Of particular interest was Cisco’s demonstration of contact center social media capabilities – Info-Tech’s research has repeatedly shown that customer service is the domain most likely to realize value from leveraging social media. Firms that incorporate social channels into their customer service strategy are over 20% more likely to realize their social media goals than those that do not. Contact centers are on the forefront of providing customer service, so Cisco’s move to incorporate social channels into upcoming solutions is a step in the right direction. The firm also displayed capabilities for using mobile devices and location-based capabilities to improve customer service delivery. Industry analysts heard from customers and partners of Cisco contact center solutions, who praised the value of consolidating service operations using Cisco’s cloud infrastructure and service applications.

This is especially true in new technology areas that are currently trending: mobility, cloud computing, big data, social media, and the new security concerns that have risen from these trends like Cthulhu from the deep of the ocean.

But fear is for the startled villagers on the shore. Instead, ask yourself questions in these five areas to determine how to add new skills to your team:

• Urgency. How quickly do we need to add this skill to our team? This month, in the next six months, in the next year? If this is the case, contracting for a temporary engagement to get the project off the ground may be your best option.
• Importance. Is this skill critical to the day-to-day operation of the business, or is it a project-based or short-term need? With mission-critical capabilities, you will want to have someone in the department full time. This may be a long-term process, or you can leverage knowledge transfer from a contract position.
• Novelty. Have we looked for this kind of skill before? What is the level of expertise available to be hired? With some new areas – like social media – there really is no recommended certification or defined set of skills. Spend more time understanding what tasks you need the role to fill to offer true business value.
• Scarcity. How popular or desirable is this skill right now? Do we have a large enough talent pool to draw from? When skills are hot and scarce, the pool of worthwhile of applicants gets shallow pretty quickly. This may be a case where training an internal resource is your only option.
• Cost. How much will it cost to hire vs. contract vs. outsource this skill? Is there a premium attached to hiring this skill? Balance your budget against your need. If the skill need meets the previous four criteria, be prepared to pay.

Don’t be left short-handed; read more about addressing a skill shortage in Info-tech’s solution set Acquire New and Hot IT Skills.

In his keynote, CEO Mark Templeton demonstrated how Citrix brings the magic of Apple’s AppStore and devices to enterprise end users while maintaining security and control within IT. He argued that organizations should think first about people, then about the data that they need to do their jobs, then the apps that let them do them, then the devices to make that happen — people + data + Apps + Devices; in essence, allow anyone to do anything, anywhere, and on any device, moving us from the PC Era of wires, desks, and software suites, to the Cloud Era of wireless, mobile, and app stores.

Interestingly, with the consumerization of IT, people are choosing to bring their own apps (e.g. Dropbox, Evernote, Twitter) and devices (e.g. smartphones, iPads, laptops) to the business. On the one hand, these users don’t want to give IT the control to wipe their device or limit their personal use but, on the other hand, IT needs a way to keep a handle on corporate data. Most forward-thinking CIOs and IT Managers that we speak to aren’t fighting this trend, however, they’re preparing their infrastructure to support these movements – and Citrix plans to help them move forward with that.

By combining Receiver with its newly acquired ShareFile with StorageZones – called “Follow-me-data” – Citrix is linking users’ apps and devices with corporately controlled data that can be securely stored in any public or private cloud, while giving end users access from any device. This means IT can remotely wipe corporate data within Receiver, but personal apps and data outside receiver remain untouched. Add to that Cloud Gateway2, which enables unified delivery and orchestration of Windows apps, Web apps (HTML5, Android, Blackbarry, or iOS-based), and corporate or third-party mobile apps, on any device through an enterprise app store on Receiver, and you’ve taken care of data, apps, and devices.

To take this one step further, to add the people aspect, Citrix added Podio (think Facebook meets SharePoint and CRM) through a recent acquisition, which brings social to collaboration, enabling real-time commenting on in-progress work. It also integrates with Sharefile and GoToMeeting, as well as numerous third-party services like Evernote, Dropbox, GoogleDrive, SkyDrive, and others, to bring full circle to IT, the people + data + apps + devices story.

In the end, this is more than just bringing apps and data to users. Users are driving the consumerization trend by telling IT what they want, and they are so attached to their devices and apps, that they’re willing to bring them themselves. Organizations that are forward-thinking are driving their users to be more productive by giving them the tools to capitalize on this movement.

Companies such as AMEE, an environmental data company, are making the connection between business and the environment. The data AMEE provides helps users to measure environmental impacts, making data analysis into a tool for sustainability.

Using big data for behavioral analytics, real-time analytics and applying the insights gained from analytics can be a challenging task for anyone. Being able to fight climate change and adapt to our ever-growing planet through big data use is a feat which many people could begin to realize. Take OPower as an example, their use of energy consumption data has allowed them to help consumers save on their energy bills. By doing this not only has OPower benefited their business through big data, but they have also helped others make significant progress towards living sustainably.

Behavioral analytics is a growing channel of big data. There are a huge number of benefits and opportunities it can offer to you. As your audience changes, you can change with them to meet their needs. For example, tracking areas of high energy consumption provides an opportunity to appeal to consumers to buy energy efficient appliances and technologies to decrease their energy costs.

Another way that big data is contributing to the green revolution is through its contribution to reliable renewable energy. Seeing as the sun can’t shine and the wind can’t blow 24 hours a day, how can we decrease the inconsistency of availability in renewable resources?

Relying on renewable resources to power grid systems would have a huge impact on fossil fuel consumption, decreasing our dependency on the quickly depleting resource. Many technologies and initiatives to increase the availability of green power are being fueled by big data. One example is Australia, who is using big data analytics to locate and access geothermal energy. The Australian Centre for Renewable Energy along with several other institutions, are working towards making geothermal targeting processes more economically viable. By combining their data resources the group has been able to develop software to target geothermal hot spots. This software tracks energy sources deeper in the earth’s layer than has been possible before, tackling the problem of high cost of drilling.

Although it is still early in the game for big data there is much to gain from big data analytics. Developing a big data strategy can help in solving problems which cannot be solved with your current solutions. Managing your data to maximize your benefit means better data. Better data means better insights, which means better decisions and better business results.

Look to Info-Tech’s solution set: Build a Strategy for Big Data Platforms, to help develop a strategy that benefits you.

Part 1 – Standard budgets and training cycles

What is the industry standard for IT training budgets? This currently ranges anywhere from $700 to $1,100 per person (and I’ve seen as high as $2,500), but that number is on the rise. The recession cut training budgets, but we expect to see it rise back up closer to 2008 averages, which were around $1,200. There will be some organizations that will go even higher than this to make up for the training opportunities that were missed because of the financial crunch.

About 20% of the total training budget is dedicated to management training. If too much of the training budget is allocated to managers, it has the potential to stir up some negative feelings. To maximize the value of manager training, there has to be some trickle down to the employees. You could make it a condition of training that the managers debrief their staff after the conference/seminar.

What is considered a typical training cycle (e.g. once a year, every other year, as needed)? Some organizations will do as-needed, project-based training and leave it up to the project manager to make sure they have the skills they need (the PM can approve training requests in this case). In this way, you know the skills will be applied immediately following the training which improves learning retention.

Others will mandate annual training in alignment with each employee’s performance review cycle. It comes down to budget, skill currency need, and projected business initiatives. An employee’s stage in their lifecycle can have an impact on when they are trained on what. Newer employees will receive more standardized training on basics, while veterans will get more targeted development on technical skills as required. For example, CISSP is a high-level certification and should be reserved for veteran employees (a minimum of five years experience is required to request permission to write the exam).

Part 2 – Budgetary concerns and employee responsibilities

What non-traditional training resources could be used to stretch the budget we have? We see a lot of people opting for e-learning or self-paced online resources, like you have with CBT Nuggets. You may also be able to leverage your own employees. For example, pair seniors with juniors for job shadowing. Do you have any natural born teachers in your department? Anyone who is always taking advantage of coachable moments? Anyone that other employees consistently go to when they have a question? You could use these people in Train-the-Trainer type learning. They go for the course and bring back the knowledge to share with their peers.

How much of the training cost should the employee be expected to bear? If it is tied to their performance, the company should bear the cost. However, if there are annual professional dues associated with any certifications, those are generally left to the employee. We believe, in most situations, they are tax deductible. If the employee wants to learn a skill that is not central to their day-to-day job, then they should be responsible for picking up that cost. High-cost development opportunities (like paying for degrees, MBAs, etc.) are often conditional – the business will pay as long as the employee stays with the organization for a certain number of years. If they leave, the employee reimburses the organization a pro-rated amount. I’ve seen this happen with certification programs too, but the organization will want a signed agreement with the employee about this before they commence the development.

Part 3 – Spending your training money wisely

On what technologies and/or staff would our training dollars be better spent? Look at your employees and assess them by a couple of criteria: self-discipline and learning style. An online learning resource is great, cost-effective, and convenient. But if you have an employee who you would not consider a self-starter, this is not going to be a great way for them to learn, unless you can structure the time for them in some way. Other people learn well just by picking up a book.

Most of the time, your employees will know what type of learner they are. You can also confirm this by having them evaluate their experience after the fact, and build their post-training performance in their annual review. If you invest anywhere, coaching would be a good choice. It’s the most effective development tool out there. Getting your managers trained up to be better coaches and having them apply the practice provides the best ROI of all methods. Employees may have to study some core skills/knowledge first via e-learning, classroom lecture, etc., but augmenting this with coaching will make it stick. And if employees are doing e-learning modules, assess the quality and content of these modules first – many of them won’t be at the right level for the employee and will be a waste of money and time. Actually, this is a good idea for any kind of training. Most vendors post outlines on their site, so you can make sure you’re not duplicating knowledge you already have in house. These outlines can also help cover your bases if doing self-directed learning via books. The bottom line is to match the development to the employee’s development need. What is the employee’s career path, motivation, learning style, etc? That way they’re not wasting time on something they can’t use in their job.

As consumers, employees are embracing the device for personal use, and quickly realizing that it can also be a very useful business tool. Forward thinking IT leaders are working with the business to identify use cases; where can the device improve productivity, streamline workflows, reduce costs, and even help grow top line revenue? We often get the question, “what are the use cases?” We can certainly help identify some of the obvious use cases in certain job roles and verticals, as identified in Info-Tech’s “iPad Hands On Review” of the original iPad in April, 2010:

• Healthcare – for years hospitals and healthcare facilities have tried to incorporate early generation convertible tablets with resistive touchscreen displays for bedside care. The 4-5 pound devices were heavy, the resistive touchscreens required a stylus, the touch capabilities of the operating systems were abysmal, the batteries lasted two hours, and doctors and nurses hated them. Most hospitals already use Citrix, so they are used to deliver applications through a virtual/presentation server. Everything changes when you can deliver the necessary applications to a 1.5 pound tablet with a capacitive multi-touch display and ten hours of battery life.
• Education – Students currently pay a lot of money for text books that are very heavy to carry around – back strain from carrying 20+ pound backpacks is common. The books kill a lot of trees and cost a lot to manufacture. The era of the bound, paper text book is nearing an end. If it’s not a multi-function tablet device like the iPad, it will be an e-book reader like the Kindle. The Kindle has some advantages on this front, but what it’s missing is the multi-function part. Students can use a multi-function tablet to connect to the Student Information System, do research online, communicate and collaborate, and view video lectures. This type of device will almost certainly find a place in higher education.
• Professional services – Consider real estate agents using this device to research and view properties in real time with their clients while travelling in desired areas. There are several situations where opening and booting a laptop is not ideal, but carrying a 1.5 pound, instant-on device with a 9.7 inch display and WWAN connectivity would be ideal.
• Field services – The possibilities are endless for this role. All service manuals can be stored and kept current on the device. The field service application can be live so the technician can immediately enter information on the service call, then be routed to the next call immediately and efficiently. How about an insurance adjuster or a building inspector?
• Retail – This class of device quickly and easily becomes a mobile POS terminal. Rather than customers queuing up at cash registers, store associates can go to the customer, assist them, and accept payment without the customer ever standing in a line. If you’ve never been to an Apple store, they do exactly this. They use iPod Touch’s for mobile POS terminals, and there is not a queue to pay anywhere in the store.

The use cases have obviously evolved significantly, and we are no longer looking at the iPad as a consumption-only device. Content creation is certainly viable, particularly when a keyboard is paired with the device. Rather than try to identify all of the potential use cases, it makes more sense to determine the viability of different tasks and activities. In short, what it does really well, what it can do in a pinch, and what it simply can’t do.

The iPad is ideal for:

• Consuming content of pretty much any kind. Reading, listening to audio, viewing images, watching video, Web browsing – virtually any type of content.
• Personal Information Management (PIM), including email, contacts, and calendaring. With Exchange ActiveSync integration, it’s ideal for organizations that use Microsoft Exchange, but also works very well with virtually every other platform.
• Personal document/notebook management and note taking/organizing using apps like Evernote or OneNote. These apps are ideal for organizing notes, documents, to-do lists, etc.
• Communicating and collaborating using enterprise Unified Communications (UC), video/web conferencing, social networking, and Enterprise Content Management (ECM) systems, or using any of the countless consumer-grade apps.
• Using Web-based (non-Flash) mobile-optimized enterprise applications and forms.
• Using native (developed for iOS) enterprise applications, such as CRM, ERP, BI, ECM, etc.
• Securely connecting to business resources and applications through secure Wi-Fi or VPN over 3G/4G networks.

The iPad will do in a pinch:

• Document creation and editing. The biggest challenge here is compatibility with Microsoft Office. If you use Apple’s iWork suite or Google Docs in the enterprise, you can move this up to the previous section. If you use Microsoft Office (most do), none of the currently available word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation apps or suites available for the iPad (including Apple’s own iWork apps) have perfect compatibility. Most work pretty well with simple documents, spreadsheets, and presentations, but fidelity is often lost with more complex files. There are also features missing, like commenting and tracking changes. It is widely rumored that Microsoft will release a version of Office for the iPad soon, but unless/until that happens, the compatibility challenge remains for native apps. However, there is a free office app called CloudOn that delivers native Microsoft Office apps through application virtualization. It works well, but requires Internet connectivity.
• Accessing non-native, non-Web enterprise applications. Thick client enterprise applications that run on Windows will obviously not run natively on the iPad. However, application virtualization can make those applications accessible on the iPad even if they don’t run natively. The most common solution is Citrix XenApp on the back end, and Citrix Receiver on the iPad. The applications are published in XenApp and actually run in the data center, while Citrix Receiver runs on the iPad and accesses the applications running in the data center. VMWare View is another option, and new solutions from VMWare, including Horizon Application Manager, look compelling. Finally, there is the option of using an RDP client on the iPad to access a personal desktop. There are countless RDP clients available, but solutions like Citrix GoToMyPC and LogMeIn allow multiple simultaneous connections through the firewall. It’s notable that the user experience with these solutions is not great. Windows applications are not “touch-friendly”, so navigation is less than ideal.
• File Management. Local file management is out – iOS does not allow file-level access through a file manager. Files live in their native applications (i.e. presentation files are stored in Keynote), but you can’t see all of your files in one place natively on the device. However, there are several options for file management in the cloud (public or private), including Dropbox, Box, Druva, Google Drive, SharePlus (SharePoint access), and VMWare’s project Octopus (currently in beta). The problem has been around security and data leakage – particularly concerning with Dropbox. Many of the solutions, like Box, are enterprise manageable and should be encouraged (or mandated) instead of Dropbox for sensitive company documents.
• Presenting or demonstrating. Passing an iPad back and forth is not an ideal presentation technique, particularly for large groups. There are adapters that connect to the Apple 30 pin connection and push out VGA, HDMI, or even composite connections. These adapters work very well connecting to projectors and the iPad display can be mirrored on at television or big screen. If an Apple TV is connected to a television or projector, Apple AirPlay allows you to wirelessly mirror the iPad screen through the Apple TV on to the big screen. There are options for getting the presentation material from your iPad to the big screen, but it’s not a native capability in that it requires an adapter or Apple TV.
• Printing. It is possible to print wirelessly from an iPad, but it can be problematic. If the target printer is wireless, it’s pretty straightforward. But most enterprise environments have network connected print servers and printers that require the printing device to be authenticated on the domain. Apps exist that will push the print job to a PC or Mac and then to the printer, but you have to be on the same wireless network. The bottom line is that it is possible to print from an iPad in some cases, but it’s not always possible or practical on an enterprise network.

The iPad won’t do it:

• Adobe Flash. Apple said it would not support Flash when the first iPad was released two years ago. Much discussion and debate followed, causing Steve Jobs to personally write a note to customers explaining Apple’s position. Two short years ago, the Web was Flash. But Apple made a big bet on HTML 5, and it was a good bet. Over the course of the past two years, the ubiquity of Flash is gone. YouTube even transcoded much of its library to H.264 (the video format for HTML 5), and most Websites have either converted to HTML 5, or built mobile versions without Flash. There are options, like the Skyfire browser for iOS, that will convert Flash on the fly and stream H.264 video back to the browser, but to say it’s clunky and unintuitive would be an understatement.
• Connect to USB peripherals. If you want to connect a USB peripheral, forget about it. There are no USB ports on an iPad, and while there are some adapters available (i.e. video adapters and an iPad docking keyboard), native USB support is out.
• Connect a mouse. You can’t connect a mouse to an iPad unless it is jailbroken. While Apple does support the use of some Bluetooth peripherals (including keyboards) it does not support the use of a mouse on the iPad.
• Transfer content to mass storage devices. Without USB ports or an SD card slot, it is not possible to move files from the iPad to a mass storage device. The exception is connecting to a PC or Mac with the Apple to USB cable to transfer photos and video. Also, files can be loaded on the devices through iTunes, but simply moving content to a USB flash drive or SD card is out.

It should be noted that it is possible for enterprise IT to manage iPads. Apple has a robust Mobile Device Management (MDM) API that allows very granular management and control. Have a look at Info-Tech’s “Vendor Landscape: Mobile Device Management Suites” for more information on MDM solutions.

Let us know if you think we’ve missed anything.

Through our framework, grounded in Cobit, but refined by our 25,000+ member community, Info-Tech can help you achieve World Class Optimization.

With 36 core IT competencies, and a systematic process designed to create measurable results we’ll help you:

• Analyze your core capabilities.
• Leverage best practices research and workshops, to help you continually improve.
• Create all the deliverables needed to build your World Class capabilities.

Go beyond practical research, and get to immediate results with World Class Operations Workshops. We provide members with on-site, 40 Hour, 100% customized Workshops designed to help focus attention, create alignment, and ensure that best practices are put to work in your enterprise. Featured Workshop topics include:

• IT Strategy
• Service Desk
• Requirements Gathering
• Risk Management
• Cost & Budgeting
• Portfolio Management

Hear what IT professionals had to say about Info-Tech’s World Class Operations Workshops:

A great session with Michael Hoskins on Big Data. Michael is the CTO of Pervasive and now the GM of a startup inside Pervasive focusing on Big Data. Pervasive’s Big Data efforts are based on their DataRush product. During the session, we were witness to DataRush processing millions of records on a dual-core processor notebook computer in no less than 2 minutes. We witnessed both cores of the processor being fully utilized in multi threaded operations eating up less than 2 GB of RAM. Michael further demonstrated via remote desktop connection to the Pervasive lab, more than 120 million rows of data being processed across a 2 node Hadoop cluster in 30 seconds. A few hours later, Google announces BigQuery and we find out that Pervasive has been collaborating with Google on these initiatives by seeing the same demo data but this time with a new node in the workflow writing the data directly to the Big Query API. Cool stuff Pervasive and Google!

No doubt that Big Data would come back into Michael’s main tent session on Pervasive horizons: gazing into the future. Big Data is the biggest disrupter to database technology in 20 years. Data management is cool again. Alongside data management in a world of Cloudy skies and Big Data, integration is cool again. Not just integration in traditional batch oriented systems, but real-time, pervasive integration in a world of pervasive data being generated by pervasive devices and sensors in our world.

Thank you Pervasive for a great conference with many proof points of how well you support your partners and customers. Keep fighting the good fight and don’t lose any of that great southern hospitality!

Pervasive goes to market with their partners in 3 models: Refer, Bundle, and OEM. The keynote this morning highlighted one of their most successful Cloud and partner OEM initiatives with Intuit and Salesforce. Intuit provided further information on the solution in their breakout session. Setting up an integration between QuickBooks and Salesforce is a matter of a few clicks and it is deployed in the Cloud. No infrastructure required, no consulting required, no complicated coding or configuration required. Users don’t know it is Pervasive doing the integration, they just know their accounting and CRM applications are integrated; not something small businesses usually have the time or money to do themselves. Pervasive gave Intuit an innovation award for bringing big enterprise capabilities to small businesses.

A great panel discussion today including Tony Hamilton (Intel), Mike Hoskins (Pervasive) and Jo Maitland (GigaOM) brought out the market disrupters in today’s IT landscape: Cloud, Big Data, BYOD, and Data Privacy. The discussion focused most importantly on how these affect, or are affected by integration. There will be leaders and laggards emerging in these different areas over the next few years. Also of note is how fast these trends are emerging and disrupting. It may not take a few years to see the results, it may only be a few months.

Big data will be more of a focus in the sessions tomorrow, along with how Pervasive is enabling more partner solutions in the Cloud.

Looking forward to an evening in Austin and some of that world famous southern hospitality Texans are known for!

In our Vendor Landscape: Network Access Control set we paid close attention to mobile-specific features. I was surprised that only a handful of vendors included features like mobile-friendly interfaces for both users and administrators.

As the world becomes more mobile, a variety of technology categories are emerging to help enterprises fit in. Mobile device management (MDM), enterprise app stores, mobile analytics, and telecom expense management (TEM) are a few solutions that are competing and overlapping with NAC for the management of mobile devices. Forward-thinking organizations could find themselves with an overly complex bundle of solutions if they implement more than one. For that reason and others, I believe that we’ll see increasing convergence between technologies that include mobile management. Already, there are NAC solutions with “MDM lite” included, and vice versa.

When Steve Jobs failed to buy Dropbox, he famously said that it was “a feature, not a product.” NAC may end up in this same category: a feature of a more comprehensive solution for managing both access to a network and the devices doing the accessing. Outside of certain market segments, basic network access features are no longer enough for NAC, and the technology needs to find its place in a mobile world.

LMA platforms have become an essential component of any sales capability, constantly collecting, updating and analyzing prospect profile to ensure the Sales organization is not wasting their time on poor leads.

Most of the LMA vendors in the market provide all the basics and necessities you will need to increase your lead base and generate revenues almost immediately. However, since it is 2012, social media and mobile marketing are “game changers” and will become table stakes within the next two years. The problem is that many vendors today are not providing the best social and mobile tools for your marketing department.

For both B2B and B2C prospecting, you need a LMA platform that can pull in social profile and activity data, engage with the social customer, by writing to Facebook pages, tweeting to improve brand awareness, and reloading your lead database with the best leads from all social channels. Mining social data for lead management also requires identifying influencers who convince others to buy. In the social cloud, marketing to influencers can be as important as marketing directly to prospective buyers. And every buyer becomes an influencer in the social cloud.

In terms of mobile, requirements come from two different needs: the need to market to prospects via mobile channels and the need for marketing professionals to monitor and engage in prospect campaigns from mobile devices. Mobile email is not good enough. Taking advantage of geo-location data as an input to prospect scores and sending real-time offers to prospects via mobile channels is an important emerging opportunity for marketers. However we found support for mobile channels – beyond mobile email – was a serious gap in the capabilities of LMA market layers. Tablets as marketing application UIs, are becoming increasingly important for marketing managers who want to delve into campaign progress or check out reports on dashboards at anytime and from anywhere. Tablets are especially good at displaying interactive campaign dashboards. However again we found the LMA market to lagging in this mobile sue case as well, with few tablet apps optimized for touch devices, instead vendors frequently claimed that their existing apps would work on any browser.

In conducting this research, we also found a strong incentive for IT to support LMA adoption. Our clients reported that IT spends a large of amount of time on data input, data scrubbing, data queries/segmentation and campaign execution, on a campaign-by-campaign basis. Organizations that had implemented an LMA system reported a significant reduction in reliance on IT resources.

During the research project, we also found that LMA vendors are overlapping with pure email marketing vendors and are also supporting more channels and features that are warranting the attention of larger, comprehensive Marketing Automation (MA) suite vendors. MA vendors of course also provide full LMA capabilities and much more. For this reason, we have built an assessment tool for organizations to use to ensure they are buying the right things from the right market.

Overall, we expect LMA to continue to add value to organizations, especially those targeting products and services to other businesses, as the size and complexity of available prospect data continues to rise, impacting lead scoring and nurturing. But expect to see more convergence among LMA, MA and Email Marketing vendors.

For more information about LMA strategy and vendors, see Vendor Landscape Plus: Lead Management Automation Platforms.

For virtualization, 2011 was a watershed year as we saw the proportion of server workloads on virtual machines pass the 50% mark across all enterprises (small to large). That includes production servers as well as test/dev.

We’ve been covering the server virtualization market since 2007. Throughout that time the interesting story has been less about perennial leader – in features and market/mind share – but rather the game of catch-up being played by VMware’s competitors. Microsoft was late to the game with Hyper-V but has steadily improved the product. Citrix bought XenServer, restructured their whole product lines around virtualization, using “Xen” as a branding lever for everything from server virtualization to server hosted applications. Red Hat has come a long way fast since acquiring KVM in 2008.

Others fell by the wayside. Virtual Iron had a compelling and low cost alternative but it was eaten by Oracle and disappeared. Sun Microsystems was also acquired by Oracle. Their server virtualization and management products melding into Oracle’s offerings.

2011 was also the year when the market started to really take Microsoft Hyper-V virtualization seriously. This was due largely to two events, the release of Hyper-V R2 Service Pack 1 (Hyper-V R2 SP1) and the beta release of improved management components in Microsoft System Center 2012.

In our recent strategy set on server virtualization, Get the Most out of Server Virtualization, we recognized Microsoft as the leading alternative to VMware. Microsoft has solidified its second place status in terms of market choice. More significantly, Microsoft has solidified its role as the go to alternative to VMware.

Between our 2011 and 2012 surveys, VMware and Microsoft emerged as the sole choices among those using only one virtualization vendor. The others are now more likely to appear in secondary and special purpose roles where more than one server virtualization hypervisor product is deployed.

It should be noted that the proportion that have a heterogeneous virtualization environment has grown year over year (from 42% to 50% in 2012). So there are plenty of opportunities for competitors.

Typical multi-hypervisor scenarios include cases where the organization standardizes on VMware for its main production servers, but leverages a lower cost alternative — such as XenServer or Hyper-V — for secondary processes or for special projects like virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI). But when it comes to choosing just one hypervisor for everything, increasingly that choice is being made between VMware and Microsoft.

Recently Info-Tech also published our most recent Vendor Landscape report on Server Virtualization. Interestingly, Microsoft was not a Champion in the landscape. Citrix and VMware were Champions while Microsoft is a Market Pillar. How can this be if we see Microsoft as the chief rival to VMware?

Our Vendor Landscape compares vendors on a range of measures, including depth and breadth of product features as well as vendor market strength. Citrix XenServer remains the product that is the closest competitor to VMware feature for feature. Microsoft has a range of impressive features and management capabilities coming down the pike, but we could not give them full marks at the time of writing as they were still in beta.

Strategic workforce planning is a skill that takes practice.

Info-Tech’s recent survey shows that the greatest barrier to strategic workforce planning is a lack of strategy development knowledge. This is encouraging, because compared to excuses like, “things change too fast” and “the department is too small,” a lack of knowledge is a problem you can actually do something about.

In fact, it’s your responsibility to do something about it.

The second greatest barrier is lack of leadership interest or buy-in – which is also within your power and responsibility to overcome. Like knowledge, buy-in takes time to develop. Start with quick wins and build momentum with each new challenge and success.

It isn’t realistic for many IT leaders to turn their attention away from day-to-day challenges to think about the long term. But if you can get out of reactive mode just long enough to ask a few simple questions:

• What are our longer-term targets?
• How will we reach them?
• Who will help get us there?

You’ll be one step toward getting things under control, and it won’t be so hard to get out of reactive mode the next time around.

So while you think about the skills you’ll need to future-proof your organization, remember that strategic workforce planning is itself a skill.

Just like configuring servers, patching enterprise applications – or more recently, things like managing consumer devices and protecting your data in the cloud – strategic workforce planning for IT takes practice.

The sooner you do more of it, the better.

For more information, refer to Info-Tech’s solution set, Develop a Strategic Workforce Plan for IT.

In my blog post Disco Fever Hits SHARE 2012 Enterprise IT Conference, I described solutions that integrate the mainframe’s high-volume data processing capability with modern web-based functionality. To support those integrated environments, IT departments need to tear down the walls between mainframes and x86 servers, both in terms of technology and people.

Organizations will typically use a different set of tools – and different staff – to monitor and manage their mainframes. That can be problematic when there’s an issue with a hybrid solution that spans mainframes and x86 servers.

“IT departments need to focus on the business process, not the platform, to deliver high quality service,” said Scott Fagen, Chief Architect for the Mainframe Business Unit at CA Technologies, speaking at the SHARE conference. “If there’s a problem with a mission critical system, you need a common view of the end-to-end business process to expedite identifying the cause and resolving the issue.”

Vendors such as CA (with their Service Assurance products) and IBM (with their Tivoli suite of products) are addressing this need with systems management solutions that support both mainframes and x86 servers. BMC is in the process of doing the same by providing better integration between their mainframe and x86 tools. Other products such as ManageEngine can support mainframe monitoring via customization (see Info-Tech’s Vendor Landscape: Systems Management).

Mainframe shops need to prioritize moving to tools that bridge the gap between both types of platforms, and pushing vendors for this type of support.

An important side benefit is the impact such tools have on resourcing. With modern GUI-based systems management tools, mainframe monitoring can be done by staff who wouldn’t know the difference between a 3270 and a Commodore 64.

“It’s not uncommon for there to be an us-versus-them culture between mainframe staff and the rest of IT,” said Fagen. “That has to change as the systems they are managing become more integrated, and as organizations address the issue of scarce mainframe skills. Tools that bridge the gap will help. We are bridging that gap today with our CA Mainframe Software Manager, CA Mainframe Chorus and Cross-Enterprise Application Performance Management products.”

As with green screen applications, the push toward modernization is clear and necessary to meet both business requirements and resourcing challenges. To that end, tools that take away the mystery of the mainframe, and enable it to be better integrated and managed, are key to mainframe sustainability and maximizing the value of mainframes to your business.

Back in 2009, the first time we did a survey on VDI, Info-Tech found a lot of interest and a lot of pilot testing going on. Many were planning larger roll-outs within a year and a “successful pilot” was cited as an important driver for overall implementation success.

But something happened on the way to VDI nirvana. Though implementations have steadily increased year over year VDI has hardly taken the world by storm. In subsequent surveys the importance of a “successful pilot” to success became insignificant while challenges — such as capital expense and high overall TCO – came to the fore. Interest in VDI, as measured in the percent saying they are planning or piloting VDI has leveled off.

In the meantime, in our ongoing infrastructure research we’ve seen VDI support emerge as an often-cited requirement in storage and server refresh. From this I take that while VDI may not be off the table a lot of “Next year VDI for everybody!” projects are on hold pending future upgrades to servers and storage.

We know that storage IO bottlenecking is a major challenge for larger scale (as in hundreds of desktops) VDI deployment and demand for fast storage tiers in midrange storage (typically enabled by solid state drives or SSDs) is being driven by VDI requirements. These architectures may guarantee a more acceptable end user experience of VDI, but they also drive up the per user costs.

Info-Tech’s most recent Solution Set on VDI implementation, Take Steps to Successful VDI Implementation, takes a hard look at how to succeed against these formidable challenges. Some key recommendations:

1. Build solution back to front. Unlike distributed PCs where performance and user experience are all “in the box” successful delivery of the VDI starts back in the data center and ends at the end user access device. If the foundation is inadequately scoped or implemented the project will fail.
2. Pilot for more than proof of concept. A limited proof of concept test doesn’t tell you what you need to know. The pilot needs to be a real world implementation in a production environment. Measure everything, from IOPs to user acceptance, and be able to answer questions of scale. If it works for 20, what will be required to make it work for 500?
3. Continually circle back on costs. Most VDI implementers get that VDI is not a cost savings quick win however they are also keenly interested in VDI not be seen as a big cost driver. Estimating total cost should be an ongoing exercise through strategy, piloting and implementation.

Changes impact TCO. Take for example delivering a single standard desktop versus full individual customization. The latter requires more resources. If standardization doesn’t fly in the pilot you must re-assess if the enterprise can tolerate the additional cost per user of customization. Having an implementation plan should give you a path to success but also set the parameters for pulling the plug if needs be.

IT has an important role to play in helping manage a command center. Specifically, IT should provide assistance with risk mitigation and technology enablement. An SMCC requires an impressive array of technologies to operate at peak efficiency; IT should be involved with selection and implementation of physical infrastructure, CRM suites, and most importantly social media management platforms (SMMPs). The ideal point-of-contact in IT should be a senior employee with a proven track record in other customer contact centers.

So who is using an SMCC? In a recent survey, Info-Tech Research Group found that 26% of organizations are leveraging a command center (either physical or virtual). Notable Fortune 500 companies that have put physical command centers in place for social media include Dell and Intel. Command centers are particularly valuable for handling the massive volume of social content generated during large events. During the most recent Super Bowl, the NFL created a 2,800 square foot facility in Indianapolis to track and analyze social interactions, and to engage with fans. The command center was a resounding success – at the end of the game, over 4,000 tweets per second were flowing into the SMCC. On a slightly smaller scale, Intel recently leveraged its own “Social Media Cockpit” at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas to analyze key trends that emerged from the trade show.

For more information on social media command centers and best practices for optimizing your social media program, please refer to our new solution set Implement a Social Media Program.

Blade server adoption has been rapidly increasing because of the multiple benefits that blades provide. Blade servers reduce server costs and are ideal for consolidation and virtualization, particularly where space is at a premium. Info-Tech found that when it comes to selection, blade buyers rank consolidation enablement, reduction in management complexity, and reducing physical space requirements as critically important. However, when it comes to a successful blade purchase, the key differentiators come not from the blades themselves, but from the systems they plug into. Before making any purchasing decisions, know how the blade will fit into the existing infrastructure.

Info-Tech’s recent Vendor Landscape: Blade Systems evaluated seven top vendors. So let’s cut to the chase – who came out a cut above the rest? Well, no big surprise that the large vendors HP, IBM, Dell, and Cisco all slide comfortably into the Champion category. While each vendor has different strengths, overall these products offer the most balanced blades and most developed management platforms. Dell also takes home the Value award with the most comprehensive product offering at the most affordable price. Hitachi Data Systems are relatively new entrants to the blade market; their tight engineering and logical portioning feature win them the Trendsetter award.

For more information, please see Vendor Landscape: Blade Systems.

SHARE (www.share.org) is a user group with a strong focus on IBM mainframe technology. At the Winter 2012 SHARE conference in Atlanta, the need to modernize the mainframe — and the tools to accomplish this — was a consistent theme. To drive home the point, UNICOM’s CIO walked into his Monday session in an orange disco-themed suit to the music of Saturday Night Fever.

The message? Just as big hair, flared pants, and wide butterfly collars are no longer in style, green screens today stick out like a red dress at a funeral. They attract a lot of attention, and not the good kind.

Green screens perpetuate the perception that mainframes are an antiquated technology that cannot meet today’s business requirements (think smartphone and tablet apps), and that perception is often what drives CEOs to demand that their organization migrate off mainframes.

Vendors such as UNICOM, GT Software, and Rocket Software, all of whom presented sessions at SHARE 2012 (http://2012atlanta.share.org/), are providing solutions to address the green screen and legacy code challenges, but they do more than just “put lipstick on a pig” as the saying goes. The business need to move to a Web-based interface often means much more than that.

GT Software’s presentation titled “IMS… REST It, Share It, Mash It, Just Use It” described use cases such as mobile banking applications that combine the reliability of the mainframe with modern Web-based functionality. “Companies looking to make mainframe data available to Web-based applications, smartphones and tablets need more than just a simple Web front-end,” said Dusty Rivers, Principal Technical Architect at GT Software. “They need to integrate back-end data processing systems running on a mainframe with other platforms such as Java or .NET to support Rich Internet Applications.

Similarly, on the exhibit floor, Rocket Software demonstrated a sample data lookup application that was leveraging back-end processing on its mainframe located in Australia to power a tablet and smartphone app. The result was a combination of the mainframe’s speed (no hour glass in sight) and a modern interface.

These same tools are also addressing requirements to simplify and streamline internal business processes. For example, in the old green screen world, without drop-downs and pop-ups, a simple task such as updating a customer’s profile might touch five or six screens. Those screens can all be consolidated into one GUI, which saves time and reduces complexity, minimizing the need for specialized skills to deliver common business functions such as customer service.

The push to modernize is also present in other facets of IT. For example, several vendors presented GUI-based systems monitoring solutions that enable non-mainframers to interpret and react to alerts. In addition, vendors are providing modern Integrated Development Environments for reviewing, editing, and testing legacy code. I’ll be covering these and other mainframe topics in future blog posts in the coming weeks.

The mainframe is certainly not dead, and rather than isolate the mainframe or devise strategies to migrate off the mainframe, organizations have an opportunity to align the traditional benefits of mainframes — high-volume processing capability, reliability, availability, and scalability — with the benefits of distributed technology and the latest end user devices to get the best of both worlds.

The 2012 RSA Conference, security’s biggest annual event, saw a slight spin on the all-too-common theme of the cloud.

Moving away from the fear-mongering around cloud computing that was all the rage two years ago, this year’s conference took the stance that the cloud could be considered more friend than foe when it comes to security.

Especially with the Year of the Hack behind us, security professionals are looking for the most effective methods of beating cyber criminals to the punch.

One issue that arose was big data. We’re dealing with too much security data, we don’t know what to do with it, and we’re not using it to our advantage. The cloud was positioned as a way to help store, maintain, and analyze that data to determine patterns.

For Info-Tech clients, this is good news. Especially for mid-sized organizations that don’t necessarily have the time or resources to invest in enhanced security capabilities like a SIEM system. Instead, they can take advantage of the cloud’s potential without giving up valuable resources.

In conclusion, the cloud isn’t going away. Chances are it’ll pop up again at next year’s conference, along with other popular themes like mobility (how do we control the uncontrollable? That still remains to be seen) and big data.

The bottom line is that security has got its work cut out for it. But if the Year of the Hack taught the industry anything, it’s that they need to step up their game or, as one speaker so eloquently put it, “continue to get [their] butts kicked.”

The same can be true in Cloud computing. Integrating Cloud data is like holding onto a kite string while the data is pushed and pulled by the wind. A Cloud DI strategy and plan can help you take control of your data movement to and from the cloud.

Data Integration as a Service (DIaaS) is enabling Cloud DI and taking the On-Premise DI vendors by storm. The costs of running a DIaaS solution are significantly less than their On-Premise counterparts. The functionality of DI On-Premise tooling still outweighs DIaaS, but DIaaS vendors are adding advanced Cloud functionality that doesn’t exist in On-Premise solutions. DIaaS is able to do this simply because of where it lives.

Unfortunately not all is sunny and bright. A dark performance cloud still hangs over SaaS and DIaaS. Data throughput to/from a cloud application via APIs can be up to 60 times slower than what we are used to On-Premise. This means moving 10000 rows of data in a Cloud environment can take up to one hour compared to one minute in an On-Premise environment.

Overall, organizations are becoming more comfortable with the Cloud and its benefits are becoming evident. Expect to see clearer skies in the future as dominant players emerge and interfaces become standardized for easier and faster DI.

For more information, see Implement a Data Integration Strategy in the Cloud.

For example, all vendors reviewed in our Systems Management Vendor Landscape, including those priced in the 4 or 5 figures, provided at least the following capabilities:

• Automated Discovery: Automatically detect devices on your network (either through real-time dynamic discovery or via scheduled scans).
• Unified Monitoring: Provide single-pane-of-glass monitoring for servers, databases, networks, and storage.
• Centralized Monitoring: Monitor multiple data centers from a single location.
• At least basic Incident Management: Integration with help desk systems and event troubleshooting capability.
• Reporting/Multiple Export Formats: Capabilities vary, but all vendors offer some form of reporting or exporting capability.

The most expensive vendors added more advanced functionality, such as:

• Advanced Incident Management: Automated root cause analysis and remediation/self-healing.
• Automated Provisioning/Configuration: Server, network, database, and storage provisioning and patch management.
• Automated Capacity Management: Dynamically re-provision/shift resources to meet ups and downs in demand.
• Advanced Capacity Planning: Data center forecasting and scenario modeling.

In between, all vendors also offered at least some of the above features to varying degrees.

So that brings us back to the all-important question of what do you actually need? Info-Tech recommends you start by evaluating your process maturity, and using that as a guide. For example, most organizations can be grouped into one of the following categories:

1. Mature process-oriented organizations with complex environments.

For this type of organization, features such as automated capacity management are necessary not only to improve efficiency but also to enforce standards set by business requirements. For example, if CPU utilization for servers being used for a specific business system is mandated to always be between 70-80%, a systems management solution that can dynamically reprovision resources is a must.

2. Organizations seeking to improve process and efficiency.

For organizations that are more ad-hoc, just getting an understanding of their environment has to be the first step before setting standards such as CPU utilization ranges and automating provisioning. For those organizations, a solution that provides systems monitoring is the key requirement, with at least some incident management capability.

Another key consideration is future need. A standard rule of thumb is to project your requirements out 3 to 5 years. If you are in the second group above but anticipate being in the first group within 3 years, look for solutions that can go beyond systems monitoring and include at least some level of automated provisioning and capacity management, or for solutions that can be easily incorporated into a more advanced solution down the road.

The market is trending toward customizable and extendable solutions to meet customer-specific requirements and growing requirements over time. Expect vendors to add more open access, integration capabilities, and flexibility in their products going forward. We found that even large enterprises often use a combination of pure systems monitoring solutions in conjunction with more advanced solutions.

To learn more about the solutions we reviewed and how they ranked, please refer to our Systems Management Vendor Landscape.

Apple introduced us to “the new iPad” at its big event yesterday, once again proving that the company is committed to leading the charge into what it calls “the post-PC era”. Nobody can contest the fact that Apple introduced us to a whole new category of device, and computing experience, when it introduced the original iPad two years ago. The market for this new category of device has evolved at a break-neck pace, as Apple and its competitors have made rapid advancements in speed, features, functionality, and usability. As an industry analyst and keen observer, it’s been absolutely fascinating to watch.

So why is the new iPad any different than the slew of other tablets that we’ll see introduced over the course of the year? There are a couple of reasons. First, Apple made a clear statement with its introduction of the new iPad – it is clearly not only for consumption, but for creation. They demonstrated that with the updated iWork apps (Pages, Keynote, and Numbers) and the addition of iLife apps (iPhoto, iMovie, and GarageBand). While you may not see a direct use for the iLife apps in your business, they are demonstrating that content creation on the iPad is not only possible, but easy and elegant.

The second reason the new iPad gets our attention is that is has already developed a stronghold in education and the enterprise. Apple has made it relatively easy to manage a fleet of iPads with ActiveSync integration and a very robust MDM (mobile device management) API. Organizations can provision and apply policy over-the-air, secure the devices and the data that resides on them, and manage devices and applications very granularly. Apple quietly introduced the iPad configurator with the new iPad, allowing organizations to provision and manage up to 30 iPads at a time (OS X only, at this time). This essentially eliminates the need for a MDM solution for small fleets. I think it’s likely that Apple will expand its MDM capabilities soon. Apple is paying more attention to the education and enterprise markets, and will continue its push to make iOS devices easier to secure and manage.

And now, the specs. Apple isn’t really big on specs – they focus on the user experience and bury the technology under the hood. But let’s have a look anyway, shall we?

• New “retina” display at 2048×1536 (264 pixels per inch)
• New A5X processor with a dual-core CPU and quad-core GPU (clock speeds unavailable at the time of writing)
• Upgraded rear-facing camera – now 5 megapixels with 1080p video recording and image stabilization
• 4G LTE radio for North American carriers, and multi-band world 3G HSPA
• Nearly identical form factor as the iPad 2 – 0.03 of an inch thicker and 0.11 of a pound heavier
• Reports that RAM has been upgraded to 1GB (up from 512 MB in the iPad 2), but this is yet to be confirmed and Apple does not provide it as a specification

Early reports from event attendees that had some hands-on time with the new iPad universally rave about the quality of the display. One can imagine that it must be just stunning at that resolution. It’s also reportedly smooth as silk, with plenty of graphical processing power under the hood to handle the super-high resolution display.

The question is, should you upgrade? Well, I think the original iPad is due for an upgrade, but the iPad 2 is almost certainly good enough for most for at least another year. Personally, I am getting in to a 2 year refresh cadence for my mobile technology. I have ordered a new iPad to refresh my original iPad, and I will get a new iPhone later this year to refresh my iPhone 4 (although I am using a Galaxy Nexus right now, but that’s another story). I will tell you this, though – your users will be buying the new iPad, and they will be brining it into the enterprise environment. Whether or not your organization provides tablets to users, you will see the new iPad soon.

Typical CRM feature sets focus on account management, lead automation, marketing campaign tracking, and customer service resolution tools. A recent survey by Info-Tech found that a clear majority of organizations have either already adopted a CRM suite, or will be deploying in the next 18 months – if your company has not already evaluated a CRM suite, do so now or risk being at a competitive disadvantage. Adoption in the CRM market is being fuelled by the growth and viability of SaaS based vendors. Though CRM suites were once the domain of the large enterprise, relatively inexpensive cloud offerings are now making strong inroads in the SMB space. The CRM landscape is also undergoing a transition with the rise of best of breed point solutions across the three process domains. These products lack the breadth of CRM solutions, but provide exceptional depth on certain feature sets. Mid-market and large enterprises (LE) with extensive functional needs should consider augmenting their CRM ecosystem, where necessary, with these solutions.

Info-Tech evaluated a number of market-leading CRM suites in both the LE and SMB spaces. In the LE space, Oracle Siebel CRM, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, and Sage SalesLogix emerged as Champions. Though Siebel CRM is near the top of the LE market, its unrivalled functionality comes at a steep price. SalesLogix offers the most extensive options for deployment, including on-premise, regular cloud, and Amazon EC2 hosting. Along with the Champion title, Dynamics CRM won the Value Award as the vendor that provides the greatest value for your dollar, measured by product score relative to price. Finally, Salesforce.com took away the Innovation award, which also reflects its strong vision for mobile CRM capabilities (touch.salesforce.com is an upcoming mobile extension that will lead the way for mobile CRM).

In the SMB market, Microsoft Dynamics remains in the lead due to its strong product and vendor backing. Pushing Microsoft’s score is its impressive account and sales management features. Sage CRM is both one of our Champions and the Innovation winner, titles it earned with its advanced social and mobile capabilities. Finally, SugarCRM is the Value winner, attaching the lowest TCO on the market to a notable set of features, usability, and architecture.

One disappointing conclusion from our market evaluation is that many CRM vendors are not adequately supporting social and mobile trends. Despite the popularity of social media, smartphones and tablets with consumers, CRM suite vendors have been slow to respond with corresponding functionality. However, Info-Tech predicts this will change as vendors build capabilities in-house and acquire best of breed providers.

Taking a structured approach to implementing a CRM platform is of high importance. A poorly deployed platform will fail to realize business value. Pre-emptively address this by creating a cross-functional deployment team with strong backing by senior management. Since CRM projects typically cross a variety of business domains and silos, the selection and implementation team should have representation from all affected end-user groups – typically the marketing, sales, and service departments. Large enterprises with available resources should also consider hiring a CRM Applications Manager to serve as an ongoing resource for the CRM ecosystem. Smaller organizations could include the position in an existing Applications Manager role. When it comes to customizing your CRM, consider the in-suite functions whenever possible. If custom development is unavoidable, large organizations should consider hiring a system integrator to oversee the process. However, these efforts will be in vain if you fail to ensure user adoption. Take the following steps to secure it:

1. Create a communication plan to introduce the changes to various departments.
2. Construct a comprehensive end-user training plan.
3. Evaluate the appropriateness of the CRM suite by piloting it in a small group of end users prior to full deployment.
4. Consider other relevant aspects of implementation. These include creating a secure environment for the CRM suite, establishing quantitative metrics to measure and maintain the suite’s effectiveness and ensuring data quality (larger organizations may designate data stewards).

With the proper CRM suite chosen, processes and accountability are defined, end-user adoption is secured, and your organization will be primed to reap the benefits.

However, new players in this space are transforming ERP. We’re (finally) moving from transactions to platforms for deriving business value. Architectures and reporting infrastructures are flexible enough to meet the needs of mid-sized businesses. This flexibility was a key part of our evaluation.

The mid-market is also being disrupted by the increasing sophistication of the SaaS vendors. These tools often provide a great deal of flexibility for businesses in terms of both licensing and deployment. Furthermore, the key challenges of SaaS, including security, data management, and integration, are gradually dissipating.

However, the key change in the market is not in the vendors, but in the focus of the products. Mid-market ERP applications are less about the financial tools, and more about the workflow and analytics packages used to streamline the user experience.

When evaluating your own needs, consider who will be using the ERP system on a day to day basis. Many vendors have highly customizable products. Note that “highly customizable” can be a euphemism for, “needs lots of user input prior to use,” placing a greater premium on the quality of the implementer. The upside of customization is that you can build an ERP system that is appropriate for your end-user population.

We covered eight vendors in this landscape with a total of thirteen products.

The champions each had a different top feature:

• Sage X3 is widely acknowledged as easy to use and well supported.
• JD Edwards EnterpriseOne offers a huge array of features for the mid-market.
• Microsoft Dynamics NAV has a wide channel, which can custom build NAV for any industry.

The most impressive products were UNIT4’s Agresso Business World, followed closely by Microsoft Dynamics AX. These products present excellent analytical tools, as well as ease of customization.

Other vendors in this landscape include Epicor, Microsoft Dynamics GP, NetSuite, Openbravo, Sage Accpac and X3, SAP Business One and BusinessByDesign, and Oracle Fusion applications.

In fact, there was little at the event that didn’t fully or partially have something to say about social media. What stood out for me, though, was not the level of influence accorded to social media in the buying cycle (Info-Tech’s end-user and vendor services research groups have published studies detailing this very thing); rather, it was the slap-in-the-face reality being experienced by businesses trying to develop and apply social media as an integrated marketing strategy.

Most of the marketers in attendance were from small- and medium-sized businesses, and it was evident that they had a way to go in harnessing the potential of social media in a marketing context, or even in fully understanding its value (not unlike other SMBs, by the way). I know this because there was no lack of candour among the group, which for me largely validated the relevance of the event. It also validated the commitment of Cisco to helping its partners evolve their businesses to better serve end-customers, and growth in Cisco revenue, for which partners drive the majority share, is a desired outcome.

While many in attendance were elated by the value (both real and imagined) of social media in the marketing cycle, and its low cost in comparison to traditional marketing efforts, this was severely tempered (some might say trampled) by the Herculean effort required in developing and managing a social media strategy. Cisco partners (or any vendor’s partners, for that matter) don’t generally have as robust a marketing department as similar-sized organizations in other industries. Many of them actually rely pretty heavily on their vendors for financial and functional marketing assistance. In that context, with limited marketing personnel and expertise, many felt social media’s potential was more taking over their lives than making their jobs easier. One partner estimated that upwards of 40% of her and her colleague’s time was spent on social media, but it represented a fraction of the overall marketing budget.

Regardless, none of the partners were standing still, and they were at the event to take their social media strategy to the next level, whether that was in early development or deployment across a greater array of channels. Mistakes that had been made along the way were discussed, but so too were results (mostly intangible at this point), such as having a fan base on Facebook or generating activity on Twitter. The imperative was for them to be in the social media sphere no matter how large or undefined it all might seem.

What is also interesting is that these are companies that employ technical staff, many of which have been using social media in one form or another for years to solve technical problems with peers and vendor contacts all over the world. The social media laggards in the organizations were, for the most part, the executive ranks, having to be “begged” to get on Facebook or open a Twitter account. This was a key sticking point in the development of the partners’ social media strategies: how to get regular, scalable, consistent, and good content/ideas out there to engage potential customers in a dialog. Those that had managed to do this (and there were a few) were amazed by the quick response – a stark contrast to the results of, say, cold calling.

So marketing, without a doubt, is changing, with the power moving away from the sellers to the buyers, with social media being the main progenitor of this shift. But as one partner put it, there are digital tourists and digital citizens, and many of us are still tourists, trying to get our bearings in a foreign land. This experience was summed up nicely by Cisco’s Global Vice President of Marketing/CMO Partner Marketing, Amanda Jobbins, when she said that integrating social media into marketing plans was a journey. I think many businesses at the event would agree with this sentiment, but that they also look forward to eventually arriving at a recognizable destination.