Controlling cloud spending is a priority as companies shift to the public cloud Managing the cloud bill is a priority as companies shift to cloud services. Because the easy-to-deploy, pay-per-use services introduce unfamiliar variables into the finance equation. Previously, you enjoyed long term commitments with predictable capex, but now you face variable opex.  Furthermore, new cost drivers

Public cloud acceleration due to Covid-19 Covid-19 is accelerating the shift to cloud computing, according to Flexera’s 2021 State of Tech Spend Report. Moreover, this public cloud acceleration will probably continue because in almost half of the organizations the willingness to move to the cloud has further increased. In particular public cloud is benefiting. The majority of

Software license audits are up! Already in 2020, several software vendors devised their own medicine to fight the crisis. However their medicine came with side effects. The Register reported in “Apologies for the wait, we’re overwhelmed. Yes, this is the hospital. You need to what?! Do a software license audit?” some of their practices with

Digital transformation is accelerating In 2020, the pandemic triggered a very remarkable acceleration of ‘digital’ and ‘cloud’. In October, McKinsey put this in a telling perspective. It expressed this acceleration in compressed lead times. Changes that used to take several years, suddenly took a few months: In just a few months’ time, the COVID-19 crisis

Hypergrowth in the public cloud: add 5000 servers a night on AWS We have read about the spectacular growth of several collaboration platforms as we started to work from home in 2020. An example is Zoom; it grew particularly fast as underlined by its quarter 3 2020 results. Revenues were up 370% YOY. For a

In Dial ‘M1’ for Murder Google Ventures partner M.G. Siegler comments on the release of new macs based on Apple Silicon: Apple just killed Intel Corporation, and Microsoft Windows laptops are on life support.…This wasn’t a big deal, it was a massive deal. If Apple can live up to the performance claims they made on

Lydia Leong (Distinguished VP and Analyst with Gartner for Technical Professionals) posted this article last week “Beware of vendors bearing transformation Turkish Delight”. In it, she warns customers to be weary of vendors promising the world by helping you undergo digital transformation.  Because the cloud is such a key enabling technology for digital business, I have plenty of discussions

Changes in Microsoft behaviour? Old habits die hard On its most recent issue, The Economist posts a revealing article about Microsoft under Nadella. In particular, it has some harsh observations about a persistent culture that has also infected its cloud business: Up to now Microsoft let customers use its software on dedicated servers run by

IBM is splitting up! With the recent announcement of its split up, interest in IBM is up. In particular, interest in its cloud business. This business was covered earlier this year in a post about Gartner’s 2020 ‘Magic Quadrant for Cloud infrastructure and Platform Services’. In this Magic Quadrant, IBM has been dangling at the