I participate recently a very nice conference on Green-IT. The conference was a success: lot’s of speakers, full fall, people taking notes, lot’s of questions asked.

Only one issue: despite the fact the conference targeted clients, they were nowhere to be found.

I saw a lot of people I know, account managers, sales managers even some country managers, but NO users.

Probably this is the supreme sign of hype: a conference full of vendors but no clients.

Cloud computing seems to reach the “Peak of Inflated Expectations“. Even Larry Ellison admits it:

“The interesting thing about cloud computing is that we’ve redefined cloud computing to include everything that we already do. I can’t think of anything that isn’t cloud computing with all of these announcements. The computer industry is the only industry that is more fashion-driven than women’s fashion. Maybe I’m an idiot, but I have no idea what anyone is talking about. What is it? It’s complete gibberish. It’s insane. When is this idiocy going to stop?”

In “Peak of Inflated Expectations” phase, a frenzy of publicity typically generates over-enthusiasm and unrealistic expectations. There may be some successful applications of a technology, but there are typically more failures.

Usually in this phase the only ones making money are journalists and event organizers. So be aware…

At eLiberatica conference a Microsoft evangelist answered to a question about why Microsoft is involving in Open Source with “you know, it is like in chess”

For sure this is not a corporate formal position but an employee perception of his company plans and policies.

Is Microsoft playing a gambit with open source?

A gambit is a chess opening in which the first player risks or sacrifices material, usually a pawn), with the hope of achieving a resulting advantageous position.

So this is an attack, and the “give away” is poisoned. Microsoft “sacrifices” material – money, intellectual property – with the hope to gain a future advantage.

It is also a temporary situation.

Microsoft still see open source as an enemy. They not accepted it as an integral part of the IT industry and still try fighting it – they aim for “check-mat”

In modern chess, the typical response to a moderately sound gambit is to accept the material and give the material back at an advantageous time.
For gambits that are less sound, the accepting player is more likely to try to hold onto his extra material.

It is expected for a company to chase profit. Of course a company giving away something should expect some kind of return.

I am only questioning the attitude: open source involvement: This should be a COLABORATION not a fight.

I still wonder if this a “sound” gambit or a “less sound” one?!

Like always CISCO Expo was a great event. Congratulations to the event team!

Although the venue was clearly overwhelmed by the number of participants (around 700 according to Bogdan – CISCO Country Manager)

My presentation went smoothly. I even manage to get couple of questions! For a Romanian public this is quite an achievement.

I wonder where CISCO is going. Their new tag line “Human Network”, all the communication centered on people …

May be they want to achieve something like:

Are they taking the same path Intel took a while ago? They want to become a retail brand? The network in every home to have “CISCO Inside”?

Today Prashanth from CIO Weblog send me an Information Week article: “Credibility Of Analysts“.

Forrester, Gartner, IDC, and others insist their output is squeaky clean, yet they also rake in millions providing services to the very same companies they monitor, heavyweights like Cisco, IBM, Microsoft, and Oracle. Which leads to a question that continues to dog the research firms: How much influence do technology vendors have over their work?

The article analyses in depth the relations between technology vendors and analysts. Worth reading:

Technology vendors often will sign up for analyst firm services when they feel their market is poised for growth. Cyveillance in January signed on with Gartner to help understand how its software fits with the growing demand for IT security and regulatory compliance. “I also wanted to understand how a product we’re rolling out should be priced,” Bransford says. So IDC helps seed the market, Gartner helps price it, and both get paid for doing so. Is everyone comfortable with that?

Garr Reynolds has an article about trust on his Presentation Zen blog.

Very good read especially now when each and every vendor want to be “your trusted partner”.