Chuck's Blog

Microsoft and EMC Tackle Next-Gen Service Management

Perhaps you saw the announcement at Microsoft Management Summit (MMS) between Microsoft and EMC. 

If you missed it, the announcement is here.  And some nice press coverage here and here.

But is there more to the picture than meets the eye? 

I think this particular announcement carries more weight -- on several levels -- than the ordinary technology mash-up.  See if you agree.

So what is this all about?

Echoes of the Digital Big Bang

As you know, EMC recently sponsored a study with IDC to estimate the amount of information we as a society are generating, and make some forecasts for the future.

The response and feedback was a little surprising, at least to me.

(update: someone sent me this great clip from a CTV news story on the topic)

I think we've hit a nerve here, folks ...

Getting To Enterprise Architecture 2.0

I've mentioned before the best part of my unofficial job is that I get to have some pretty intense discussions with customers who are sometimes up to pretty big stuff.

Last week, I had two such discussions (on the same day!) that ostensibly looked like the same thing going in, but went down two very different paths as they took high-level concepts and mapped them into priorities.

I've written about these sorts of engagements before (here, here and here), and I think they're interesting journeys into the real world of IT strategy.

I hope you agree.

Disaster Savings Time

Sounds like a harmeless enough idea, doesn't it?

Let's move back Daylight Savings Time in the US, and potentially save some energy.

The last time we did this, back in the 1980s, it seemed to work out pretty well.

Fast forward to 2007, and the world is a very different place.

You Should Get Some Legal Advice ...

I believe that information is becoming the single most precious asset in the world today.

And I believe that IT is poised to play an entirely new role as the "CFO of Information".

Part of that journey is becoming expert in the overlaps (and synergies) between IT thinking and other disciplines.

We've all had to get good at things like finance, logistics, project management, (ahem) internal marketing, business process reengineering, human resources and other decidedly non-technical disciplines.

I think it's inevitable that we'll have to add "legal" to this expanding portfolio.

More and more IT strategy in the future will be directly connected to legal implications of what we do with information.

And today, it gives me great pleasure to welcome Andy Cohen to the EMC blogosphere.  Andy's blog will focus on this important intersection between legal and IT.

Andy joins myself and Mark Lewis (EMC's CDO -- chief development officer) as part of the growing roster of EMC corporate bloggers.

Welcome, Andy!  Looking forward to seeing great posts on a variety of issues.

The Billion Dollar Laptop

I enjoy debating industry issues with other people.

An interesting thread is the intersection between the new forms of inadvertant information breaches (once was once private is now public) and the legal system.

Simply put: will the legal system recognize this new form of tort?

I'd like to hand the microphone over to Bill Bonin, who's a fellow EMCer and a lawyer by past experience.  I found his insight a bit sobering ...

More Digital Big Bang -- IDC Study

A while back, I wrote about what I called the digital big bang -- a rapid transformation in human society brought about by the ubiquitous growth and use of information.

It turned out to be one of my more popular posts, maybe because I took a stab at looking at some of the fundamental social issues that were in play as a result of this transformation.

Today, IDC released a study (sponsored by EMC) titled The Expanding Digital Universe.  In this research, they try to estimate the total amount of information we've generated, and -- more importantly -- how fast it's growing.

We had worked with UC Berkeley on an earlier study several years back; we thought it'd be great to have an updated view on how things had changed.  And, boy, had they changed.  Much bigger numbers, to start with.

So just how much information have we generated so far? 

The answer is -- drum roll please -- 161 exabytes of information created by humans through 2006.  For those of you who lose track of zeros, that's 161 billion gigabytes.

So what does this mean?

Much Ado About Nothing

In some corners of our industry, technology discussions can turn into interesting studies of human behavior.

Even though EMC’s capabilities span a very broad range these days, we still get involved in our fair share of storage technology debates.  Some are relevant, others aren’t.

And, since I once was a crusty, knuckle-dragging storage guy, occasionally I feel compelled to wade into certain areas.

And today, we talk a bit about disk drive failure rates.