Insight Community

We're looking to get insights into how individuals and the workplace are changing due to an increasingly "mobile" workforce -- thanks to things like widespread laptop and mobile device usage, as well as wireless connectivity. These days, "working" no longer means "being in the office." People and employees have truly become "Digital Nomads." Over the next few weeks and months, we'll be hosting a series of cases exploring different aspects related to this new mobile workforce. Dell is sponsoring the conversations here, and the best results will be placed on a site sponsored by Dell: http://whitepaper.digitalnomads.com/. The content may later also be added to a whitepaper and a wiki on the subject. While Dell is sponsoring the conversation, the content is vendor neutral. Just provide your insights on the question at hand.

While a dispersed workforce has many advantages these days, it also creates some challenges: such as keeping workers on the same page and functioning as a team. There's no more watercooler to gather around, and a lot less informal chitchat over cubicle walls. What strategies have you taken to keep dispersed mobile teams on the same page and working productively as a team, rather than as a group of separate individuals? What strategies work best? Which sounded good but didn't live up to expectations? What other tools would make keeping a nomadic workforce even easier?

In general, as a guideline, answers should be around 500 words. That's not a definitive guideline, but that's about what we're expecting. You don't have to answer all of the questions here, but can pick just the one or two you feel you have the most insight on. Or, if you feel you can answer multiple ones in detail, feel free to write up separate insights.

Entries chosen to go on the site will get a share of the pot. The pot will be split depending on how many insights are chosen.

 

In April, we began a conversation around The Future of Storage with support from Dell.  Top insights in the community were posted to http://thefutureofstorage.com/ with some making it to Ars Technica and in ad promotions. We're looking to continue the conversation with good insight into any of the following topics: Virtualization, iSCSI, FCoE, deduplification, thin provisioning, encryption etc.  

The focus of this conversation is centered on the SAN market and its current and future directions, including the aforementioned areas.  To get an idea of the type of insights we're looking for, just look over http://thefutureofstorage.com/ to see some earlier posts. Please note that while that site is sponsored by Dell, the topic for discussion is not vendor specific.

In continuing this conversation, feel free to write about any topic in this space that you think would fit on the site, such as where you think the SAN market is heading. Alternatively, feel free to write thoughtful insights that address some of the points raised in earlier posts on The Future of Storage site.

For the purpose of encouraging discussion, here are a few topics that might be interesting to explore:

• What type of storage architectures (SAN, NAS, iSCSI, FC, DAS) work well for virtualized servers and why?
• What methods are best for accessing/provisioning storage with virtual systems (virtual group service, like VMWare? software function in the virutal system? raw device interface?)
• What backup methodologies make sense for virtual server environments?

If you have personal experience with any of these, or even just want to walk through your thought process in evaluating options, those tend to make for very interesting posts.

Also, as we look to continue this ongoing conversation, please let us know what other topics you think would be good to discuss in future months.

The insights selected to be on this site will each get a "share" of the bonus pool below. You can write multiple insights to get multiple shares.

PLEASE NOTE: We are looking for unique insights that delve into a single subject concerning this topic. Don't try to cover too many things in a single insight submission. Again, look over the existing Future of Storage site to get an idea of what's appropriate.

Like last time, please get your insights in early. We will be closing the case once we feel there are enough insights (somewhere between 10 and 20 insights).

Business analytics are playing an increasingly important role in helping companies gain the insight they need to make better decisions. How have you found this to be the case with your business? Please share your best examples with us of how analytics (CRM, dashboards, or other analytics capabilities) have improved the performance of your business. For an example, see this video clip by Malcolm Gladwell.

Responses for this case will be used in a whitepaper being created by Techdirt for TheCustomerCollective and included with the results of a survey we are hosting titled, "CRM Analytics."

Last month, we kicked off The Future of Storage conversation with Dell, and now we're continuing that conversation.

Top insights in the community are being posted to http://thefutureofstorage.com/ with some also getting posted to Ars Technica's website -- as well as in ad promotions for the site.

The focus of this conversation is centered on the SAN market and its current and future directions, including things like iSCSI, FCoE, deduplification, virtualization, thin provisioning, encryption, etc. We're looking for good insight into any of those topics. To get an idea of the type of insights we're looking for, just look over http://thefutureofstorage.com/ to see some earlier posts. While that site is sponsored by Dell, the topic for discussion is the SAN market in general -- and is not vendor specific.

In continuing this conversation, feel free to write about any topic in this space that you think would fit on the site, such as where you think the SAN market is heading. Alternatively, feel free to write thoughtful insights that address some of the points raised in earlier posts on The Future of Storage site.

• For example, some are saying that the market really isn't changing that much. Do you think that's true? If so, why, and is that an issue going forward? If not, why not?

http://thefutureofstorage.com/archives/24

• How important is simplicity vs. complexity?

http://thefutureofstorage.com/archives/22
http://thefutureofstorage.com/archives/6

• What about the ongoing discussion concerning FCoE?

http://thefutureofstorage.com/archives/28
http://thefutureofstorage.com/archives/32

Also, as we look to continue this ongoing conversation, feel free to email us what types of questions you think we should be asking in future months to keep the conversation going.

The insights selected to be on this site will each get a "share" of the bonus pool below. You can write multiple insights to get multiple shares.

PLEASE NOTE: We are looking for unique insights that delve into a single subject concerning this topic. Don't try to cover too many things in a single insight submission. Again, look over the existing Future of Storage site to get an idea of what's appropriate.

Like last time, please get your insights in early. We will be closing the case once we feel there are enough insights for the month (somewhere between 10 and 20 insights).

The Storage Area Network (SAN) market is rapidly changing with most of the focus on Ethernet vs. Fibre Channel, and iSCSI vs FCoE (Fibre Channel over Ethernet). Add to that the growing list of optimization features appearing in today's storage systems (thin provisioning, de-duplification, encryption to name a few). With so much dynamic change, Dell is kicking off an ongoing conversation regarding the SAN market and its current and future directions. We'd like to hear some views, insights, needs and concerns from every day IT users and how these technologies fit into future datacenter plans.

To start off, we're broadly interested in collecting educated opinions concerning SAN implementations and technology choices. Following this, we may delve deeper into specific issues and develop further discussions about storage products. Here are some initial questions to begin the discussion. It would be great to get your insight on these and other issues surrounding the SAN space.

• How do you see the current SAN market, and where do you think it's going? Feel free to highlight personal experiences.
• For FC users, will they wait for proposed FCoE products before the next upgrade, and if so, how long?
• What are the biggest pains around block storage -- performance? growth? management? How have you or those you know dealt with these?
• What are the storage implications when dealing with server virtualization?
• How does disaster recovery play into the SAN discussion? When dealing with disaster recovery are there better options for mirroring and data migration?
• Where do you think things stand with de-duplification? Is it ready for prime-time and why or why not? Where is that space heading and what impact will it have on the rest of the market?

Submissions for this Case do not need to be restricted to these questions only. We're looking to start a lively, on-going discussion, so if you have an interesting viewpoint regarding your SAN environment -- don't stay silent. Dell will be republishing the best results (with your name and a link to your site, if you wish) on a minisite that will be launched soon. Selected Insights will be placed on the new site and get a share of the available bonus. Submitted Insights should ideally be in a blog post format, but feel free to include graphs, charts or any supplemental materials to support your opinions. You can submit multiple insights to try to qualify for multiple shares. We will be closing this particular case once we feel there are enough initial insights (somewhere between 10 to 15) so please get your insights in early!

NOTE: You do not need to answer all of the questions. Pick one, two or however many you're comfortable with and discuss it in a few paragraphs.

Now that CES has ended, what lessons from the show are there for Wall Street? What investment opportunities (either long or short) should Wall Street be paying attention to within or related to the consumer electronics space? While a few more obvious names are okay, we're really looking for something beyond the big, obvious names or the big, obvious trends. Think a few levels deep about how the events at CES will come to impact other (perhaps less obvious) markets.

While there's been plenty of talk about the move to software-as-a-service, an equally interesting one may be hardware-as-a-service. Certainly, Sun and IBM have pushed for utility computing offerings -- and Amazon has done quite well with its EC2 offering. There's been talk for years that Google could get into the space as well.

However, even with all the ROI support that marketing folks from Sun and IBM throw around, it still seems risky. We're trying to understand if it makes sense for large IT organizations to look seriously at moving over to "on-demand" computing systems, or if it pays to wait. Under what conditions would it make sense and what are the biggest risks involved? If you were a consultant, in charge of making the case for or against a utility computing move to a Fortune 500 company (recognizing that there are different issues involved with every individual company) what key points would you focus on?

Clarification: This is about making the case for the company to *using* utility computing, rather than offering it as a service.

A major IT vendor is trying to figure out how it can take advantage of the growth in the online game sector. It needs to determine what the global demand is for online games that require highly scalable infrastructure (Massive Multiplayer Online Games such as World of Warcraft and online leisure games, but not console games).

This vendor is trying to learn who the major online game operators are, where they are located (region or major country) and what the market capitalization of these companies is. They also want to determine how much these companies spend on systems, hosting and storage. (Please provide the source for any data you use in your response).

Who should be the largest or fastest-growing customers that this vendor should target? Who are the key hosting companies for online games? What equipment are these companies buying? Are there any specific strategies that you would recommend for a company looking to play a major role in this market?

Clarification: The sponsor for this Case is interested in IT infrastructure such as servers, processors, OSes, hard drive storage -- hosting equipment that can be bundled and packaged with management software, etc.

There's been plenty of attention paid to Facebook's new Beacon advertising system -- much of it negative. People became reasonably upset over what they saw as intrusive and unwanted sharing of information concerning things such as purchases. Many brands have since backed away from Beacon. However, Facebook has made a number of changes to the program, making it possible to opt-out entirely and making sure that people clearly had control over what information is posted and what is not.

Now that those changes are in place, does it make sense for a consumer-facing company to sign on to Beacon -- or has the program forever been tarnished? How should we approach using Beacon? In an ideal world, we would like for it to be a way for fans of our products to pass on effective "endorsements" of the product, but we do not want to be seen as doing something intrusive or upsetting. If not Beacon, is there a better way to do this either within Facebook or through a different platform?

The wireless technology landscape is rapidly changing in the US. Verizon Wireless is opening up and moving to LTE. Google is bidding on spectrum and invading the mobile OS business. Apple has become a massive player in the device space. Sprint is searching for a strategy. There are a lot of big changes happening.

Everyone's talking about how this will impact these big players, but we're interested in how this will filter through down the line from a financial perspective. Which suppliers/vendors/customers/retailers/partners are likely to benefit from these changes and how? We're looking for concrete examples (i.e., Lucent will benefit because everyone will need its equipment or Wal-Mart will benefit because it will be able to squeeze even more margins) with backed up explanations.

When the subprime crunch hit the mortgage industry, there were some who felt that it would be a good thing for tech stocks, as investors would start to park their money in the tech world again. Everyone knew it could still directly impact some firms that had financial exposure, such as the troubles E*Trade is now experiencing. However, it certainly comes as a surprise to many to hear that EchoStar, provider of the DISH Network satellite TV service, is facing increasing churn due to the subprime mess. Since EchoStar often targeted the low end of the market, the feeling is that its customers may be disproportionately hit by foreclosures and subprime-related issues.

This could serve as a proxy for other "hidden" subprime problem tech companies. Are there other publicly traded companies who most people wouldn't normally associate with mortgages who may be impacted by the trouble in the mortgage industry? For each company you name, please describe why you think they're likely to be impacted by the troubles in the mortgage industry.

LetsTalk's PhoneTalk blog wants to add new voices to its website, and they're posting regular issues here for the Techdirt Insight Community to add interesting new content to their site. The winning submissions for each challenge will be posted (perhaps with some editing) on the PhoneTalk blog -- with credits to the author. The following is LetsTalk's next assignment:

Apple has received some publicity for its plans to support third party applications for the iPhone, with Apple noting that the iPhone platform will try to protect its users from malware. As mobile phones adopt "real" Internet browsers and applications that offer a desktop-like experience, the concerns for mobile phone security will presumably become more prominent. So what kind of security threats should mobile phone users be aware of -- before the mobile malware onslaught really occurs? Don't restrict the discussion to the iPhone -- Bluetooth threats, WiFi insecurity, and all sorts of phone malware should be addressed.

Note: The top insights for this issue will be selected as they are submitted. So there is no exact deadline for submissions, but the earlier you submit, the earlier LetsTalk can review your work. For example, it's possible that LetsTalk may select the first three entries. However, no submissions will be accepted after the expiration date.

Google has received quite a bit of attention for the beginnings of its office productivity suite that can operate collaboratively online (as well as offline with Google Gears). But there are already several non-Microsoft office suites that are much more mature than Google's current office apps. However, by adding the weight of its brand to the Web2.0 productivity market, Google has apparently stolen the "thunder" of the upstarts who were pitching stones at Microsoft. As one of these alternative office suite developers,

1) What are the weaknesses of Google Docs & Spreadsheets?

2) How does a smaller office software firm promote itself with two giants in the same arena?