Where’s the business value of data? In its effective use.  In a Cloud-centric environment, that value is optimized by the efficient use of data within an integrative platform of software and services. And in a socially networked Cloud environment, that data can be at least as valuable as other intellectual property.  As such, social networking data alone can drive the acquisition of entire firms.

Less than a year ago – August 21, 2012 to be exact - Google purchased travel publishing brand Frommer's Travel from John Wiley and Sons for $22 million. It looked as though Google may be developing an online travel platform/portal service bundling Zagat and travel-optimized data management software firm ITA.  

On November 14, 2012, Saugatuck held its 2^nd annual Cloud Business Summit at the Westin Times Square in New York City. As with our inaugural event, this year’s conference brought together large-enterprise CIOs, CTOs and senior business leaders to explore what is possible, what is real, and what is not in the Cloud today.

In Part I of this video, Bill McNee, Saugatuck’s founder and CEO, kicks the conference off with the conference keynote, focusing on the key MegaTrend driving change in business computing – the Boundary-free Enterprise™. In addition to defining it, and the new Master Architecture that underlies it, the video highlights the key technologies that are shaping the future – Cloud, Mobility, Social / Collaborative tools, Analytics, and Integration – and how it is driving a new mission for IT.

What is Happening? — An under-emphasized but omni-present theme throughout this week’s IBM Software Group (IBM SWG) Analyst Insights event in Stamford, CT was that of the primary role being played by Mobility in driving not just Cloud use and business value, but in driving Business and IT leaders to work more closely together than ever before.

To be clear, there was no shortage of discussion and presentation regarding the importance and role(s) of Mobility within IBM’s software and services strategies and portfolios. Mobility is important enough that IBM SVP Robert LeBlanc specifically called out Enterprise Mobility as one of IBM SWG’s seven core, strategic customer enterprise needs and solution areas. Additional presentations and discussions with LeBlanc and other executives, including IBM GM for Applications & Integration Middleware Marie Wieck, and IBM GM for Security Systems Brendan Hannigan, further emphasized the strategic importance of Mobility within IBM SWG.

 

The Quantified Enterprise is an emergent scenario where the data and value generated by the use of Collaborative, Mobile, Social and all other forms of business IT enable a “BI feedback loop,” wherein measurement of the use, effects and benefits of IT and business software can be combined, analyzed, and delivered to optimize business decision making in close to real time. In the Quantified Enterprise, disparate software, data sources, and analytics engines combine in a Hybrid Cloud environment where integration software continuously translates both structured and unstructured data from different sources into one or more Big Data repositories, which then are mined, queried, and shared by all business units.

IT and business leaders responsible for making sure that their investments don’t cripple their enterprise’s ability to do business should take a look at Mike West’s latest Strategic Perspective, which introduces Saugatuck’s Risk/Reward Assessment model.

We see this as the first approach to IT assessment that provides both buyers and providers with an objective, truly useful means to identify and then manage challenges in understanding, evaluating, selecting, and managing IT solutions in this new era of the Boundary-free Enterprise^™ and dramatically-altered IT/business master architectures, and the processes and practices needed to cost-effectively manage them.