow. That's gratifying.

PS: I changed this post to remove the firm's name at their request.

Major Industry Analyst's Poll: NewScale Voted Number One!

One of my colleagues recently attended a major industry analyst's data center conference session on IT Service Portfolio Management where an interesting audience poll was conducted. 

In a nutshell, attendees at this conference voted newScale the leader in Service Catalog software.

There's also a whole report available for purchase ($195) or it may be available to subscribers of this major analyst research as part of their package.

The document itself is pretty interesting because it confirms much of what we have been discussing this last year:   the catalog products from the big vendors are NOT service catalogs that can be used in ITIL Portfolio implementations.  Therefore they'll have to be thrown away and re-implemented when the customer organization decides to implement an ITIL v3 Service Catalog and Portfolio management process.

Unfortunately, I can't quote directly from the report, but in a nutshell, the analysts claim that 80% of IT departments that create service catalogs without a view to their service portfolio will need to revamp the content.

Why? Because although the big vendors are hyping their new self-service request portals, these products do not address the full set of features needed to do ITIL-based service portfolio and catalog management. These include creating and managing service definitions, costs, financial vies and reports on service levels.

In a nutshell: the current offering from the big guys don't let you define services that are useful for Portfolio Management.

The race is on to look at best-in-breed vendors like newScale for solutions. The report compares the recent results to their last set of results and the results are shocking. Nearly double of the respondents now believe that their best bet is a pure-play vendor.

The poll, like all polls, should be understood in context: It applies to large organizations that attend this particular analyst's event.  The most interesting part is not the relative percentages, but the trend -- a doubling of the people who have concluded the Service Portfolio is important and needs a serious solution and not a "barely enough" web form with workflow. That's gratifying.

PS: I changed this post to remove the firm's name at their request.

Major Industry Analyst's Poll: NewScale Voted Number One!

One of my colleagues recently attended a major industry analyst's data center conference session on IT Service Portfolio Management where an interesting audience poll was conducted. 

In a nutshell, attendees at this conference voted newScale the leader in Service Catalog software.

There's also a whole report available for purchase ($195) or it may be available to subscribers of this major analyst research as part of their package.

The document itself is pretty interesting because it confirms much of what we have been discussing this last year:   the catalog products from the big vendors are NOT service catalogs that can be used in ITIL Portfolio implementations.  Therefore they'll have to be thrown away and re-implemented when the customer organization decides to implement an ITIL v3 Service Catalog and Portfolio management process.

Unfortunately, I can't quote directly from the report, but in a nutshell, the analysts claim that 80% of IT departments that create service catalogs without a view to their service portfolio will need to revamp the content.

Why? Because although the big vendors are hyping their new self-service request portals, these products do not address the full set of features needed to do ITIL-based service portfolio and catalog management. These include creating and managing service definitions, costs, financial vies and reports on service levels.

In a nutshell: the current offering from the big guys don't let you define services that are useful for Portfolio Management.

The race is on to look at best-in-breed vendors like newScale for solutions. The report compares the recent results to their last set of results and the results are shocking. Nearly double of the respondents now believe that their best bet is a pure-play vendor.

The poll, like all polls, should be understood in context: It applies to large organizations that attend this particular analyst's event.  The most interesting part is not the relative percentages, but the trend -- a doubling of the people who have concluded the Service Portfolio is important and needs a serious solution and not a "barely enough" web form with workflow. That's gratifying.

PS: I changed this post to remove the firm's name at their request.