Redmonk on Developers and Project Sputnik

May 8, 2012

Today at the Ubuntu Cloud Summit here in Oakland I grabbed sometime with Redmonk analyst Stephen O’Grady.  It was Stephen who originally brought up the idea of creating a Dell laptop running Ubuntu targeted at developers.

I talked to Stephen about how he would characterize today’s world of developers and what he feels project Sputnik needs to deliver on to be successful.

Updated March 22

Extra-credit reading

Pau for now…

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Posted by Barton George

Stephen O’Grady of Redmonk on the Dell Analyst summit

November 4, 2010

Last week I attended and presented at Dell’s analyst summit, “Dell Services and Solutions for the Virtual Era.”  Besides sharing Dell’s cloud strategy with analysts I also captured their thoughts on the event.

Here is an interview I did on the first day with Redmonk analyst and founder, Stephen O’Grady.

The questions Stephen addresses:

  • [0:10]  Based on the talks given by Dell execs and customers, what are Stephen’s key take aways?
  • [0:58] As the follow on to the press and analyst event in San Francisco in  March, to what extent has Dell delivered on the promises we made at that time and to what extent might we have fallen short?
  • [1:50] What progress would Stephen hope to see at another event six months from now?
  • [2:30] Bonus question: Dell talks about making the transformation into a solutions company, to what extent is Stephen seeing this happening?

Extra-credit reading:

Pau for now…

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Posted by Barton George

Talking to Joyent’s CTO and co-founder: Jason Hoffman

June 3, 2010

When I was out in the Bay Area for our launch a while back I stopped by Joyent‘s new headquarters (I actually visited them on their very first day in their new digs). I chatted with CTO Jason Hoffman about his background, what Joyent’s all about and what they are doing with Dell.  Take a listen:

Some of the topics Jason tackles

  • What Joyent does (hint: they provide virtual datacenters)
  • Joyent customers: they range from the top facebook applications, on line media companies, movie, music and tv studios, online retailers…
  • Your next computer is the data center — which needs operating environment, an open API and a good set of developer tools.
  • How Jason got to where he is: via a Doctorate in pathology where he was an end consumer of compute.  He realized that a lot of the efficiencies that they had developed in his field could be applied to a hosting environment.
  • Dell as Joyent’s “private cloud arm:” Joyent software running on Dell’s hardware where Dell can come in and set up the entire environment enabling departments within companies to act as service providers within their organizations.

To put it in perspective…

And since we’re talking about Joyent and Dell and Joyent working together I thought I would include this excerpt from a post that Redmonk analyst Stephen O’Grady recently wrote about the private cloud:

At the present time, however, most of that which we call Platform-as-a-Service – the layer currently serving as middleware – is public cloud only. The PaaS fabrics tend to be proprietary and not available for private consumption. Salesforce.com, for example, doesn’t let you replicate Force.com on your servers. Ditto for Google App Engine. Microsoft Azure features may be trickling back into Windows, but you’re not going to be running Azure in your local datacenter. This is why Dell’s distribution of Joyent’s cloud software came as such a surprise to many; you just don’t see these fabrics being made available locally.

Extra-credit reading

  • Survey Shows More Than Half of Dynamic Language Developers Are Looking To Build Cloud-based Applications in Next Year

Pau for now…

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Posted by Barton George

Stephen O’Grady on Red Monk — The Un-Analysts

June 29, 2009

Last week at Enterprise 2.0 in Boston I caught with Stephen O’Grady, co-founder of analyst firm Red Monk.  I’ve always been very impressed with this boutique firm whose influence on their clients and other analysts, seems inversely proportional to their size (they are now up to a whopping four analysts).

I’ve split our chat in two parts.  The first deals with the firm itself, and the second with a couple of areas in technology that Stephen is particularly interested in.

The History and Philosophy behind Red Monk

Some of the topics Stephen tackles:

  • Founding a firm that does things differently (the un-analysts as I like to think of them)
  • Being open with their opinions and breaking down “pay walls”
  • “Offices” in London, Seville, Portland (Maine) and Austin, TX.
  • Stephen’s “Money Ball” approach to hiring
  • Their impressive client list
  • Is Red Monk going to IPO?

Stephen’s thoughts on Cloud Computing and Google Wave

Some of the topics Stephen tackles:

  • Cloud computing: overhyped but still a fundamental trend
  • Google Wave: redefining a document, what it is and what’s it for

Extra-credit reading:

  • Stephen’s thoughts on the Enterprise 2.0 conference

Pau for now…

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Posted by Barton George

Heading to California, Cloud Connect and Customers

January 12, 2009

From the Museum's brochure collection.

From the Computer Museum's brochure collection.

Next week I’m making my way back to the Bay Area to attend the Cloud Connect un-conference that is being held Jan 20-22 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View.

The conference is being held in the unstructured un-conference style which I prefer.  It allows more time for meeting people and talking about what you want to talk about.  That being said, the event won’t be total anarchy and in fact I’m looking forward to the talk David Berlind is moderating Tuesday night.  There is also a cool panel that Red Monk analyst and fellow Eph, Stephen O’Grady is leading the following day on the Cloud and Lock-in.

I will be attending the conference armed with an audio recorder as well as a brand new Flip Mino to try my hand at Video podcasting.  Attendees, you are forewarned 🙂

Checking out Blueprint in Action

While I’m out in the Valley I’m going to visit a couple of big accounts to see first-hand how they are using the Lombardi Blueprint and also get their input on what they’d like to see in the way of new functionality going forward.

The other area that I want to research is the applicability of Blueprint in the supplier chain/operations world.  I think it would be a great fit but i want to check with some contacts out there to get their thoughts.

Stay tuned.

Pau for now…

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Posted by Barton George

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