OK, you're probably wondering (a) what in the world could possibly motivate me to start a new blog in addition to this one, and (b) who would ever want to read more of my blather?
Well, over the last few months I've been working intently with a group of people I'll call "IT as a service" service providers. We've historically called them outsourcers, hosters, SaaS, managed services, etc. -- but they all seem to be moving in generically in the same direction -- and quickly.
And I'm downright fascinated ...
How This All Started
Well, in 2009 I spent most of my time working on private cloud stuff in the enteprise. These efforts contributed to what you see now around VCE, Vblocks, Acadia, our growing ecosystem of partners, and so on.
If you followed this blog during 2009, you're aware it's been a dominant theme. Almost obsessive, some would say. Today, I was paid the ultimate compliment -- I got spam mail inviting me to a "private cloud" free webinar by some obscure outfit I'd never heard of.
At the end of 2009, I became very intrigued about the "other side" of the private cloud -- the ecosystem of compatible service providers that were essential to this whole thing working as we had envisioned.
My Journey
Naively, my first engagements with service providers were mostly around technology. Virtual this, portal that, and so on. Well, I quickly learned that they really didn't want to hear about the technology that much.
You see, a service provider is a *business*. They buy stuff, put it on the floor, and deliver it as a service. Tell them how they're going to either (a) save money at what they're doing today, or (b) make money by differentiating their current services, or offering new ones, and they'll listen.
Hint: they're much more interested in the second topic than the first one :-)
At the same time, I had spoken to enough larger enterprises that they were becoming more willing to reconsider the whole external service provider proposition IF the conditions were right.
I found myself in an interesting situation where I could see demand on one side (from the enterprises I was routinely speaking with) and supply (from the service providers who were eager to expand their businesses). All I had to do is figure out how to position EMC and our ecosystem partners between those two camps.
So that's what I've been mostly working on -- along with a lot of other people -- since the beginning of the year. I'm now at a point where I'm starting to "get it", and want to share my experiences.
Oh, BTW a shout-out to Jeramiah who works at an SP and started an very insightful blog on his issues and challenges. I felt it was time to do the same. Hopefully others will join into the discussion.
Why I Like Working With This New Generation Of Service Providers
First, with enterprise IT, you sometimes struggle sometimes to connect "how the business makes money" with "what IT does for a living". With this new class of IT-as-a-service SPs, IT *is* the business, there's no need to make any sort of connection. It's obvious.
Second, they're generally technically astute. They run IT as a business. As a result, they don't usually fall for the typical vendor BS that you see out there. I like that very much.
Third, the better ones want to partner with their vendors, and not just buy stuff from them. They want to influence roadmaps and GTM models and ... well, it's a much more productive engagement than just speeds-and-feeds.
Fourth, they're early adopters. They've got a strong incentive to invest in differentiation, and some of that applies directly to all the cool stuff that EMC is doing. For example, if you're a service provider with multiple datacenters, you "get" what a VPLEX is all about. Or you might really appreciate the sophisticated mutitenancy of a VMAX. No need for long explanations.
Fifth -- and this is a big bet -- I'm guessing that more and more of the very large IT organizations want to start modeling themselves as "internal service providers" back to the business. And what better way to do that than to understand how this new class of service providers is doing it?
The only downside -- and it's not a biggie -- is that I meet a lot of SP-oriented companies that did a fair amount of home-grown IT to get themselves where they are today.
They built realy cool stuff that served its purpose at the time, but -- more often than not -- it's time to move on and step up to the purpose-built stuff. That can be sometimes hard for people who put their sweat and tears into very difficult and complex integration, scripting, automation, etc.
But this nascent category of "IT as a service" service providers is moving fast. It's a blast.
You can find it here if you're interested. And, yes, I'm still going to keep posting here.
You're not rid of me yet :-)
Wonder how you find the time for it all (Second blog etc)!, I mean, among other professional commitments. Wishing you the very best.
excITingIP.com
Posted by: excITingIP.com | May 22, 2010 at 04:18 PM