Collabri Group LLC

Ad blocking is an easy scapegoat for the online media industry, but blocking ad-blocking will only stymie the evolution of the online media business.

Novell's proposed acquisition will likely drive Red Hat into the arms of VMware or Oracle, but will have minimal impact on the larger open-source commercial ecosystem.

Relax! It’s not meant to be a real formula, just a way of trying to think about the relationship between all of these. There is a great deal of growing interest in cloud services for the enterprise and more factors are coming into the mix expected to transform enterprises and impact their business models. Over the last few months - together with my colleagues - we have been closely examining what’s really happening, why it’s happening, and what’s needed. The result is a whole new Capgemini global business unit called Infostructure Technology Services which is designed to address the expertise ‘gap’ rapidly emerging within most enterprises. This is a summary of what we have identified and what is needed in outline, for the full story go to Capgemini Infostructure Technology Services.

The majority of enterprises can be summed up around four activities: buying something, adding value to it reselling it at a profit and the associated administering/operational management. Information Technology has done an excellent job on the two internal activities of adding value and administration/operational management, but has not achieved the same kind of impact on the two other aspects of buying and selling. The goal of business technology is to achieve the same level of improvement in these two areas and for that, it needs to use a different, common and open technology base from that of internal IT.

Posted by Andy Mulholland on March 8, 2010

While Windows 7 offers a respite from advances by feisty rivals Apple and Google, the future for Microsoft likely looks a lot like it does for those competitors: mobile.

Novell's Linux business didn't do it many favors, but it promises to be a critical component of a range of potential suitors' bids to displace Microsoft in the market.

Open source is increasingly a key strategy for the big enterprise-software vendors, but this doesn't mean there isn't still a place for small players.

Open source hasn't been kind to its proprietary forbears, but it's also not doing any favors to its kin, driving the pace of innovation up and some open-source competitors out.

The flattening out of its digital business has more to do with its heavy-handed approached than any lack of interest in its products. It's time to let go of the reins.

Mobility has seen fast growth and been a hot topic the in last couple of years and at Mobile World Congress this year, it turned a corner and moved beyond being just a procession of breakthrough devices and new forms of wireless. The question is who noticed this in the IT or enterprise IT community and will they make the connection in terms of the enterprise user and models for cloud delivery?

The focus, announcements and fun have - in the past - always seemed to centre on new devices with incredible capabilities that invited the comparison with the functionality of a PC. Much less time was given to what people are using mobile devices for. That is the real game change to look at and at least one group of 24 operators grasped this and established a new alliance. The alliance is focussed on one simple objective: to take on Apple and its App Store dominance. Under the old rules of the game anything that increased connection time and usage was good, so as long as you were part of the Apple game all those extra call minutes and data were just what you wanted.

Posted by Andy Mulholland on March 1, 2010

Apple and Microsoft have long promised a seamless, trouble-free technology experience...so long as you commit to their ecosystems. What we need, however, is choice.

Cloud application providers talk about unshackling governments and enterprises from the constraints of hardware and software licenses, but this newfound freedom comes at a price.

Microsoft believes it has valid patent claims on Linux. Fine. Why not put its money where it's mouth is and sue Google to put those claims to the test?

Open-source communities tend to aggregate around infrastructure projects, but enterprise applications also command strong followings, as new data suggest.

Open source is driving the industry toward $0.00 as an important price point, but will it end up crippling all companies, including open-source companies.

The best companies are those that know what they are...and what they aren't, and discard more opportunities than they pursue. Apple and Red Hat get this, while Cisco and Microsoft may not.

If you have been reading my blog for long enough you will remember that during the Second Life boom, I was supportive of the principle that media would be changed by new capabilities around ‘virtual’ or ‘reality’, even if Second Life might or might not turn out to be ‘next big thing’ in quite the way some of its supporters believed.

My new HP laptop features a built in web cam and 3G card, (it has even got a rather cute keyboard light that on transatlantic flights has been useful when they darken the cabin!). So though its form factor is large, it’s a perfectly capable full communication and interaction device at every level from connected to wireless, sound to video. In other words a decent PC today is a fully functional multimedia device.

Posted by Andy Mulholland on February 22, 2010

Starting March 1, Microsoft will have to learn to compete in the browser market again due to an EU antitrust agreement. This should be good for consumers, but also for Microsoft and its competitors.

Could cloud computing stifle OSS innovation and put the direction of OSS in the hands of the big IT vendors?

Many in the open-source community have been waiting for the "Linux desktop" to arrive for years, but they appear to have missed obvious signs that we're beyond it.

Microsoft has never been less popular, which may be exactly what it needs to goad it to taking new risks and building back its brand.