Friday, June 3rd, 2016

Time	Event
12:00p	Friday Funny: A Data Center Safety Net Here’s the cartoon for this month’s Data Center Knowledge caption contest. Here’s how it works: Diane Alber, the Arizona artist who created Kip and Gary, creates a cartoon, and we challenge our readers to submit the funniest, most clever caption they think will be a fit. Then we ask our readers to vote for the best submission and the winner receives a signed print of the cartoon. Submit your caption for the cartoon above in the comments. Congratulations to Todd, whose caption won the Tall Cabinets edition of the contest. His caption was: “So the National Basketball Association is our newest client, huh?” Some good submissions came in for last month’s Herding Cats edition – all we need now is a winner. Help us out by submitting your vote below! What should the bubble say? Take Our Poll For previous cartoons on DCK, see our Humor Channel. And for more of Diane’s work, visit Kip and Gary’s website! (Comment on this)
4:21p	Microsoft Mulls Sales Force Revamp to Speed Shift to Cloud (Bloomberg) — Board members at Microsoft are grappling with a growing concern: that the company’s traditional software business, which makes up the majority of its sales, could evaporate in a matter of years — and Chairman John Thompson is pushing for a more aggressive shift into newer cloud-based products. Thompson said he and the board are pleased with a push by CEO Satya Nadella to make more money from software and services delivered over the internet, but want it to move much faster. They’re considering ideas like increasing spending, overhauling the sales force and managing partnerships differently to step up the pace. The cloud growth isn’t merely nice to have — it’s critical against the backdrop of declining demand for what’s known as on-premise software programs, the more traditional approach that involves installing software on a company’s own computers and networks. No one knows exactly how quickly sales of those legacy offerings will drop off, Thompson said, but it’s “inevitable that part of our business will be under continued pressure.” Read more: Microsoft Ramps Up Cloud Data Center Spend The board members’ concern was born from experience. Thompson recounts how fellow director Chuck Noski, a former chief financial officer of AT&T, watched the telecom carrier’s traditional wireline business evaporate in just three years as the world shifted to mobile. Now, Noski and Thompson are asking whether something similar could happen to Microsoft. “What’s the likelihood that could happen with on-prem versus cloud? That in three years, we look up and it’s gone?” Thompson said in an interview, snapping his fingers to make the point. Small, but Growing Nadella has said the company is on track to make its forecast for $20 billion in annualized sales from commercial cloud products in fiscal 2018. Still, Thompson said, the cloud business could be even further along, and the software maker should have started its push much earlier. Commercial cloud services revenue has posted impressive growth rates — with Azure product sales rising more than 100 percent quarterly — but the total business contributed just $5.8 billion of Microsoft’s $93.6 billion in sales in the latest fiscal year. Thompson praised the technology behind smaller cloud products, such as Power BI tools for business analysis and data visualization and the enterprise mobile management service, which delivers apps and data to various corporate devices. But the latter, for example, brings in $300 million a year — just a sliver of overall annual revenue, which will soon top $100 billion, Thompson said. The board is examining whether Microsoft has invested enough in its complete cloud lineup, Thompson said. It’s not just about developing better cloud technology — it’s a question of how the company sells those products and its strategy for recruiting partners to resell Microsoft’s services and build their own offerings on top of them. Persuading partners to develop compatible applications is a strong point for cloud market leader Amazon, he said. Thompson declined to be specific about what the company might change in sales and partnerships, but he said the company may need to “re-imagine” those organizations. “The question is, should it be more?” he said. “If you believe we need to run harder, run faster, be less risk-averse as a mantra, the question is how much more do you do.” Cloud Partnerships Analysts say Microsoft should seek to develop a deeper bench of partners making software for Azure and consultants to install and manage those services for customers who need the help. Microsoft is working on this, but is behind Amazon Web Services, said Lydia Leong, an analyst at Gartner. “They are nowhere near at the same level of sophistication, and the Microsoft partners are mostly new to the Azure ecosystem, so they don’t know it as well,” she said. “If you’re a customer and you want to migrate to AWS, you have this massive army that can help you.” In the sales force, Microsoft’s representatives need more experience in cloud deals — which are generally subscription-based rather than one-time purchases — and how they differ from traditional software contracts, said Matt McIlwain, managing director at Seattle’s Madrona Venture Partners. “They haven’t made enough of a transition to a cloud-based selling motion,” he said. “It’s still a work in progress.” Microsoft declined to comment on the company’s cloud strategy or any changes to sales and partnerships for this story, and director Noski couldn’t be reached for comment. One-Time Purchases The company’s dependence on demand for traditional software was painfully apparent in its most recent quarterly report, when revenue was weighed down by weakness in its transactional business, or one-time purchases of software that customers store and run on their own PCs and networks. Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood in April said that lackluster transactional sales were likely to continue. Microsoft’s two biggest cloud businesses are the Azure web-based service, which trails top provider Amazon but leads Google and IBM, and the Office 365 cloud versions of e-mail, collaboration software, word-processing and spreadsheet software. Microsoft’s key on-premise products include Windows Server and traditional versions of Office and the SQL database server. Slumps like last quarter’s hurt even more amid the company’s shift to the cloud, which has brought a lot of changes to its financial reporting. For cloud deals, revenue is recognized over the term of the deal rather than providing an up-front boost. They’re also lower-margin businesses, squeezed by the cost of building and maintaining data centers to deliver the services. Microsoft’s gross margin dropped from 80 percent in fiscal 2010 to 65 percent in the year that ended June 30, 2015. “This business growing incredibly well, but the gross margin of that is substantially lower than their core products of the olden days,” said Anurag Rana, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. “How low do they go?” ‘Different Model’ It’s jarring for some investors, but the other option is worse, said Thompson. “That’s a very different model for Microsoft and one our investors are going to have to suck it up and embrace, because the alternative is don’t embrace the cloud and you wake up one day and you look just like — guess who?” Thompson doesn’t finish the sentence, but makes it clear he’s referring to IBM, the company where he spent more than 27 years, which he says is “not relevant anymore.” IBM declined to comment. The pressure is good for Microsoft, Thompson said — pressure tends to result in change. “You can re-imagine things when you’re stressed. It’s a lot easier to do it when you’re stressed because you feel compelled to do something,” Thompson said. “I see a lot of stress at Microsoft.” (Comment on this)
6:14p	Digital Realty Launches Second Singapore Data Center Digital Realty Trust has launched its second data center in Singapore, one of Asia’s most important data center markets. The data center, called Digital Loyang Way, is located on the east edge of the island and will be connected to Digital’s Jurong data center on the west side — where Facebook is a customer — by dedicated fiber links and links operated and used by multiple service providers. It will provide network access to top global carriers and the Singapore Internet Exchange. The nearly 180,000-square foot facility can support more than 13MW of IT load, the company said in a statement issued this week. Digital is bringing capacity online in a relatively small but high-demand data center market, where it is faced with growing competition. Just last month, local telco Singapore Technologies Telemedia agreed to acquire a majority stake in the Singapore and India data center business of the Indian giant Tata Communications, giving it control of three data centers in Singapore and 14 in India. ST Telemedia has global data center services ambitions, which it started to execute on in Singapore last year by kicking off construction of a 150,000-square foot facility on the island and then buying a majority stake in a company behind another big data center construction project in Singapore called MediaHub. The size of Singapore’s data center market was close to $1 billion in 2014, according to analysts at Structure Research. The firm expects it to surpass $1.2 billion this year, driven by its status as a major network interconnection hub for the entire Asia Pacific region and one of two key network gateways to mainland China. The other one is Hong Kong. By Structure’s estimates, Singtel, another Singapore telco, was the biggest data center provider on the island, followed by Equinix, which is both a competitor and a major customer of Digital’s. Other top players are Global Switch and Keppel. Read more: Why the Singapore Data Center Market is Booming (Comment on this)
6:35p	Women in Tech: Power and Profits Brought to You by The WHIR A 2016 Peterson Institute study concluded that inclusion of women in leadership roles has a positive impact on company profits. It surveyed 21,980 companies globally across 91 countries and found that companies that had at least 2 women in executive positions in the C-Suite and 2 women in board positions actually had higher profitability than those that didn’t have this diversity. The highest statistical correlation appeared in the C-Suite executive roles. Research shows that a gender-diverse workforce leads to a more inclusive organizational culture which has incredible power to build increased profits for organizations. Diversity and inclusion have become a powerful tool in a company’s business strategy for success. HostingCon education has always focused on new ideas to increase profits and revenue for the cloud and service provider ecosystem. To that end, the Internet Infrastructure Coalition is sponsoring the panel, “Connecting With Regional Groups To Improve Your Company’s Diversity” moderated by hosting industry leader Elizabeth Kurek, Director of Channel Marketing, Virtuozzo. A study from Catalyst.org, a known authority on women in business, cites four qualities of being an inclusive leader: empowerment, accountability, courage, and humility. Being an inclusive leader means you create a workplace culture where employees feel connected and supported. Inclusive leaders foster innovation and creativity, and an opportunity for everyone to advance and thrive within the organization. Are you an Inclusive Leader? Here are the attributes: Are you an Inclusive Leader? Here are the attributes: Empowerment – Inclusive leaders encourage team members to solve problems, not just do a job. They want their team to have new ideas and develop skills that will empower them to be a better resource for the whole organization. Accountability – Inclusive leaders are confident in their team. They don’t micro-manage but, instead, hold them responsible for their performance. They let them own the responsibilities and have control over the outcomes. Humility – Inclusive leaders are open to input and feedback. They can admit mistakes and learn from them. They will know their own limitations and seek assistance from others to overcome and be successful. Courage – Inclusive leaders will put aside their personal interests to achieve what needs to be done. They are not afraid to do what is right, and will often take some risks to ensure the correct outcome. An inclusive leader will foster a workplace where diversity is valued, and where women can find a balanced organization. However, a single inclusive leader can’t change an entire organization. There needs to be top-down sponsorship at the senior level in organizations to really drive and sustain a culture of inclusion and a balanced workforce. Organizations need to build a culture in teams that celebrates the collective brilliance of the organization. Successes and failures should be celebrated. Cultures that embrace innovation, experiment with pilots and new ideas and improve along the way will create an atmosphere for success. There are several things specific things any organization can do to build a culture of inclusion. Attract Female Candidates – One of the simplest things you can do is targeted recruitment programs to have more women candidates for open roles in the organization. Being deliberate in the organization about hiring positions that can have inclusion benefits is important. Identify Internal Talent – Be on the lookout for women to mentor into roles with additional responsibility and cross functional training. Identifying talent early and developing them inside the organization will greatly benefit your efforts of inclusion. Enable Women into the Executive and Board Level – Building women into management roles, hiring at least 2 executives into your C-suite, and ensuring your corporate or advisory board has at least 2 women are all techniques to enable an inclusive and ultimately more successful organization. Here are a few resources to enable the success of tech men and women together in the workplace: Global cause for social good at http://heforshe.org/en The authoritative agency on women: http://www.catalyst.org The 20 by 2020 initiative – 20% women in America on public company corporate boards https://www.2020wob.com Training for women executives, women in business, mentoring forums: www.ccle.org Growing program to teach middle school girls to like and value technology (when they learn and love it at this age, they are more likely to enter the field later) : www.techgirlz.org Inclusion is a trait to be valued throughout an entire organization. Being an inclusive leader and taking proactive steps to be inclusive as an organization are great ways to help promote women in tech. Done well, any organization can find its way to increased success and higher profitability by employing these techniques. This article is brought to you by HostingCon, the Cloud and Service Provider Ecosystem event. Join us in New Orleans, Louisiana July 24-27, 2016 to hear Theresa and other thought leaders talk about issues and trends in the cloud, hosting and service provider ecosystem.Save $100 off your HostingCon All Access Pass with coupon code: H1279 This first ran at http://www.thewhir.com/blog/the-power-and-profitability-of-women-in-tech (Comment on this)

<< Previous Day

2016/06/03 [Calendar]

Next Day >>