Microsoft seems to be paying a lot to buy LinkedIn if you just look at the “P&L” side of the deal.
But if you examine the long term MSFT strategy of making Office 365 thepervasive business and social platform for documents, presentations and spreadsheets, then it makes the deal worth the investment cost.
In doing work for a local healthcare product venture, I was asked to look at the network and database requirements to support mixed content transactions, video streaming all while conforming to HIPAA compliance standards. As a part of this work, I developed a Web Services Cloud-based architecture that took into account, ERH, HL7, document management and provider notation.
This tasking led me to a deep dive on the data architecture and DB requirements analysis that was required to develop the architecture.
The question of utilizing standard RDBMS (SQL) VS NoSQL was an immediate consideration. My conclusion…. It depends on a large number of technical, business and regulatory factors to derive the appropriate architectural answers. For example, what other external systems are interfaced to the applications and how do they require interaction? In general with the prolific growth in web services, mobile and cloud computing today’s enterprise will require a polyglot data architecture to satisfy all stakeholders.
A look at Healcareinformatics provides an operational insight into some of the complexities.
“Healthonomics” can be the key driving factor to trigger enterprise decisions to support multiple types of DB solutions woven together in a heterogeneous way delivering a network of web services that affect healthcare outcomes.
As we start to see the uptake in 4K video content, suppliers of CPUs, NIC (Network Interface Cards), networks (LAN, WLAN, Wi-Fi) and storage technologies will all be struggling to “step up to the plate” in meeting the challenges of this disruptive Video format. Also IAAS platform providers will face huge challenges to configure cloud components that can be rapidly provisioned for 4K content or Video Streaming. Even the security industry will be affected regarding the video surveillance infrastructure (see this Video Security Magazine article).
This is a Technologies Strategic Directions “Sleeping Inflection Point” for multiple industries, manufacturers, eworkers and information consumers.
Ultra-high definition (UHD) resolution is 3840×2160 Pixels now used in displays and broadcast., This does not equal 4K (4096×2160 Pixels) used in digital cinema. People tend to used them interchangeably but there is a significant difference in impact on the networking bandwidth required to service consumption of 4K.
We all are aware from a display technology perspective that TVs are now offering this content. However, how about other network and computer infrastructure components? When will they be able to handle the disruptive impact of 4K?
A recent article of an interview with the Red Hat CEO touts the benefits of private cloud implementation. See it at HERE
Public
VS
Private
TCO???
This debate is usually short sited and doesn’t include all CAPEX & OPEX cost associated with the “Free OS” type of cloud operations. Also the reusable components from more sophisticated partner communities afford both AWS & AZURE much greater long term valuations when responsible Enterprise accounting methods are used to drive the cost benefits analyses. The proper engineering of a cloud infrastructure which includes smart VMs well orchestrated by business-demand-level-driven auto scaling will always push the TCO/ROI argument to a public solution for large scale systems.
Microsoft actually has a TCO tool that they can use to estimate TCO of on-premises vs. Azure. There are many considerations when comparing costs of running an on-premises datacenter with full infrastructure, servers, cooling, power etc to a cloud-based service like Azure where you pay a cost based on the services consumed such as storage, compute and network egress. It can be difficult to know exactly what typical costs are for your datacenter and what the costs would be for services running in Azure. Microsoft has a pricing calculator available at http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/calculator/ which can help access costs for Azure services and a VM specific calculator at http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/calculator/virtual-machines/.
When running on-premises, you own the servers. They are available all the time which means you typically leave workloads running constantly even though they may actually only be needed during the work week. There is really no additional cost to leave them running (apart from power, cooling etc). In the cloud you pay based on consumption which means organizations go through a paradigm shift. Rather than leaving VMs and services running all the time companies focus on running services when needed to optimize their public cloud spend. Some ways that can help optimize services running are:
Auto-scale – The ability to group multiple instances of a VM/service and instances are started and stopped based on various usage metrics such as CPU and queue depth. With PaaS instances can even be created/destroyed as required
Azure Automation – The ability to run PowerShell Workflows in Azure and templates are provided to start and stop services at certain times of day making it easy to stop services at the end of the day then start them again at the start of day
Local Automation – Use an on-premises solution such as PowerShell or System Center Orchestrator to connect to Azure via REST to stop/start services
Over the course of four days, 2-5 March 2015, Mobile World Capital Barcelona will host the world’s greatest mobile event: Mobile World Congress. See this website for more info: http://www.mobileworldcongress.com/
The mobile communications revolution is driving the world’s major technology breakthroughs. From wearable devices to connected cars and homes, mobile technology is at the heart of worldwide innovation. As an industry, we are connecting billions of people to the transformative power of the Internet and mobilising every device we use in our daily lives.
In short, the hole world is on The Edge of Innovation, and the possibilities are endless. The 2015 GSMA Mobile World Congress will convene industry leaders, visionaries and innovators to explore the trends that will shape mobile in the years ahead.
About the Event
Here are the components that make up this industry-leading event:
A world-class thought-leadership Conference featuring visionary keynotes and panel discussions
A cutting-edge product and technology Exhibition featuring more than 1,900 exhibitors
The world’s best venue for seeking industry opportunities, making deals, and networking
App Planet, the Centre of the Mobile Apps Universe, where the mobile app community gathers to learn, network and engage with innovators
Global Mobile Awards programme, where we recognise industry innovation and achievements
And, all MWC pass holders can attend 4YFN, an event focused on startups, corporations, and investors
I’ve been digesting and expanding on an interesting white paper authored by the Microsoft Azure Incubation team titled: Building the Internet of Things– Early learnings from architecting solutions focused on predictive maintenance. I agree with the premise tha ubiquity in connection technology will be the key enabler and that predictive maintenance will probably be required to instantiate a true global ubiquitous connection state. Recently MS is changing their terminology from Internet of Things to Internet of Everything (IoE). Here I use them interchangeably A key technical enabler of the Internet of Things (IoT) is ubiquitous connectivity. A week or so ago I blogged about a new technology called Active Steering(TM) which should be the winner in patented connectivity hardware/Software/Firmware for antenna products.
Just imagine that the antenna on your device was constantly sampling the wireless signals around your location and finding the strongest source and directing the focus of the antenna to that source. That is what an Active Steering antenna does on your phone, tablet or PC. By using this technique the system is also performing predictive maintenance on the connectivity configuration for your specific device and location. Let’s first look at the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model. Even though the Internet model uses a simplified abstraction, the models in the previous figure and the associated well-known logical protocols are comparable. Application-layer protocols are not concerned with the lower-level layers in the stack other than being aware of the key attributes of those layers, such as IP addresses and ports. The right side of the figure shows the logical protocol breakdown transposed over the OSI model and the TCP/IP model.
Interaction patterns
Special-purpose devices differ not only in the depth of their relationship with back-end services, but in the interaction patterns of these services when compared to information-centric devices because of their role as peripherals. They are not the origin of command-and-control gestures; instead, they typically contribute information to decisions, and receive commands as a result of decisions. The decision-maker does not interface with them locally, and the device acts as an immediate proxy; the decision-maker is remotely connected and might be a machine. We usually classify interaction patterns for special-purpose devices into the four categories indicated in the following figure.
Connectivity Types
All of these models need uninterrupted connectivity to enable the ultimate user experience that Windows 10 could offer with the addition of Active Steering Technologies at the Platform level.
As a member of the Windows Insider Program I have had a while now to install, investigate and update the Windows 10 Technical Preview. I took a 12 year old HP Windows 7 PC and upgraded it to Windows 10. All of my hardware & programs worked flawlessly. The new browser (code named “Project Spartan” ) is really a big step forward in performance and functionality. Key features are built-in natively to the browser and their major purpose is to make web-services content easier to read, share and comment on.
Other more important revelations have to do with the stated goals of Microsoft regarding their key technology – Windows. According to the new CEO Satya Nadella, “Windows 10 marks the beginning of the more personal computing era in the mobile-first, cloud-first world.Our ambition is for the 1.5 billion people who are using Windows today to fall in love with Windows 10 and for billions more to decide to make Windows home.” If you look at the new offerings superimposed on the backdrop of existing “must have” applications, Microsoft seems determined to make itself through Windows the big dog in the internet services arena. According to Terry Myerson, “We think of Windows as a Service – in fact, one could reasonably think of Windows in the next couple of years as one of the largest Internet services on the planet.”
He continued to state that, “Windows 10 is the first step to an era of more personal computing. This vision framed our work on Windows 10, where we are moving Windows from its heritage of enabling a single device – the PC – to a world that is more mobile, natural and grounded in trust. We believe your experiences should be mobile – not just your devices. Technology should be out of the way and your apps, services and content should move with you across devices, seamlessly and easily. In our connected and transparent world, we know that people care deeply about privacy – and so do we. That’s why everything we do puts you in control – because you are our customer, not our product. We also believe that interacting with technology should be as natural as interacting with people – using voice, pen, gestures and even gaze for the right interaction, in the right way, at the right time. These concepts led our development and you saw them come to life today. “
This will create many new opportunities for HW & SW engineers to make the continuum user experiences a reality and increase monetization of proving add-ons to the Windows 10 new functionalities.
My firm has been engaged by one of the world’s largest small appliance manufacturing PRC-based companies to architect and implement a cloud/mobile/appliance IoT offering. This new small wine appliance will be launched in Q4 of 2014.
In fact this is an exciting project where WilQuest is Partnering with Microsoft, interKnowlogy, Tridea Partners and others to create a “Cloud of Things” CoT infrastructre where a global software/hardware engineering team is developing products on Azure,Windows 8, Android, iPhone, iPad, Intel and ARM platforms to create a seamless web srevices orchestration of devices and applications that each perform a segment of a task that the end user request via gesture/mouse/keyboard action.
Here is a copy of Ballmer’s internal email to all Microsoft employees:
From: Steve Ballmer To: MS FTEs Date: Sep. 2, 8:00 PM PDT (Sep. 3, 6:00 AM EET) Subject: Accelerating Growth
We announced some exciting news today: We have entered into an agreement to purchase Nokia’s Devices & Services business, which includes their smartphone and mobile phone businesses, their award-winning design team, manufacturing and assembly facilities around the world, and teams devoted to operations, sales, marketing and support.
For Microsoft, this is a bold step into the future and the next big phase of the transformation we announced on July 11.
We are very excited about the proposal to bring the best mobile device efforts of Microsoft and Nokia together. Our Windows Phone partnership over the past two and half years has yielded incredible work – the stunning Lumia 1020 is a great example. Our partnership has also yielded incredible growth. In fact, Nokia Windows Phones are the fastest-growing phones in the smartphone market.
Now is the time to build on this momentum and accelerate our share and profits in phones. Clearly, greater success with phones will strengthen the overall opportunity for us and our partners to deliver on our strategy to create a family of devices and services for individuals and businesses that empower people around the globe at home, at work and on the go, for the activities they value most.
This is a smart acquisition for Microsoft, and a good deal for both companies. We are receiving incredible talent, technology and IP. We’ve all seen the amazing work that Nokia and Microsoft have done together.
Given our long partnership with Nokia and the many key Nokia leaders that are joining Microsoft, we expect a smooth transition and great execution.
As is always the case with an acquisition, the first priority is to keep driving through close, which we expect in the first quarter of 2014, following approval by Nokia’s shareholders, regulatory approvals, and other closing conditions.
But I also know people will have some questions about what happens post-close. While details aren’t final, here is what we know, and how we’re generally approaching integration:
1. Stephen Elop will be coming back to Microsoft, and he will lead an expanded Devices team, which includes all of our current Devices and Studios work and most of the teams coming over from Nokia, reporting to me.
2. Julie Larson-Green will continue to run the Devices and Studios team, and will be focused on the big launches this fall including Xbox One and our Surface enhancements. Julie will be joining Stephen’s team once the acquisition closes, and will work with him to shape the new organization.
3. As part of the acquisition, a number of key engineering leaders will be joining Microsoft from Nokia, reporting to Stephen in his new capacity:
· Jo Harlow, who will continue to lead the Smart Devices team
· Timo Toikkanen, who will continue to lead the Mobile Phones team
· Stefan Pannenbecker, who will lead Design
· Juha Putkiranta, who will lead the integration effort on Nokia’s behalf
4. Regarding the sales team, we plan to keep the Nokia field team, led by Chris Weber, intact and as the nexus of the devices sales effort, so that we can continue to build sales momentum. After the deal closes, Chris and his team will be placed under Kevin Turner. We will develop a single integrated team that is selling to operators, and there may be other integration opportunities that we can pursue. Kevin will work with Chris Weber and Chris Capossela to make those plans.
5. Our operating system team under Terry Myerson will continue unchanged, with a mission of supporting both first-party and third-party hardware innovation. We are committed to working with partners, helping them build great products and great businesses on our platform, and we believe this deal will increase our partner value proposition over time. The established rhythms and ways of working between Terry and his team and the incoming Nokia team will serve us well to ensure that we do not disrupt our building momentum.
6. We are planning to integrate all global marketing under Tami Reller and Mark Penn. It is very important that we pursue a unified brand and advertising strategy as soon as possible.
7. Finance, Legal, HR, Communications, DX / Evangelism, Customer Care and Business Development will integrate functionally at Microsoft. Sourcing, customer logistics and supply chain will be part of Stephen’s Devices organization. ICM / IT will also integrate functionally for traditional IT roles. We will need to work through the implications for factory systems given the differing manufacturing processes and systems at both Nokia and Microsoft.
8. We plan to pursue a single set of supporting services for our devices, and we will figure out how to combine the great Nokia efforts into our Microsoft services as we go through the integration process.
9. There are no significant plans to shift where work is done in the world as we integrate, so we expect the Nokia teams to stay largely in place, geographically.
10. Tom Gibbons will lead the integration work for Microsoft.
While today’s announcement is big news, we have to stay heavily focused on running the current business. We have a huge fall and holiday season ahead of us, so we need to execute flawlessly and continue to drive our business forward. I have no doubt we will.