Bill Loumpouridis
Serial entrepreneur, author and irrepressible techno-geek.
Homepage: http://www.edlconsulting.com
Posts by Bill Loumpouridis
Beware the Kodak Moment: 5 Ways the Cloud Keeps You Clicking
Feb 6th
Bill Loumpouridis
I was genuinely saddened by the news of Kodak’s latest moment: filing for bankruptcy. The good news is that for every Kodak there are literally hundreds of new start-ups doing what Kodak should have been doing: filling the void to provide socially-enabled photo-sharing, video-sharing, the latest digital image capture/manipulation, and other digital technology ad infinitum. These startups are able to do what they are doing on shoestring budgets, largely because Cloud technology provides inexpensive, production-ready environments that foster innovation and scale effortlessly.
Innovation and risk go hand-in-hand. In my experience, cloud technologies substantially reduce key risk elements – time and cost – and thereby enable the innovation required for long-term sustainability. Specifically, the Cloud enables you to practice behaviors that keep you clicking in the startup economy.
1. Fail Fast. Cloud technologies provide the fastest path to go-live. The faster you go live, the faster you can determine your level of success. There’s no greater lesson than failure, so if it’s inevitable, better to get there sooner rather than later.
2. Cannibalize yourself before others do it for you. Part of failing fast means trying things that might cannibalize your existing customer base. A classic example of this is the software industry, where the shift to subscription-based models is cannibalizing once-lucrative software upgrade cycles.
3. Focus on business models vs. infrastructure. Because the move to cloud essentially outsources your infrastructure needs, you can focus your organizational energy and resources on fine-tuning your business model vs. keeping the lights on.
4. Leverage the power of the ecosystem. There are hundreds of startups out there creating the building blocks for your next business model. Why invent when you can assemble, innovate and out-maneuver?
5. Stay lean and hungry. No matter how big an organization becomes, maintaining a “startup mentality” is key to energizing and motivating your workforce. Cloud allows you to keep the conversation focused vs. maintenance of the status quo because so much of your operational requirements have been shifted to third parties.
It is now painfully obvious that the inventors of digital photography failed to cannibalize themselves quickly enough to survive. A Kodak moment to be remembered, but not repeated. Looking ahead, there is certainly no shortage of start-ups looking to fulfill the maxim, “capitalism abhors a vacuum” and the Cloud is ready to help them.
Legacy Software Giants Finally Embrace the Cloud
Dec 29th
Bill Loumpouridis
Why did it take so long for Oracle, SAP, and Microsoft to truly embrace the cloud?
Business models are funny things. In the Internet Age, the right business model at the right time can catapult a company to fame and fortune practically overnight. Groupon, Zynga and others are a testament to this. Similarly, the inertial drag of an antiquated business model can be the root cause for the rapid demise of others. The tech industry is littered with many flameouts like Palm and RIM.
The obstacles that legacy, premise-based software vendors face to Cloud presence are not so much technical, as they are strategic and logistical. Channel sales and distribution models, which make up the bulk of sales for large legacy independent software vendors (ISVs), rely on one-time payouts for software licenses for their viability. These ISVs have bridged the gap in the short term by slapping “Cloud” stickers on their software CDs and providing financed leases to their software and then passing on the cost of the financing to their customers.
Another strategy is to hedge; buy a cloud company and live in both worlds simultaneously. SAP, with its purchase of Success Factors, and Oracle, with its purchase of RightNow, are buying access to Cloud distribution strategies as much as they are buying technology and customers.
2011 will be remembered as the year these slumbering giants finally woke up to the promise and potential of Cloud technology. Buying their way in is the only way to play catch-up, and that’s great because I hear that Larry Ellison throws great parties. The challenge in harmonizing these disparate architectures into holistic solutions, however, will be formidable.
The $30,000 Limited Edition iPhone 4
Oct 2nd
Bill Loumpouridis
In case you missed it, over the summer Gresso announced the release of a diamond-encrusted iPhone 4.
While there is always a market catering to the egos of hyper-rich, it made me realize that what Apple has done is democratize technology on a level that is absolutely unprecedented. If Warren Buffett decided to spend his entire fortune tomorrow to find a “better” cell phone, he could not buy a better cell phone with better apps. He could buy a better case from Gresso, but the phone itself is the same one that you or I could buy at our local Verizon or AT&T store. This is the same phone that will be obsolete in 2-3 years because of the amazing innovation machine that Apple sustains.
That’s democratization.
It’s not just the phone itself, either. It’s the access to continuous innovation. The App Store ecosystem is an unprecedented cauldron of curiosity, innovation and genius. While I’m using Apple as the poster-child for democratization, the same is absolutely true of the mobile phones included in the Android ecosystem.
In many ways the Cloud has done the exact same thing for Enterprise IT. For the first time companies with small IT budgets have economical access to Cloud-based infrastructures and applications worth billions. They have access to the greatest security expertise on a time-shared basis. While the milk is not free, it’s silly to even consider buying the golden calf.
Is building out a new corporate data center the moral equivalent of purchasing a $30,000 Gresso iPhone? In most cases, my opinion would be yes, it is. There is a reason that cloud infrastructure companies like Rackspace and GoGrid are displacing corporate data centers: for most businesses, the subscription model for infrastructure is far more economical and enabling than traditional on-premise solutions. And access to the constant innovation for load balancing, performance and security represents democratized access on an unprecedented scale. Far too appealing to pass up.
How’s Your Start-Up Going?
Sep 30th
Bill Loumpouridis
I’m always invigorated by the energy, enthusiasm and out-of-the-box thinking I find at start-up events. The most recent Founder Showcase event I attended in the Bay Area did not disappoint. A bonus for me was that I got to meet one of my heroes – Mark Suster, whose blog I consider one of the finest in the start-up world.
In my own recent blog entry, Spontaneous Ecosystems, I wrote about the fact that “what you get in Web 2.0 is that the barrier of entry goes to zero”. At the Founder Showcase Naval Ravikant’s killer keynote elaborated on this point by describing the current era as the “age of fee leverage”; meaning it has become so inexpensive to start a company that “everyone has done it.” Leverage in this case is defined as access to cheap “capital, labor, and machines.” The access to “machines” being provided by cloud providers such as Amazon have become ubiquitous. Nearly every startup that I spoke to at the Showcase is using Amazon Web Services (AWS) as their technology platform. In addition to AWS, other IP Platforms mentioned by Naval include Apple’s iOS and Facebook Connect, both of which have spawned ecosystems of a scale unimaginable a few short years ago.
It is really stunning how much Cloud Computing has completely democratized the technology startup landscape. It’s almost like in LA, where 80% of the population is working on their screenplay. Even here in the Midwest, newsletters like Tech Cocktail and Flyover Geeks tirelessly promote countless local start-ups on a weekly basis. I truly believe that we are at an unprecedented age for developing the next big idea. The only barriers to entry left are self-made: fear, uncertainty and doubt. Beyond that, The Cloud presents no limits.
Mobile Me, Mobile You
Jul 14th
Bill Loumpouridis
How does Apple keep doing it? I recently read an article about how Apple is the most undervalued company in America. We’ve come a long way from the time when there was general agreement with my hero Andy Grove talking about the evils of vertical integration he describes in his book, Only The Paranoid Survive – where hardware and software on a device are controlled by a single vendor. I guess Apple proves that vertical integration is fine after all. Especially if your vertical is…everything.
Personally, I abandoned PCs about 3 years ago, and EDL standardized on Apple Macs about 18 months ago. I was a late adopter of the iPad, although I did buy a handful of the devices for our technical staff to play with. Now with the advent of the iPad 2 and iCloud, we are unveiling CloudCraze – iPad Edition, a client application built natively on the iPad.
This is a major step forward for any organization looking to enable a mobile workforce with an enterprise-class, secure and completely un-tethered eCommerce experience. We’re happy to be announcing this application the same week that Apple is announcing iCloud.
Spontaneous Ecosystems
Jul 12th
Bill Loumpouridis
“Web 2.0 is what happens when the barrier to entry is essentially zero.”
At the O’Reilly Web 2.0 conference in 2007, a nascent technology wave was building, and this quote was part of my enduring memory of a time when both Web 2.0 and what we know of today as Cloud Computing were beginning to take shape.
The importance of the quote relates to “free” resources provided by Web 2.0 Cloud providers – free online development platforms, free online storage, and even free hosting. Or, resources were so cheap that they were essentially free. This reduces the barrier to entry to essentially zero for tech entrepreneurs, and is how you end up with tens of thousands of free apps for Android, Apple, and (even) Microsoft, virtually overnight. This creates spontaneous ecosystems of programmers, searching for the next big pool of consumers.
Cloud Computing is enabling new ecosystems and new innovations at an extraordinary pace. This is because infrastructures that used to take months to plan and years to execute are ready to enable the next ecosystem right now. Almost no viable business concept can’t be activated via a successful viral campaign. Look at the way Groupon hijacked the local retail ecosystem — and how hundreds of copycats have sprung up virtually overnight.
Nokia’s CEO, Stephen Elop, describing Nokia’s greatest challenge going forward, stated that Nokia “must build, catalyze or join a competitive ecosystem.” My guess is that Bill Clinton would have stated it more succinctly: “It’s the ecosystem, stupid.”
We’re excited to be a part of this rapid transformation of the business landscape, and to help enable it through Cloud Computing. Do you have an ecosystem story you’d like to share? Send it to me at bill.loumpouridis@edlconsulting.com.
Gehry versus Wright Part 3 — Building Ecosystems in the Cloud
Jul 5th
Bill Loumpouridis
New technologies have enabled breakthrough designs in construction that have allowed the whimsical musings of an architect like Frank Gehry to be turned into inspiring sweeps of creativity. In the same manner, cloud computing enables entirely new ways of approaching how automated systems are constructed and, more importantly, how these systems interact with one another.
One exciting development that has occurred in parallel with the rise of cloud computing is the advent of “open” systems, which have come to replace the closed architectures that dominated previous technological eras. Open systems allow business applications to freely exchange data using commonly accepted protocols. As the practice of interconnecting systems became more commonplace, the idea of moving past one-to-one connections to interdependent networked computing took hold.
These open-systems capabilities are what allow various “clouds” to coexist and form ecosystems. This is how eBay has created an ecosystem around its auction platform, leveraging PayPal and other payment transaction gateways. Amazon and Google “rent” their cloud to other application vendors, forming additional ecosystems. Facebook, Foursquare and Zynga all share interdependent fates in the “social cloud.”
Even hardware companies depend on open-systems capabilities. Nokia’s new CEO was recently quoted as saying that the key to the company’s survival was to either create a new ecosystem or join an existing one.
The ecosystem that Apple has been able to construct resembles a city comprised of Frank Gehry buildings – each of them unique, yet sharing a common aesthetic. Of course, the overarching unifying principle of the Apple ecosystem is really a matter of form following function – the triumph of the user experience as the ultimate arbiter of mass acceptance. Frank Lloyd Wright would have been proud.
As with many emerging technology trends, we are only scratching the potential of cloud computing. Ultimately, my belief is that the most powerful way to leverage this technology centers on the ability it gives us to form new ecosystems quickly and easily. Those who will prosper will have both the vision of Frank Gehry and the courage, tenacity and bold execution of Frank Lloyd Wright. Cloud computing delivers the “right” balance of technology enablement, timing and execution to create the ecosystems of the future.
Gehry vs. Wright Part Two – What Does Architecture Represent?
Feb 23rd
Bill Loumpouridis
Semantics play a powerful and important role in our projects. The terms “portal,” “customer relationship management (CRM)” and even “customer” (versus end-user or channel partner) can have widely divergent meanings. Thus, every new project requires an early level-set on definitions for these and other relativistic terms.
Frank Gehry vs. Frank Lloyd Wright – “Frank” talk about Cloud Architecture
Dec 15th
Bill Loumpouridis
Frank Gehry built a reputation for challenging our core beliefs around what buildings should look like and the role of design. His work is often described as “Deconstructivist,” which means he reduces his creations to be more of a reflection of the tension that binds atomic elements vs. the singular “harmonic” whole of a Frank Lloyd Wright conception.
The Importance of Big Ideas
Oct 21st
During the dot-com bubble of the late 90s, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) companies like SAP and JD Edwards were quietly making billions of dollars transforming the way people do work. Long after companies like Ariba and CommerceOne faded into the dustbin of worthless stock options, thousands of users continue to use ERP software to automate tasks that make them more productive. More >