Ushering in a paradigm shift in enterprise mobility and freeing the information worker…for a one-year old company with only 18 employees this is an ambitious goal, but then leapfactor don’t seem short on ambition.

Leapfactor is a cloud-based micro-apps company that is seeking to accelerate the trend of the consumerization of business processes through the proliferation of both ready-to-use and customisable micro-apps that can in theory run on any device and link to almost any back-end system (for starters think automated and customisable alerts & notifications, easy sharing of business indicators, and on-the-go work approval flows).

In an interesting call with their CEO, Lionel Carrasco yesterday, what struck me was not their ambition but how much of the emerging Anywhere could be seen in the micro-apps approach:

• The core proposition is a redefinition of where value resides in mobile communications, no longer HW, no longer even SW, but true to mobility it lies in customisation to the business, and agility in deployment and execution.
• Value can be realised quickly, negating in this case the need for large upfront investments in software licenses. Cost becomes OPEX and crucially it becomes flexible depending on user demand.
• The model is intended to be highly scalable, both in terms of the number of users for whom it could be deployed within a business and by having B2E, B2C and B2B applicability.
• Everyone can be empowered by the potential of mobility, not just those core application software license holders in your organisation.
• By offering a public SDK aimed not just at the professional developer community but company IT departments, and partners; it’s less about zero-sum winners and losers in mobility, and more about empowering the ecosystem.
• By making it easier to create, customise, and update applications, businesses are not slowed down by the extended product development cycles of for example SAP applications.

There are however the inevitable challenges and they are myriad – leapfactor’s CEO acknowledged that security around the cloud-based architecture is high on the list of their clients’ concerns. It goes further than security however, with recent Yankee Group data pointing not only to security but a host of other potential barriers that enterprises consider cloud computing to throw up.

Add to this the challenges of this business model for markets with a lot of legacy infrastructure. Not so much a problem for Brazil and Mexico, two of the focus markets for the initial deployment, but for Western Europe who is next in the line up, it will be a more complicated sell-in.

And let’s not forget the challenge of growing the whole ecosystem. This is difficult enough to do as a large enterprise, but as a start-up this will require a lot of clever partnerships with systems integrators, OEMs and others to make it work.

Nevertheless, the potential points to one of the most interesting dynamics of Anywhere – when innovations allow the Anywhere enterprise to focus less on the “how” and more on the “where” opportunities in the contact zone between businesses and their customers, and between employees and their business processes, the relationship becomes a reciprocal one, where each one has a mobilizing force on the other.

Although I’m not an equity analyst I do spend a fair amount of my time following the Street and the relative performance of the companies I cover.  These are companies like Cisco, Juniper, Riverbed, BlueCoat, Brocade and F5.  I’ve had many people ask me over the past six months or so what my favorite name in the space is today and it has been, and remains, F5.

On Wednesday July 21st, the company announced its June quarter earnings and absolutely crushed it; and raised guidance for the 5th quarter in a row.  The company posted revenue of $230.5 million, well ahead of Street expectations.  According to Yahoo, Street consensus was $218 million but I had heard that the whisper number from the Street was $223 to $225 and F5 beat that number as well and then gave guidance of 5-7% sequential growth.  Not bad for a company that everyone thought Cisco would run over a couple of years ago.

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OpenStack – an open source cloud computing stack announced by Rackspace, NASA, and 25 others – is tearing up the news, the blogsphere, and “the twitter” (as my friend Chris Hoff likes to say ). This is great news for enterprises as it helps address major concerns over cloud provider lock-in and standards.  But security is desperately needed.  Clean Clouds will emerge to address these concerns, unlocking cloud computing potential and enterprise demand.

So, why does OpenStack matter?  And, what the heck is a Clean Cloud?

OpenStack matters because:

1. It  helps address lock-in.  Enterprises fear that once they select a cloud provider / architecture it will be nearly impossible to switch.  OpenStack doesn’t lick the lock-in issue, but standards and open source certainly help.
2. It provides a viable Amazon Web Services (AWS) alternative.  Not that there’s anything wrong with AWS.  Far from it, the AWS model makes tons of sense for lots of customers.  But relative to point #1, enterprises fear reliance on a single provider.  And there’s an architectural preference issue as well – AWS seems to prefer API’s while OpenStack eschews open source.  Does this mean AWS = Apple and OpenStack = Google?
3. It could become the government cloud computing standard. Organizations like NASA and NIST are doing a surprising amount to foster cloud evolution and adoption.  (Looking for frameworks, definitions, and best practices? NIST has great material here, NASA here).  If OpenStack becomes a US government standard / requirement, Fed buying power will force the market to follow along.

But OpenStack needs security – none of the 25 partners are security companies.

Yankee Group Anywhere Enterprise -- Large: 2009 IT Infrastructure Survey

This is so because even more than fear of provider lock-in, insufficient security is holding back enterprise cloud adoption.  Indeed if you include reliability / availability, IT governance, and regulatory compliance as security cousins, then you’ve got 5 of the top 9 enterprise concerns according to Yankee Group research.

To truly unlock enterprise cloud computing adoption, OpenStack and other cloud platforms must address  security concerns.  But this will happen.  And when it does, it will usher in the Clean Cloud.

Clean Clouds will be the topic of my next report. And I admit I’m still refining my thoughts about what constitutes a Clean Cloud.  But here’s what I’ve got so far:

Clean Clouds combine…

• from-the-ground-up security architecture
• component standardization and automation
• network-effect intelligence
• and functionality partnerships / mash-ups

… to offer a level of security and availability unmatched by existing cloud platforms. They won’t just offer acceptable levels of auditability, isolation, and data security.  They’ll be better.  By baking security functions like anti-malware and denial-of-service protection into the platform, and by leveraging the network-effect across customers to turbo-charge these security functions, Clean Clouds will offer security and availability you simply can’t get elsewhere.

As a result, enterprise security hawks will no longer resist cloud migrations.  They’ll rush to migrate functions to Clean Clouds as the improved security and bolstered compliance will make them heroes back home.

What do you think constitutes a Clean Cloud?  What security functions are table stakes and which will customer’s pay for?  What cloud provider do you think will get there first?

I’m in the midst of vendor interviews for this report and would like to speak with more of you.  E-mail me at tjulian@yankeegroup.com to set up a briefing.

At least it does in San Francisco!

This is a photo of a couple of San Francisco taxis taken back in late April. I hadn’t processed them until now. I’m a little puzzled about the advertising efficiency of such a campaign even though I understand that the B2B market is significant for Citrix, and that this is San Francisco and maybe wouldn’t even be attempted elsewhere.

Still, there it is: mainstream virtualization.

On Tuesday, June 8, a young rookie pitcher named Stephen Strasburg made his major league debut in for the Washington Nationals. The debut was surrounded by more hype than any MLB debut since the arrival of Ken Griffey Jr. in Seattle decades ago and the young phenom didn’t disappoint. He struck out 14, including the last 7 batters he faced and left everyone wanting more.

The following day, Brocade Communications held its annual technology day amid similar hype (at least in the tech world) where many people (myself included) thought the actual content would fall well below the expectations of hype. Tech day and the related announcements was a breath of fresh air for the beleaguered Brocade as the company has been under fire from Wall Street and the media for the erratic performance of the SAN and networking divisions over the past couple of quarters.

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Cloud computing is being touted as the next great computing revolution but actual, live deployments are limited.  One of the biggest barriers holding cloud computing back is security.  Yankee Group’s 2009 Transforming Infrastructure and Transforming Application survey revealed that the #1 barrier to cloud computing was security.  Despite this fact, there really hasn’t been any vendor addressing the unique security needs of cloud computing.  At Interop last month, Application Delivery Networking market leader F5 announced enhancements to its BIG-IP products to secure applications that are deployed in the cloud.
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The irrational exuberance of the Enron era led many communications service providers (CSPs) to financial ruin, and paying penance for past excesses consumed the first decade of the 21st century. But Yankee Group argues that it’s time to shed the hair shirt.

Despite a crowded competitive environment, new business models are emerging to lead CSPs into a vibrant future. However, CSPs must have the courage to transform. Hard decisions about what is core and non-core are required.

Earlier today I hosted a webinar which explored the ever-evolving CSP business model. Thanks to everyone who attended and brought their questions.

The webinar runs about an hour: audio (mp3) and slides (pdf).

The use of virtualization technology has grown exponentially over the past decade.  However, its primary use has been to consolidate the number of servers in corporate data centers.  Recently though, advancements in virtualization technology has given rise to the next wave of usage for this technology.  That is using virtualization (and cloud computing) to separate all of the components of computing (not just servers) to simplify and make computing more efficient.  This will work by creating various pools of compute resources that are mobilized and move around the network as business policy dictates.

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It’s not just about the database and reacting to Oracle acquisitions. SAP buying Sybase is critical for competitive differentiation. Its about the proliferation of “Anywhere” enterprise applications.  Sybase provides not only mobile middleware, but relationships with Amazon for cloud computing. Yankee Group research predicted the fusion of cloud computing, application mobility and social media to transform the enterprise mobility space. This deal now gives SAP 2 out 3 in a single purchase.

The growth of devices such as the iPhone and BlackBerry Bold has created end-user demand for access to crucial enterprise applications and information on the go. The latest devices provide opportunities for fresh and innovative applications that must be written from the ground up to maximize user effectiveness. New functionality like unified communications, presence and location-based services and multimedia should be embedded intelligently into the new mobile enterprise applications to improve  adoption and promote anywhere collaboration. Sybase brings to the table a mobile platform that can help SAP transform their applications to be consumed anywhere, anytime on any device.

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What’s black and red and not a telco anymore? Verizon Business — at least according to Francis Shammo, president of the telecom and enterprise arm of Verizon.

“We are not a telco. I don’t even know what a telco is anymore. We are a solutions provider,” Shammo said last week at the company’s industry analyst forum in New Jersey. The future of his organization is in services — specifically, cloud computing and professional services — not in selling pure connectivity.

These are bold statements to make to a room full of long-time Verizon watchers; it may also seem strange, coming from a company which manages almost enough miles fiber to reach the moon.But beyond just talk, Shammo’s proof points include some impressive customer services wins, such as with JetBlue (Verizon runs the airlines IT and call center operations). A backup/off-site storage as-a-service offering, announced in conjunction with IBM this week, also shows Verizon Businesses’ cloud/services aspirations.

The company’s cloud/services transformation also appears to be deeper than press releases and partnerships, however. Among the things Verizon Business is doing right now are:

• Cloud & services training: Technical teams are being trained from the nuts-and-bolts of server virtualization and data center management, to integrate cloud into OSS/BSS, customer service and provisioning workflows.
• Cloud fluency: the company is schooling its marketing teams on cloud a vernacular which actually means something _— not a global search-and-replace of “cloud” for “hosting” or “services” throughout its marketing literature and materials.
• Sales transformation: The company is adamant to become more solutions-focused, it says. This involves changing the fundamental approach of its sales team (from T-1/private IP network sales to solutions). To that end, significant retraining, and turnover of almost a fifth of its force, is already underway.
• Data center transformation: Verizon plans on replacing or upgrading infrastructure in over 200 data centers to support the virtualized underpinnings of its Compute as a Service (CaaS) offering.

With all the money and hype spent by Google and Microsoft on their cloud build-outs, Shammo says, you might think only two data centers will be around in the near future. “I happen to say there will be three,” he says. However, beccause of its network assets, or “crown jewel” as Shammo puts it, enterprises moving to the cloud will come to Verizon for greater levels of security, connectivity options and service guarantees.

These sound like the kind of attributes enterprises expect from, say, a telco? Maybe you don’t want to drop that old description of your business too fast, Mr. Shammo.