Posted by Craig McDonogh on Fri, Aug 20, 2010 @ 11:17 PM
Australia experiences bushfires (forest fires) with terrifying regularity. But while these fires can often have tragic consequences for the human population, many species of Australian fauna can't live without them. In fact, many plants in Australia are not able to reproduce without regular bushfires.
Here's what happens when these fires sweep through a landscape:
- The undergrowth and the small trees are consumed. Anything close to the ground is burned completely, and donates its nutrients to the next generation of plant life.
- The big, strong trees are left standing. They may get a little charred around the base, but most of the time, the large, healthy trees survive the fire.
- The old, unhealthy trees are burned. Anything with too much dead wood will catch fire and burn to the ground. Even the big trees will eventually meet this end.
After the fire, the forest re-generates. A couple months later, new growth starts to appear - and then a few years later, it might be hard to see there was a fire at all.
The IT service management market goes though similar cycles...and we're overdue for another bushfire.
In the early part of the last decade, there was wholesale consolidation in the service management space. Vendors like Clarify, Quetzal, Vantive, Platinum, Prolin and Magic Solutions were consumed, and a few of the bigger "trees" remained in the service management landscape. The forest was cleared, and the IT service management tool market was able to mature and become a better defined discipline than ever before - because there weren't as many competing market messages.
In looking at the market today, there is a tremendous amount of undergrowth. Just like the stuff in the forest, vendor creep is choking the landscape making it difficult for buyers to comprehend and delinate between offerings, and inhibiting their service management growth. "Undergrowth" vendors are all trying to differentiate themselves, which is clouding (no pun intended) the value of service management and confusing the market.
We're due for another fire. The IT service management "weed" vendors need to be cleared out and the deadwood of the old giants, BMC, HP, IBM and CA, has become kindling. Good service management becomes less convoluted as clarity returns to the tool market landscape.
Anyone got a match?
Posted by Rhett Glauser on Mon, Jun 21, 2010 @ 02:40 PM
The topic of secret SaaS purchasing has been getting more attention recently with the release of new research by Ray Wang of the Altimeter Group. So I thought I would repost a post I orginally drafted in the Service-now.com Community back in March of 2009, with a couple of data points updated for relevancy:
The fallacy is dated now, but SaaS detractors used to hang their hats on the fact that big business and the IT organization would never accept SaaS. They did have a point in that most early adoption of SaaS in business began in the sales, finance or HR departments. The idea of a SaaS backdoor is based on the fact that many business units did not need to involve IT in the procurement and use of SaaS. They essentially only needed budget (or a credit card) and a business requirement.
We've always sold an enterprise SaaS ITSM app directly to enterprise IT and try to engage the CIO and CISO as early in the process as possible.
Liz Herbert of Forrester recently released a report titled, "TechRadar For Sourcing & Vendor Management
Professionals: Software-As-A-Service." Liz said that SaaS in IT management is becoming a hot area. Specifically, "Contrary to the belief that SaaS applications are only for business users, the success to date of this category shows that SaaS has the potential to transform the world of IT applications as well."
Funny thing is that there were only two vendors listed as SaaS providers in the IT management market, Service-now.com and HP. Don't get me started on HP SaaS.
With HP more accurately tagged as an ASP, I guess that puts Service-now.com in a pretty exclusive club of one. Honestly though there are some other legit SaaS IT management vendors out there serving the SMB. Also, it seems like Paglo [since acquired by Citrix] is doing some pretty cool IT management via SaaS that is getting some enterprise traction.
We've only been around for a few years but now ha
ve hundreds of enterprise customers who've typically replaced one of the big four's on-premise apps. We did it by having the audacity to sell SaaS through the front door to exactly the folks who were supposed to reject it.
I'm going to go out on a limb and claim that IT management via SaaS is, in fact, hot now. Stay tuned for other bold predictions such as, "I guarantee the Steelers will win the Super Bowl six times," and "It will often be warmer than 60 degrees and sunny in San Diego."
Posted by Rhett Glauser on Tue, May 25, 2010 @ 02:57 PM
Last week a couple of alphabet soup enterprise software vendors held their annual user conferences and triumphed in the delivery of some truly epic cloud washing. The marketing machine was on full throttle, puffing out clouds of all different shapes and sizes.
Some of their cloud intentions had an ETA years from now. I'm thinking by then they'll have to change the buzz word of the day on the shrink wrapped box the CDs are shipped in.
As is traditional, the vendors invited all their customers, partners, press and analysts. This the vendor's opportunity to upsell the customers and to tell the press and analysts about all the "new" things they've been working on. Some even went so far as to add Technology to the portfolio.
In an effort to maintain relevance in an IT world that has changed drastically without them, they instinctively grab onto the latest trend and don't let go until every last drop of maintenance revenue is squeezed out of it.
For the wannabe cloud washlings out there, here is the cloud marketing playbook:
- Create a new consulting service to help cloud customers feel assured.
- Dust off old CD boxes, apply white out liberally, change words like "network," "storage" and "software" to "cloud" and "SaaS". Give no thought to actual meaning of any terms.
- Form an industry consortium for the purpose of gathering luddites in the spirit of creating standards that will save the dinosaurs.
- Announce cloudy partnerships simply because a fusion of synergy always means 1+1=3.
- Call everything a cloud service just for effect, even if it is simply a basic IT service. Cloud is a way bigger tent than any of us ever realized.
- Convince customers they need cloud management tools in addition to the management tools they already have. Apparently the cloud broke the old tools, or was that the Internet's fault?
Anyway, earlier today I gave a presentation in Helsinki at the DeskIT conference. It was well received but I don't think it was what they expected. The presentation was basically about ITSM in the cloud but a good portion of it was spent answering the question, "Should I be skeptical?"
Given the current scrubbing going on, of course the short answer to that question is, "Heck yes."
I needed a good graphic to use in the slide deck because bulleted lists make me sleepy. A quick Google search lead me to this wonderful and very real product called Cloud Wash.
Cloud Wash Inc. needs to get out of the home improvement industry and focus all efforts on selling to the legacy enterprise software vendors. They'll buy this stuff by the barrell.
The parallels between what is going on in IT and this unsuspecting paint vendor's product are both humorous and revealing. By the way, is that a bunny as a service?
Posted by Rhett Glauser on Wed, Apr 28, 2010 @ 02:08 PM
So the legacy ITSM vendors are finally getting around to releasing so-called "SaaS" iterations of their decades-old, on-premise client/server applications. They are beginning to think they have answers to some of the questions I pose in my original "Questions for your "SaaS" vendor" post.
Before they get too comfortable, let's raise the bar a bit. Please ask your legacy ITSM vendor these more-pointed questions:
- Do you trust your application enough to allow customers to directly customize, extend or integrate with it?
- Do you trust your customers enough to allow them to directly customize, extend or integrate with your on demand application?
- Has there been a code fork to support both your legacy on-premise application and the on demand application? Do different development teams work on the two different products?
- What is the difference between the user interface of the legacy product and the on demand product?
- How does the Flash you use in your on demand application perform on the iPhone or iPad?
- Can you show me a demo of your on demand application in the Blackberry browser?
- Does your advertised availability of 99.5% include manual upgrades or other planned downtime?
Remember, these guys are never going to get SaaS right until they start new. Trying to fit a legacy application and business model into the new and modern world of true SaaS simply doesn't work.
BMC needs to take a lesson from Ellison and separate legacy business from SaaS business. In other words, never marginalize the existing cash cow of maintenance revenue. Instead, throw buckets of cash into a modern SaaS start up (e.g. Salesforce.com, NetSuite), then laugh all the way to the bank.
BMC, with Remedy OnDemand, is going the route of Siebel before it. By my count this is their third attempt at on demand. Sure they call it something different every time but the result always has been and will be the same.
To quote one modern philosopher, "That pig doesn't need lipstick, it needs drag." Or, I've heard Fred Luddy say, "Like a bad toupee, a web front end on a legacy client/server application fools exactly one person."
Maybe BMC should diversify and spread the risk a bit...get into the hardware or consulting business. Maybe they need to invent some acquisitions like HP is fond of doing...who am I to tell a multi-billion dollar software company what to do?
Posted by Rhett Glauser on Wed, Mar 03, 2010 @ 01:59 PM
According to Wikipedia a Morton's Fork is "a choice between two equally unpleasant alternatives (in other words, a dilemma), or two lines of reasoning that lead to the same unpleasant conclusion."
The most common analogy used to illustrate Morton's Fork is, "I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place." According to WiseGeek, "people who study human behavior are often interested to see how people respond to such dilemmas...
"When faced with Morton's Fork, the temptation may be to do nothing, but sometimes this is also a bad alternative. Sometimes, a more thoughtful consideration of the options either reveals an additional choice, or a choice in the array of existing options which is less repugnant. It may also be possible to subvert Morton's Fork by finding or creating an exception to the rule. Being between a rock and a hard place is sometimes solvable if one is willing to develop a hammer to smash the rock out of the way..."
The legacy tool upgrade is the Morton's Fork of ITSM. Upgrade a client-server tool to a new version and you break customizations and waste the huge investment made to support your business' unique IT processes. Or, stick with the devil you know, skip the upgrade, and remained locked into technology developed before email, cell phones or Windows 95.
ITSM consultant, Vinod Agrasala, recently provided a first-hand peek into the Morton's Fork of an IT organization (kept anonymous to protect the innocent) faced with a legacy ITSM tool upgrade / reimplementation. He quotes one of the tool proponents:
"We decided to just use the out-of-the-box tool as it is a Certified ITIL Compliant tool. Also, (you know...) customizing has a lot of drawbacks while going for upgrading to next version, huge cost etc."
Not long ago enteprise IT organizations didn't have much of a choice. They could pick between four big devils, all of which they know well. It was and is all the same legacy client-server technology. There were always Post-it notes, or the option to roll your own.
But why couldn't tool vendors simply make a hammer that worked? Was it asking too much to have vendors deliver an easily adaptable tool that supports unique process requirements while preserving customizations through upgrades?
Six years ago, ITSM tools couldn't provide the best of both worlds. Today, many former HP and BMC customers use modern SaaS from Service-now.com as a sledge hammer to subvert, no pulverize, the Morton's Fork of ITSM.
If you're still awake and reading this, you might want to check out my comment to Vinod's post. I get into why legacy ITSM tool vendors can't get enough of the ITIL certification schemes.
To bring all of these topics together we are hosting a virtual conference called, "Making ITIL Work for You." The conference includes a strong dose of common sense from Aiden Lawes, REI, Consulting Portal, Pink Elephant.
Posted by Rhett Glauser on Tue, Mar 02, 2010 @ 02:30 PM
A couple of major film and television studios recently selected Service-now.com for IT service management automation. So we're feeling a bit artsy...or at least Matt French and Rob Phillips have the right side of their brains working.
As a finalist for the Pink Elephant Innovation of the Year we got to share this video with a few thousand of our closest friends at last week's Pink Elephant conference:
I never knew IT service management was so cool. Thanks to Matt and Rob P. for helping to make it so. But mostly, thanks must go to the really smart Service-now.com developers who created an ITSM tool that just works and is actually consumable. Consider, in about five years these guys have delivered:
On a separate but related note, I'm curious, what does technology innovation mean to you? It seems to mean different things to different people.
Posted by Rhett Glauser on Wed, Feb 24, 2010 @ 01:33 PM
The Pink Elephant 2010 conference used a sizable dose of social media to extend the reach of an already vibrant ITSM community.
Leading up to the event, Rob England did a great job on the Pink Elephant blog, and a force of tweople led by Chris Dancy kept the conversation lively through the week.
Last year at this conference the use of Twitter was relatively sparse with just a handful of active tweople including Ruann Tiller and Ryan Ballmer (who am I forgetting?).
Anybody remember what the original Pink Elephant conference hashtag was? The answer can be found in my tweet stream from a year ago:
"@itsm09 you guys should establish a hash tag for anybody tweeting from Pink. I'll start using #itsm09 11:08 AM Feb 23rd, 2009"
Or was this tweet prophetic?
"@larryaubrey There is a good group of Tweeters at Pink. Use hashtag #itsm09 for related updates. Force this industry into the 21st century. 11:40 AM Feb 23rd, 2009"
Meanwhile, some things haven't changed since last year:
"#itsm09 Client/server customers at Pink are begging for SaaS in IT service mgmt. The legacy apps are killing them. 7:39 AM Feb 24th, 2009"
New uses of Twitter this year at Pink Elephant include:
Good event everybody. Way to be social. Next year I'd expect we'll start to see more of this social technology making its way into the ITSM tools we use...some of it is already there.
Posted by Rhett Glauser on Mon, Feb 22, 2010 @ 11:05 AM
Last week Fred Luddy, Service-now.com CEO, joined Goldman Sachs a guest on their "In Your Office" conference call series. Fred was joined by Nimsoft CEO, Gary Read, and Goldman Sachs analyst, Derek Bingham, to discuss next-generation IT management application models versus the older, traditional software models from vendors like HP and BMC.
Goldman Sachs has been nice enough to make the recording 
available to the public. You'll have to go old-school and use a telephone to hear it, but here are the details. Dial: 973-528-0005 or 800-332-6854 / Replay code: 569203 [Fred Kouwenberg of 2e2 was kind enough to record the call and send us the mp3: Goldman Sachs, "In Your Office Conference Call," with Fred Luddy, Service-now.com founder and CEO. Warning. It is a big, 40ish MB file...]
Here are some of the topics discussed:
- What are the key characteristics of a next-generation IT management vendor?
- What are the key reasons customers cite for wanting to work with modern vs. traditional alternatives?
- In what market segments or with what types of customers are you seeing the most traction? Is it a land and expand strategy working alongside incumbents? Rip and replace? Greenfield? How difficult is it to break through where there is an established incumbent? In very large enterprises, can you sell best-of-breed vs. one-stop-shop or integated suites?
- How do your sales and service models differ from traditional models?
- How do your R&D development models differ from traditional models?
- Is there any difference in the kind of traction you are able to get with a US-based buyer vs. overseas geographies?
- Are there any technical limitations on what SaaS-delivered or leaner management technologies can provide vs. traditional, heavier, more customized management packages?
- What might be the greatest potential hurdles to your further growth and expansion?
- How have incumbents (Big 4 systems management providers) responded to next-gen providers? What might we expect to see from incumbents in the future? Can they acquire or consolidate next-generation vendors? Why or why not?
This discussion includes some very revealing insights into the changing landscape of today's IT management software market. Enjoy.
Posted by Matt French on Mon, Jan 25, 2010 @ 10:52 AM
Imitation is the purest form of flattery. On January 19, 2010, BMC announced their intention to deliver Remedy ITSM On Demand in Q2 2010. BMC became the next legacy software vendor to validate the Service-now.com quest to change the IT management software landscape. In the last five years Service-now.com has turned a stagnant IT service management (ITSM) software market on its head, forcing legacy vendors to react.
If you like David vs. Goliath stories, you’ll enjoy this.
Service-now.com has made a practice of replacing BMC Remedy implementations with a modern Software as a Service (SaaS) application. BMC Remedy customers have chosen Service-now.com to capitalize on simplicity, power, flexibility and a substantially lower total cost of ownership.
The loss of strategic customers and maintenance revenue to Service-now.com forced BMC to identify an alternative strategy to legacy on-premise Remedy deployments.
Let’s cut through the marketing hype. BMC is announcing their intention to stick old Remedy ITSM technology in unspecified hosting facilities. This is not modern SaaS or modern software. Our expectation is that it will first only be available in the U.S., which would rule out customers with global operations. This new offering may encroach on the SME / SMB turf of BMC Service Desk Express on Force.com which hasn’t shipped yet either.
The origins of the Remedy application date back to the early 1990s. This same code base is the foundation for Remedy ITSM On Demand.
Historically, IT organizations procured Remedy applications due to the platform’s flexibility. Remember the BMC Remedy Action Request System (ARS) tagline, “Your business, your way”? That was marginalized with the introduction of Remedy ITSM “pre-configured, out-of-the-box” and is about to be buried six feet under with the introduction of hosted client / server software.
BMC plans to put a container around Remedy ITSM and eliminate the flexibility and customization they used to be so proud of. In the Remedy ITSM On Demand offering, BMC strips Remedy of its core strength – customization.
BMC will claim Remedy ITSM is built on ITIL standards and has received a stamp of compliance. As hard as the vendor community tries to create a one-size-fits-all application, it is impossible to predict how a customer will use the software. ITIL or not, all organizations require application flexibility to best meet the needs of the business.
Based on our experiences working with the world’s largest IT organizations, a packaged application with little room for modification will fall short of most enterprise requirements. ITIL provides guidance, but it is not prescriptive. While Service-now.com is designed to be customized and allows users to build custom applications, BMC Remedy ITSM On Demand will force customers to morph processes to match the tool.
To be fair, BMC will probably offer customers the ability to customize the application – under a different statement of work (SOW). Our guess is that BMC will offer consulting services or managed services for an additional fee to deliver custom changes to the software, similar to HP SaaS for Service Manager.
What happens if I elect to have BMC customize the software? In the client / server world, someone is tasked with managing and applying upgrades to the system. Once customers deviate from the software standard, they are then treated as a “one off”. This requires additional staffing and costs money, which is why the application service provider (ASP) market failed about a decade ago.
Service-now.com continues to set the bar for which all other ITSM vendors are evaluated. Our customers don’t subscribe to Service-now.com because of the delivery model or the subscription license. The largest enterprises in the world partner with Service-now.com for the following reasons:
- Simplified and familiar modern Web user experience
- Single platform complimented by an organic product development strategy (no acquired tuck ins)
- Feature rich releases three times per year included in the subscription
- Automated upgrades preserve all customizations made by the customer
- A foundation built on ITIL process guidance with natural flexibility
- Platform as a service allows customers to build new applications
- Powerful integration
- Proven security and 99.97% availability (BMC Remedy ITSM On Demand expects 99.5% or about 50 minutes of downtime per week)
At this point, BMC is full of announcements and intentions. They have accurately identified SaaS as the future of ITSM. But while BMC is determining where their legacy apps will be hosted, we’ll be busy working on our next major release. The May 2010 Release will include runbook automation, shared services, mobile field services and more project portfolio management, all built organically by Service-now.com with the same intuitive user experience all our ex-BMC customers have grown to love.
I certainly don’t have all the answers and would love your take on BMC’s plans. What are your thoughts?
Posted by Rhett Glauser on Tue, Jan 19, 2010 @ 12:17 PM
We are excited about the upcoming Pink Elephant IT Service Management Conference because many of our customers are getting the spotlight. We're biased but we think our customers are really smart.
As you plan your conference agenda here is a convenient, chronologic list of the sessions and panel discussions featuring Service-now.com customers (thanks to Ruann for the assist on this list).
Monday, February 22, 2010
10:20 - 11:35am - Panel Discussion: IT Leaders Share Their Perspective On Software As A Service (SaaS) - NYSE Euronext, Chris Pope; Verisign, Greg Lazzaro; PepsiAmericas, Amy Irwin; Clark County, Nevada, Carolyn Dugas
10:20 - 11:35am - Information Technology Service Continuity Management - OhioHealth, Dave Lauer
11:55am - 1:10pm - The Magnificent Seven, Part 1: Seven Tips From Seven Managers For Managing The People Side Of Change - Progress Energy, Sheri Cassidy; Starwood Hotels & Resorts, Sarah Johnson (formerly with); OhioHealth, Kim Liston
1:25 - 2:40pm - Award Winning Identity & Access Management, Part 1 - OhioHealth, Mary Jo McElroy
1:25 - 2:40pm - SLM Meets The Real World - Progress Energy, Cliff McMillan
Tuesday, February 23, 2010 10:20 - 11:35 - Configuration Management: Incremental Improvement Versus Delayed Perfection - OhioHealth, Dave Lauer
10:20 - 11:35am - How To Overcome Process Compliance Challenges - Starwood Hotels & Resorts, Sarah Johnson (formerly with)
1:25 - 2:40pm - Slow & Steady Wins The Race - But Is There A Finish Line? - Progress Energy, Bill Iffland
1:25 - 2:40pm - The Magnificent Seven - Part 3: Seven Tips From Seven IT Professionals For Successful Tool Implementation - Progress Energy, Sheri Cassidy
1:25 - 2:40pm -
What A "Service-Driven" Culture Means At OhioHealth - OhioHealth, Kim Liston
3:00 - 4:15pm - Implementing ITIL - The Journey Continues - Progress Energy, Sheri Cassidy
3:00 - 4:15pm - Building A Successful Online Request Center: A Two Year Journey - Blue Cross Blue Shield Minnesota, Bob Grinsell