Forrester Blogs › Category: application delivery

Grudging Acceptance Is Not Enough — Time for IT to Embrace SaaS

Posted by Michael Barnes on the Application Development & Delivery Professionals Blog on April 29, 2013

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Michael Barnes

 

I’ve noticed a growing trend among Asia Pacific organizations over the past 6-12 months: complete IT resistance to SaaS has steadily given way to more pragmatic discussions, even if IT has come to the table grudgingly. Over the next two years I expect this trend to accelerate. In fact, I believe that many SaaS solutions, particularly those that cross business and functional boundaries, will be rapidly subsumed within the broader IT portfolio, even if they were originally sourced outside IT.

Many SaaS vendors report already seeing more IT involvement in procurement, requirements definition, RFP creation, and negotiations. The clear procurement guidelines published by the IT department of the Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO) is one high profile example. Don’t get me wrong, in most instances business decision-makers will still lead, particularly in identifying the required business processes and determining how best to consume SaaS-based services. But IT decision-makers are getting more involved, particularly around integration.

Some areas to consider as you look to work more closely with business decision-makers to evaluate and negotiate SaaS and other public cloud deals:

 

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Two Truths And A Lie: Software Development In 2020

Posted by Kyle McNabb on the Application Development & Delivery Professionals Blog on February 14, 2012

Kyle McNabb

When getting introduced to a new subject or new people, we sometimes play a game called "two truths and a lie." The basics of the game are simple: Anyone introducing a subject - or themselves - states two truths and one lie. The audience then has to identify what the lie is. 

Below, you will find three bullets related to our future of software development research. Two are truths as identified by our research, one is a lie: 

  • Software's fueling today's disruption, becoming embedded in everything to make technology useful, usable, and desirable.  
  • Software development expertise will increasingly be centered on Java, .NET, and proprietary development and application platforms. 
  • The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects software-development-related roles and jobs to increase at double the national average through 2020. 
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Meeting The Challenges Of The Empowered Consumer

Posted by George Lawrie on the Application Development & Delivery Professionals Blog on November 18, 2011

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George Lawrie

Retail is experiencing substantial change because consumers are now empowered by the web with information about price, availability, and merchandise features.

The retail industry is still served by solutions that are too fragmented to adequately balance the asymmetry introduced by radical price transparency. There are solutions for transactions, web site, stores, and so on but little to empower the cross-channel retailer to really meet the consumer’s needs.

I’ve recently been looking at IBM’s Smarter Commerce initiative and its portfolio that integrates:

1)    Store applications. IBM has well-established high-volume store apps appropriate to high-volume, low-touch retailing but correctly identifies these as inappropriate for fast-growing specialty retail with low-volume “high touch.” This is why it acquired the “asset” of Open Genius.

2)    Web metrics. IBM acquired Coremetrics in order to bring the discipline of measuring traffic, conversion, and average order to cross-channel retailing. It’s only by monitoring such metrics that retail can understand which marketing strategies are really successful and which market segments are most receptive.

3)    Direct-to-consumer initiatives. IBM acquired Unica as a platform for integrating automated direct-to-consumer marketing with its cross-channel offering.

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Winning!?

Posted by Mike Gilpin on the Application Development & Delivery Professionals Blog on July 28, 2011

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Mike Gilpin

 Are you winning? No, this is not about Charlie Sheen! I mean, are you one of the “fortunate” ones leading application delivery in a firm that is winning?

Today’s economy is a mix of winners and losers, with winners weighted strongly toward firms, industries, and regions experiencing rapid growth in customer demand for experiences that integrate their lives across multiple digital (mobile, web, …) and physical (retail, auto, …) touchpoints. App delivery leaders experiencing this rapid growth would say it is “the best of times,” except for how hard it is to keep up — the business demands more and more, faster and faster! So “winning” can be a mixed blessing in software, too:
 

Relevant Advice For “Winning” App Delivery Leaders

Lately I’ve been working with the speakers for our upcoming Application Development & Delivery Forum 2011, Sep 22-23, 2011, in Boston*, helping them to prepare their keynote and track sessions, and I’ve been struck by how relevant their advice will be for these “winning” app delivery leaders. This is all by design – we are aiming this event squarely at solving the problems you winners face.

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How Should EA Work With App Delivery To Remain Relevant?

Posted by Mike Gilpin on the Application Development & Delivery Professionals Blog on April 10, 2011

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Mike Gilpin

I visited a client recently, a large company with global operations and a large application delivery organization. A senior VP in charge of a large part of that organization told me an interesting story about its experience with a change in the way it approaches EA over the past few years. In brief, he said:

  • “A few years ago our architects were mostly dispersed into various parts of the delivery organization; we didn’t have an EA group.
  • “Then we recognized that we needed an EA group to better manage our use of technology, so we pulled those people out of delivery and formed them into an EA group.
  • “Since then EA has spent a lot of time understanding our business, building capability maps, and focusing on a more strategic level.
  • “But now I’m hearing cries of anguish from the delivery teams that they don’t have enough direct engagement and support from the architects in their delivery efforts. The delivery teams are concerned that EA has moved too far away from the actual delivery of business value, that EAs are not helping enough, and that it’s harming the effectiveness of the delivery organization.”
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