Bickel Blog

I like to spend a bit of time looking back at the year each December.  I'm happy to report that all of my various business adventures have moved forward since last year .  My family is also happy that I did not take on any new projects this year! Overall, it was a year where strategies that were put in place in 2010 started to reap benefits and all of the companies "grew up" a bit.  None of them are fully grown by any means, but there is a sense of maturity in each. The other big trend was just a total focus on the Cloud as a delivery and a business model.  My view is that tech companies are founded on the technology, and developing for the Cloud changes things drastically.  New versions go up each day.  There is no need to support old releases.  This changes the development, QA, and support processes a great deal.  It has the effect of faster cycle times, a requirement for new automation, and if done right, significantly lower costs. ...

Paul Maritz is trying to figure out how to overcome the innovators dilemma at VMware.  The spectacular success of vSphere and virtualization has taken the company from $700 Million in revenue in 2006 to $3.7 Billion in 2011.  The company now carries a valuation of $40 Billion. The innovators dilemma phrase, coined by Clayton Christiansen, of course refers to how a company can shift economics, culture, talent, customer contracts, etc. to jump on a new offering.  This is a difficult trick, not often done.  In this case the VMware sales force needs to bring in $4.5 Billion next year, and lowering prices is not the way to get that done as VMware recently proved with their new pricing schemes .  Plus, customers paying large maintenance contracts demand existing technology to get better, not be usurped. Today VMware is an arms supplier to the Cloud.  This works out well for selling to big companies who think running vSphere and vCloud and vFabric is the s...