Private clouds are doomed to fail, and OpenStack may not be the answer. Matt Asay explains. No wonder private cloud vendors have started calling themselves “hybrid” clouds: the private cloud vision has failed — utterly and completely. Gartner analyst Tom Bittman asked why 95% of private clouds are failing, but the answer seems clear: the very notion of a privately provisioned cloud service is contradictory and nearly always doomed. Unfortunately, the odds of failure may skyrocket when enterprises turn to OpenStack. Fail early, fail often Roughly five years ago, Amazon Web Services (AWS)…

Implementing a customer relationship management (CRM) system is no proverbial walk in the park. The failure rate for CRM adoption hovers between 47 percent and 70 percent, according to analysts. To be a part of the minority of businesses that do succeed in their CRM initiative, following best practices is crucial. What to Do and What Not to Do  1. Don’t Lump All of Your Customers Together: Instead, Focus Only on the Best Ones. Chances are, if you’re implementing a CRM system, you’re looking to adopt a customer-centric approach to business. If that’s…

It’s that time of year again! Well not really, but it’s that time of my career at least. For those of you keeping track I’ve been at EMC now for a bit over 4 years. I was part of the vSpecialist team for 3 years, and last year around this time I moved into the Office of the CTO (and from Stockholm to Boston with my wife). I’m now moving to yet another interesting opportunity within EMC, but perhaps not a role traditionally associated with EMC. I’m sure you all have…

Swiss watchmaking company Swatch has decided that it wants to get into the smartwatch business after all. In an interview with Bloomberg, company CEO Nick Hayek said that his company will be going head-to-head with Apple when the Apple Watch launches in April. If Hayek’s claims about the device’s capabilities are right, it seems like it will be an interesting competitor to the other smartwatches now on the market or coming soon. Hayek said that it will connect to the internet, but won’t require a charge. The as-yet-unnamed device will be compatible with Android…

Companies look to IT to develop systems to improve the relationships with their customers. Yet when it comes to building relationships with the rest of the business, IT often seems to be out in the cold. Isn’t it ironic? Developers build and enhance CRM systems so that companies can track every customer interaction. The CRM system can know what products a customer has purchased and what offers he has been given. It can be aware of how the customer prefers to interact and a bit about his decision-making process. The…