Enterprise Software Musings by Holger Mueller

At CloudWorld today, Oracle announced additional capability on the road to self-driving technology stacks, the Oracle Cloud Platform Autonomous Services.

Important enough to dissect the press release in our customary style, it can be found here:

Oracle President of Product Development Thomas Kurian demonstrated the latest advances in Oracle Cloud Platform, expanding its Oracle Cloud Platform Autonomous Services beyond the Oracle Autonomous Database, to make all Oracle Cloud Platform services self-driving, self-securing and self-repairing. With its enhanced suite of autonomous Cloud Platform services, Oracle is setting a new industry standard for autonomous cloud capabilities. Oracle is applying AI and machine learning to its entire next-generation Cloud Platform services to help customers lower cost, reduce risk, accelerate innovation, and get predictive insights.
MyPOV – When Ellison announced the self-autonomous database at Oracle OpenWorld in fall 2017, something was missing: The application of the same principles to the overall technology stack. After all – what is an autonomous database good for, when it gets compromised by network security issues that do not have the benefits of autonomous capabilities. So, this is a key follow up announcement.

As organizations focus on delivering innovation fast, they want a secure set of comprehensive, integrated cloud services to build new applications and run their most demanding enterprise workloads. Only Oracle’s cloud services can automate key operational functions like tuning, patching, backups and upgrades while running to deliver maximum performance, high availability, and secure enterprise IT systems. In addition, to accelerate innovation and smarter decision making, Oracle Cloud Platform is incorporating additional autonomous capabilities specific to application development, mobile and bots, app and data integration, analytics, security and management.
MyPOV – Good description. Usual ‘only Oracle’ claims, that others will be able to contest, taking away credit from the overall holistic approach by Oracle that is truly unique. Other vendors focus on single areas like e.g. security, server access, DevOps etc.

“The future of tomorrow’s successful enterprise IT organization is in full end-to-end automation,” said Kurian. “At Oracle, we are making this a reality. We are weaving autonomous capabilities into the fabric of our cloud to help customers safeguard their systems, drive innovation faster, and deliver the ultimate competitive advantage with smarter real-time decisions.”
MyPOV – Good quote from Kurian about what Oracle plans to do / is doing. The key point is the benefit that mundane and routine tasks are going away, freeing up resources for other priorities.

Oracle’s autonomous capabilities are integral to the entire Oracle Cloud Platform, including the world’s first autonomous database unveiled at Oracle OpenWorld. The Oracle Autonomous Database uses advanced AI and machine learning to eliminate human labor, human error and manual tuning delivering unprecedented availability, high performance and security at a much lower cost. Multiple autonomous database services, each tuned to a specific workload, will be available in 2018, including Oracle Autonomous Data Warehouse Cloud Service for analytics, Oracle Autonomous Database OLTP for transactional and mixed workloads, and Oracle Autonomous NoSQL Database for fast, massive-scale reads and writes.
MyPOV – Good summary reaching back to OpenWorld, but also a reminder that the autonomous database is still all about future capabilities to be shipped in 2018.

In addition to the Oracle Autonomous Database, Oracle Cloud Platform autonomous capabilities for application development, mobile and bots, integration, analytics, security and system management, are scheduled to be available in the first half of calendar year 2018. Oracle Cloud Platform services all share foundational autonomous capabilities including:
MyPOV – Important information here – all the below capabilities seem to be catching up to the database announcement, which means that Oracle likely has held back on the announcement and building capabilities in quiet… notice though that none capabilities are explicitly mentioned.

• Self-Driving to Lower Costs and Increase Productivity: Eliminate human labor to provision, secure, monitor, backup, recover and troubleshoot. Automatically upgrade and patch itself while running. Instantly grow and shrink compute or storage without downtime.

• Self-Securing to Lower Risk: Protect from external attacks and malicious internal users. Automatically apply security updates while running to protect against cyberattacks, and automatically encrypt all data.

• Self-Repairing for Higher Availability: Provide automated protection from all planned and unplanned downtime with up to 99.995 percent availability, resulting in less than 2.5 minutes of downtime per month including planned maintenance.
MyPOV – Good summary of the benefits of a self-driving platform – or as Oracle calls it an autonomous platform. The good news for customers here is that it’s a win / win for them as providers – like Oracle – try to improve availability and increase SLAs.

Examples of additional autonomous capabilities being added to functional areas across the rest of the Oracle Cloud Platform include:

Application Development

• Automated artifact discovery, dependency management, and policy-based dependency updates increasing code quality and developer productivity

• Automated identification and remediation of security issues throughout the CI/CD pipeline significantly reducing security risks

• Automated code generation with single button deployment enabling rapid application development even by line of business users
MyPOV – Increasing developer productivity and automating the code production pipeline is key for enterprises, as they become software companies and need to build more software faster.

Mobile and Bots

• Self-learning chatbots observing interaction patterns and preferences to automate frequently performed end-user actions freeing up time for higher productivity tasks

• Unsupervised, smart bots using machine learning to learn from user conversations enabling fluid, contextual conversations

• Automated caching of API calls to the nearest data center in real time for lowest latency responses based on end user location
MyPOV – Voice is the new UI was a slogan some years ago, and the underlying benefits are still strong, it’s the providers of platforms who have made it hard for enterprises to build them – and then to maintain and updated them. More self-driving bot capabilities are a good move by Oracle.

Application and Data Integration

• Self-defining integrations automate business processes across different SaaS and on-premises apps

• Self-defining data flows with automated data lake and data prep pipeline creation for ingesting data (streaming and batch)
MyPOV - Self Driving application and data integration are a no brainer for vendors in this space, and several announcements have been made, good to see Oracle joining the trend.

Analytics

• Automated data discovery and preparation

• Automated analysis for key findings along with visualization and narration delivering quicker real time insights
MyPOV – Same as for data integration, one can only hope that in the near-term future an expensive, white collar worker does not have to spend time to chart a timeline and business data in tool. It’s time to see this capability in action.

Security and Management

• Machine learning-driven user and entity behavior analytics to automatically isolate and eliminate suspicious and malicious users

• Preventative controls to intercept data leaks across structured and unstructured data repositories

• Unified data repository across log, performance, user experience and configuration data with applied AI/ML, eliminating need to set and manage performance and security monitoring “metadata” such as thresholds, server topology, and configuration drift
MyPOV – The traditional area where most of the activity of vendors, good for Oracle customers to see Oracle catching up here.

Oracle today also demonstrated a single Oracle Digital Assistant for users to interact across Oracle’s SaaS and PaaS services including analytics. Oracle Digital Assistant provides centralized connection for the user to converse across the user’s CRM, ERP, HCM, custom applications and business intelligence data and uses AI to intelligently correlate data and automate user behavior. Oracle Digital Assistant capabilities include:

• Integration to speech-based devices like Amazon Echo (Alexa), Apple Siri, Google Home and Speech, Harman Kardon (Cortana), and Microsoft Cortana

• Deep neural net based machine learning algorithms to process the message from the voice based devices to understand end user input and take action

• Intelligent routing to the Bot with the knowledge to process the end user input

• Deep insights into user behavior, context, preferences and routines that is used by the Oracle Digital Assistant to self-learn to recommend and automate across all data sets on behalf of the user
MyPOV – This maybe the more important announcement. The ability to be build bots and use all the leading speech recognition platforms is important for enterprises. Even more interesting (and important) is the reference for neural network support. More details are needed though – what type of neural network and where do they run. Does it have deep learning ability (because that is what self-driving applied to neural network means).

[…]

Overall MyPOV

Oracle could not stop with the autonomous database, the whole autonomous stack is needed, with forays into PaaS, changing the SDLC fundamentally. That was a missing part on the vision and it is good to see Oracle making up with this announcement at Oracle Cloud World. Now Oracle has to deliver in 2018, we will see how much will happen in this FY (ending in May).

More important is the assistant announcement – as it refers to a neural network – void the details though. All the autonomous capabilities need to be powered by a neural network, a deep learning one ideally (as it would not be autonomous otherwise) and exposing it in assistants is a good start.

On the concern side, Oracle that just had its stack together, has to do back to the drawing board and bolt on machine learning capabilities to realize the vision of a self-driving stack as well as fundamentally changing how software is created, integrated, and finally how data is moved, interfaced and analyzed. It’s a great test of the design principles of the Oracle stack – and a validation if it is really as API driven as Oracle has said in the past. Speed of Oracle providing these autonomous features will be the proof… the timelines are aggressive – making me mildly optimistic.

But for now, exciting times. Oracle came late to cloud, and who comes late must have some serious point of attraction to get attention of the party goers. Self-driving or autonomous as Oracle calls it definitively has that – so well done. Remarkably the usual competitors have not yet matched the Oracle vision. But it’s early in the year and I expect similar offerings from all infrastructure and platform players to come out later this year. Stay tuned, exciting times.

More on Oracle:

Event Report - Oracle Open World 2017 - Top 3 Positives / Top 3 Concerns - Overall good - read here

News Analysis - Oracle Unveils New Programs that Transform how Customers Buy and Consume Cloud – Gloves Off - read here

Summer 2017 News Analysis - Oracle invests in IaaS (or at least CAPEX) - read here

News Analysis - Oracle empties the barrel - Revolver style (6) Cloud News Analyses - read here

Musings - Does Oracle and Accenture make sense - or never ever! - read here

Progress Report - Oracle HCM Analyst Summit 2017 - Oracle HCM stronger and stronger - read here

Event Report - Oracle OpenWorld - the HCM perspective - Almost no news, but wait... - read here.

First Take - Early Oracle OpenWorld 2016 Keynotes - read here

Event Preview - Oracle OpenWorld 2016 - What to expect, what to watch for ... will IaaS start Clicking? - read here

Market Move - Oracle acquires NetSuite - Oddly consolidation means more options for customers - read here

News Analysis - Oracle Unveils Suite of Breakthrough Services.. or short: Oracle Cloud Machine - read here

Progress Report - Oracle Cloud - More ready than ever, now needs adoption - read here

Event Report - Oracle Openworld 2015 - Top 3 Takeaways, Top 3 Positives & Concerns - read here

News Analysis - Quick Take on all 22 press releases of Oracle OpenWorld Day #1 - #3 - read here

First Take - Oracle OpenWorld - Day 1 Keynote - Top 3 Takeaways - read here

Event Preview - Oracle Openworld - watch here

Future of Work / HCM / SaaS research:

Event Report - Oracle HCM World - Innovation around the Core - read here

Event Report - Oracle HCM World - Full Steam ahead, a Learning surprise and potential growth challenges - read here

First Take - Oracle HCM World Day #1 Keynote - off to a good start - read here

Progress Report - Oracle HCM gathers momentum - now it needs to build on that - read here

Oracle pushes modern HR - there is more than technology - read here. (Takeaways from the recent HCMWorld conference).

Why Applications Unlimited is good a good strategy for Oracle customers and Oracle - read here.

Also worth a look for the full picture

Event Report - Oracle PaaS Event - 6 PaaS Services become available, many more announced - read here

Progress Report - Oracle Cloud makes progress - but key work remains in the cellar - read here

News Analysis - Oracle discovers the power of the two socket server - or: A pivot that wasn't one - TCO still rules - read here

Market Move - Oracle buys Datalogix - moves more into DaaS - read here

Event Report - Oracle Openworld - Oracle's vision and remaining work become clear - they are both big - read here

Constellation Research Video Takeaways of Oracle Openworld 2014 - watch here

Is it all coming together for Oracle in 2014? Read here.

From the fences - Oracle AR Meeting takeaways - read here (this was the last analyst meeting in spring 2013)

Takeaways from Oracle CloudWorld LA - read here (this was one of the first cloud world events overall, in January 2013)

And if you want to read more of my findings on Oracle technology - I suggest:

Progress Report - Good cloud progress at Oracle and a two step program - read here.

Oracle integrates products to create its Foundation for Cloud Applications - read here.

Java grows up to the enterprise - read here.

1st take - Oracle in memory option for its database - very organic - read here.

Oracle 12c makes the database elastic - read here.

How the cloud can make the unlikeliest bedfellows - read here.

Act I - Oracle and Microsoft partner for the cloud - read here.

Act II - The cloud changes everything - Oracle and Salesforce.com - read here.

Act III - The cloud changes everything - Oracle and Netsuite with a touch of Deloitte - read here.

Find more coverage on the Constellation Research website here and checkout my magazine on Flipboard and my YouTube channel here.

We had the opportunity to attend Microsoft’s first Business Applications analyst meeting, in Seattle on February 11th till 12th 2018, held at its HQ in Seattle. The event was well attended with over 30 analysts, including my colleagues Cindy Zhou, Dion Hinchcliffe and Ray Wang, look for their findings of the event here.

Prefer watching over reading – here is my short video summary (if it doesn’t show up, check here):

Here is the 1 slide condensation (if the slide doesn’t show up, check here):

Progress Report - Microsoft has platformed its Business Apps on Azure and PaaS to enable the digital feedback loop from Holger Mueller

Want to read on? Here you go:

The Digital Feedback Loop

All vendors need some thought leadership piece de resistance where to align their offerings around, and for the Microsoft Business Apps team it is digital transformation and there specifically supporting the digital feedback loop. Unsurprisingly it features the product areas where Microsoft has most SaaS support – around People, Customers and Products with Data and AI / Intelligence at its core.

Microsoft Business Apps Holger Mueller Constellation Research

Microsoft's new TriFoil: The Digital Feedback Loop with People, Customers and Products
Source: Twitter (@holgermu)

MyPOV– Good to see People / HR prominently, Digital Transformation is a pitch that is aging fast to hang your hat on as a SaaS vendor, but it seems to work for Microsoft (seeing the reaction from customers recently, it looks this is a mainstream concern for the target group, always a good reality check). If “products” flies well for the services target group remains to be seen. For traditional ERP the Finance decision makers may not see their ‘home’ right away. But we will see more of the feedback loop from Microsoft this year, likely with some tweaks.

The Platform as the Differentiator

SaaS has arrived on PaaS (and IaaS) – Microsoft has moved all its Business Applications (aka MSFT Dynamics) to the its Azure IaaS and PaaS stack, starting with a new unified user experience. Under the hood, the suite now takes advantage of PowerBI for analytics, PowerApps and Flow for low code / no code extension and customization, and there is a data fabric underneath the whole suite. The latter wasn’t shared, as weren’t too many details on the ongoing integration of the 3 graphs (see below) as well as integration with Office (and there notably Teams).

The Microsoft Marketecture
Source: Twitter (@holgermu)

MyPOV– It’s always hard for SaaS vendors with a PaaS and IaaS to use the latest PaaS / IaaS capabilities. The latter products move faster than traditional enterprise applications and re-certifying the SaaS suite on them takes time and resources. Nonetheless Microsoft has achieved that, which may explain the relatively few functional highlights on the roadmap for the rest of the year. But Microsoft is doing what everybody expects – prospects and clients – that is that all Microsoft products work together in a consistent and synergetic way. The resulting differentiation and efficiencies will be appreciated by customers and prospects.

The Graph Data Differentiator

Windows, Office and LinkedIn – Microsoft is combining three massive graphs at the moment: The Windows graph (devices, networks, logins etc.), the Office graph (all your documents, OneDrive, Teams (?) and the LinkedIn graph. Conceptually there needs to be a Microsoft Business Apps graph (or a customer graph etc.) as well, but wasn’t mentioned. Combining these and exposing these are substantial engineering, architecture and usability challenges. Not to mention the privacy aspect. But Microsoft is in the process and I guess it will be later in the year where we will learn more about this in detail. The usual feature shown was the LinkedIn Sales Navigator – but that is an older integration, even from the time before Microsoft acquired LinkedIn.

Alysa Taylor walks by the 3 Graphs - Windows, Office and LinkedIn
Source: Twitter (@holgermu)

MyPOV– A very compelling undertaking by Microsoft, finally delivering on its founder’s vision of “Information at your Fingertips”. Without the connective tissue of a multi-dimensional graphs, that cannot work and today we know that it could not have worked (in today’s scope) back then. Kudos for Microsoft to tackle the problem now, with CosmosDB playing a key architecture role (not mentioned at this meeting, interestingly). There are almost infinite opportunities and benefits for users from this, they have to be made more tangible by Microsoft going forward, across the product portfolio. 2018 should be the year where this offering is ripe enough.

Finally a HCM Story: Microsoft Talent

Pressed in time, but nonetheless (finally) present was Microsoft’s HCM story – starting with Microsoft Talent. A good place to start, given the LinkedIn acquisition. It also includes key HR Core capabilities which the Talent product name does not pay justice. As well as partnerships in the payroll space, starting with Ceridian (I expect more to follow this year).

The Digital Feedback Loop - People Dimension Details
Source: Twitter (@holgermu)

MyPOV – A key area to address by Microsoft, even before LinkedIn. You cannot run an enterprise ignoring the biggest expense (and investment) for an enterprise, people. But Microsoft is not acting as a Top 3 (maybe even #1) HCM vendor – just based on the LinkedIn revenues. LinkedIn is de-factor an HR software company, probably larger than SAP and Oracle (who don’t break out revenues) with a small sliver of Talent Management, Talent Acquisition. Clarifying the road forward between the Microsoft and LinkedIn HCM roadmaps is going to be key portfolio and messaging homework, as it’s confusing for customers…

Overall MyPOV

Good to have the inaugural event, which was overdue from many angles. Good to see Microsoft investing into synergetic benefits across all offerings, something customers always expect, but not always see vendors deliver. But that takes time and resources, and the usually associated functional pause needs to overcome now by Microsoft Business Apps. The gaps and white space are the largest in the HCM space, where Microsoft’s offerings are to new to compete on an overall end to end suite with the established players. But differentiators like LinkedIn can help, though Microsoft needs to work on the product, platform and commercial integration. I expect a similar line of thinking coming from my colleagues Cindy Zhou and Ray Wang along the lines of the Adobe partnership.

On the concern side, Microsoft is late to the ERP suite game. It certainly has put the leadership team in place, now it comes to delivering. 2018 already saw the ERP market leader announce an on premises product, a key lesson learnt that when you don’t develop fast enough, customers will dictate the platform. In this scenario Microsoft has Azure Stack, but that was not mentioned at all on Day #1 of the analyst meeting. And Microsoft needs organic, in-house SaaS load to scale Azure successfully. But for that customers need attractive automation benefits: If Microsoft can be half as successful as it was with its CRM offerings in the other key areas of ERP automation (Finance, SCM, Procurement and HCM) – it will be in a great place for customers in a few years. But that’s a big ask.

But it’s early in 2018, much more to come this year, and it’s a good start for Microsoft Business Applications. Stay tuned.

Want to learn more? Checkout the Storify collection below (if it doesn’t show up – check here).

And there is more coverage by Constellation colleagues:

- by Ray Wang see here.

More on Microsoft:

News Analysis - Microsoft and SAP join forces to give customers a trusted path to digital transformation in the cloud - read here

Top Event Questions [Anwered] - Microsoft Ignite and Envision 2017 - read here
Event Report - Microsoft Ignite / Envision 2017 - Broad push - few highlights - read here

Event Report - July 2017 Microsoft London AI Event - read here

News Analysis - Microsoft to deliver Microsoft Cloud from datacenters in Africa - Azure learns Afrikaans to Zulu (and 9 more) - read here

Event Report - Microsoft Build 2017 - Good Housekeeping, laying foundation, deliver on vision - read here

Down Report – Power failure takes Azure services down - 3 Cloud Load Toads - read here

Event Report - Microsoft Connect - No April's Fools - Linux, Google and more - read here

First Take - Microsoft discovers teams - launches Microsoft Teams - read here

News Analysis - Microsoft announces SAP's choice of Azure to help enterprises transform HR - The SaaS land grab is on - read here

First Take - Microsoft Ignite - AI, Adobe and FPGA [From the Fences] - read here

News Analysis - GE and Microsoft partner to bring Predix to Azure - Multi-Cloud becomes tangible for IoT - read here

Market Move - Microsoft acquired Linked - Tons of synergies, start with Cortana, maybe too many - read here

News Analysis - Microsoft opens Windows Holographic to partners for a new era of mixed reality - read here

News Analysis - SAP and Microsoft usher in new era of partnership to accelerate digital transformation in the cloud - read here

Musings - Will Microsoft's Hololens transform the Future of Work? Read here

Event Report - Microsoft Build 2016 - A platform vision and plenty of tools for next generation applications - read here

First Take - Microsoft Build 2016 - Day 1 Keynote Takeaways - read here

Event Preview - Microsoft Build 2016 - Top 3 Things to watch for developers, managers and execs... read here

News Analysis - Microsoft - New Hybrid Offerings Deliver Bottomless Capacity for Today's Data Explosion - read here

News Analysis - Welcoming the Xamarin team to Microsoft - read here

News Analysis - Microsoft announcements at Convergence Barcelona - Office365. Dynamics CRM and Power Apps

News Analysis - Microsoft expands Azure Data Lake to unleash big data productivity - Good move - time to catch up - read here

News Analysis - Microsoft and Salesforce Strengthen Strategic Partnership at Dreamforce 2015 - Good for joint customers - read here

News Analyis - NetSuite announced Cloud Alliance with Microsoft - read here

Event Report - Microsoft Build - Microsoft really wants to make developers' lives easier - read here

First Hand with Microsoft Hololens - read here

Event Report - Microsoft TechEd - Top 3 Enterprise takeaways - read here

First Take - Microsoft discovers data ambience and delivers an organic approach to in memory database - read here

Event Report - Microsoft Build - Azure grows and blossoms - enough for enterprises (yet)? Read here.

Event Report - Microsoft Build Day 1 Keynote - Top Enterprise Takeaways - read here.

Microsoft gets even more serious about devices - acquire Nokia - read here.

Microsoft does not need one new CEO - but six - read here.

Microsoft makes the cloud a platform play - Or: Azure and her 7 friends - read here.

How the Cloud can make the unlikeliest bedfellows - read here.

How hard is multi-channel CRM in 2013? - Read here.

How hard is it to install Office 365? Or: The harsh reality of customer support - read here.

Find more coverage on the Constellation Research website here and checkout my magazine on Flipboard and my YouTube channel here.

View the story "Microsoft Business Apps Analyst Summit" on Storify

Mobile World Congress is one of those events that have been mounting a comeback. It used to be the must be event during the smartphone revolution - where it was un-thinkable for any player not present a new phone in Barcelona.

But take a look at the following video first (if it doesn’t show up, check here):

No time to watch here is the 1Slide summary (if the slide doesn’t show up, check here):

Event Preview - Mobile World Congress 2018 - #MWC18 from Holger Mueller

MyPOV

Conferences come and go. Most of them never come back. MWC maybe on a come back with all the branching out into adjacent areas. IoT is functionally close and makes sense. But AI, ML, Cloud, PaaS not necessarily, unless you realize that MWC is really a platform event for ... Android. Mostly. Let's see what 2018 brings.

If you see me, flag me down, always happy to chat. See you in Barcelona.

Find more coverage on the Constellation Research website here and checkout my magazine on Flipboard and my YouTube channel here.

We had the opportunity to Mobile World Congress in Barcelona last week, held from 26th of February till 1st of March at the Fira. Record attendance with over 110k attendees, and a large mix of exhibitors across 10+ halls make this conference more than the mobile industry get together, it’s also has become a key event for adjacent industries in IoT, connected cars, self-driving cars, startups and regional software company presentation.

Prefer to watch – here is my event video …

Here is the 1 slide condensation (if the slide doesn’t show up, check here):

Event Report - Mobile World Congress 2018 from Holger Mueller

Want to read on? Here you go:

MWC endorses the UN sustainability goals – These were front and center, including souvenirs and advertising. Given that for many people in the world these days the smartphone is the access to the internet, news media, applications and learning, the mobile phone industry can be a true change agent for many countries, people and societies.

5G everywhere – I thought I saw a 5G sticker on my Iberic Ham sandwich… 5G was everywhere, slapped on everything… ironically the debut demos were all about… phone calls. And that’s what 5G is not about, but about bringing networks to 21st century standard in throughput (high def video), latency (<1 ms) and density (over 100+ devices on a square meter). These are all key specs to enable a more human (visual), a more thing driven (density) and a more AI driven (latency) next generation application for enterprises, all very hard to do on current 4G / 4G LTE standards.

It’s an Android show - Apple was MIA – not surprisingly – missing in action. Every handset I touched was Android. Google was out in force to show AR Core, Android Go, Flutter and more. While last year It was the year of Amazon’s Alexa, the Google Assistant was everywhere at MWC. No surprise, the dominant OS makes its assistant ubiquitous. Just bad luck for Google to have a prominent out door spot during the coldest week of Winter in Barcelona.

New Smartphone possibilities– The lower entry points around 60-80$ for a handset have repercussions on enterprises. From a Future of Work perspective, for internal processes, cost is not a factor to give every employee a smartphone (maybe locked down). From a value chain perspective, it means more people in the world will have smartphones, so the ability of an enterprise to build and deliver its next gen Apps for mobile platforms is even more crucial.

The Global Mobile Market by GSMA

MyPOV

A huge conference, the true get together of the communications industry. Finally, the industry has found something to get giddy about, but with revenue only rising from 1.05T in 2107 to 1.1T (US$) in 2025 – the outlook for growth isn’t rosy for operators. Considering that GSMA estimates the number of mobile subscribers rising during that timeframe by almost 1B to 5.9B, it means … lower prices for most users. That’s good news for enterprises, again for both outside of the enterprise value chain and inside of the enterprise intra-enterprise processes.

On the concern side, it will take some time for 5G to come along, starting with legislative bodies approving the spectrums and auctioning them off. Little concerns of that happening smoothly in Asia – but e.g. the US timeplane is tight to make an auction happen in 2018. I am also not sure if many of the smaller vendors and startups got their ROI from attending the event, but that’s what each of the them has to call out.

But overall an impressive event, the smartphone is and remains the enabling platform for next gen Apps.

Want to learn more? On March 2nd I was on Constellation’s DisrupTV talking MWC – checkout the recording here.

Find more coverage on the Constellation Research website here and checkout my magazine on Flipboard and my YouTube channel here.

As an industry observer, I attend probably something like 40+ user conferences a year, and from a longitudinal perspective I have been attending them since 30+ years, working for software vendors. My first industry conference, as a German native was of course... CeBIT in Hannover back in 1986...

So a few observations based on my recent experiences...

It's about the product. Users take time from their busy jobs to learn more about a vendor's software, that they already use or plan to use. So product needs to get a lot of room. Yes, services matter, too - but it's the product that matters in the first place. Savvy vendors will make sure they have enough in the product pipeline for a key user conference. If there is nothing there at the user conference - not a good sign.
Have a motivational speaker that matters. Motivational speakers are great to inspire a user group. But it has to relate to the software, to their business. As great as the Cake Master maybe, that is not the motivational speaker to have at a user conference. Ok, to have one motivational speaker off topic - but it better be inspirational and the boss of the attendee can get the value already by name dropping of the speaker.
Demo software. Many attendees are expert users. Vendors need to show they are experts, too and know their product. The more hands on an executive, the better. But software needs to be shown, it's the one and powerful opportunity for a vendor to have ALL of the attendees see something. Wasting the opportunity is like setting fire to the marketing budget - for nothing. And a demo needs to be live. Too many demos that are screenshots, screencams etc. Vendors need to remember - their users are in the audience, their customers, and 1000s and 1000s of them have to use it every day. It does not look good when an attendee comes back and has to tell the colleagues that the vendor did not show live software.
Subject Expertise beats Celebrity. Yes, user conferences are also about inspiration. But a shows star, soap operate protagonist or a talk show host - is not something an enterprise software user can relate to for their work and why they spend 3-4 days and a few thousand budget dollars / euros to come to a conference. Vendors show offer subject matters, if push comes to shove from the user base. There is instant validation, trust and respect from a user to another user presenting. There is direct bonding of being in the same boat and sharing experiences from that. No celebrity can do that. Glamour effects don't last.

Limit the Philantrophy. It's great for vendors to give back and share a purpose beyond the software. But it should not be 50% of a keynote. It takes away from the value of the philantrophy and begs for question on the purpose of the whole user conference.

Users want to network. Vendors should give users a chance to network. Not just informally, but in a planned way. We are only quarters away from Facebook / LinkedIn et al waking up to the opportunity to connect the right users at the right time at the right conference. Vendors have the choice to provide the platform - with all benefits - or stand by and watch.
Party Hard but responsibly. Yes, there is customer appreciation and its important. But vendors are in charge that their attendees have fund and are safe. Limit late and early events, give attendees a chance to sleep (so they retain what's being said next day) and make the conference a safe environment.

MyPOV

So what do you see out there? If you are a user or a vendor reading this - share your observations from the recent user conferences. Is the industry heading in the right - or not so right (my view) on this. And most importantly: What should happen at a user conference from your POV? Please comment. See you at the next conference, always happy to say Hi!

During the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, held from 26^thof February till 1^st of March at the Fira. I had the chance to meet with a number of SAP executives and get some important takeaways from the briefings, worth of a blog post of media collected:

Prefer to watch – here is my event video …

Here is the 1 slide condensation (if the slide doesn’t show up, check here):

Event Takeaways - SAP at MWC 2018 from Holger Mueller

Want to read on? Here you go (trying the Twitter thread format - let me know what you think of it):

MyPOV

A good point in time to check-in where SAP stands. Consumption based pricing is likely the most impactful announcement, giving CxOs better options to experiment, evaluate and operate next generation applications. The transformation of the SAP IoT portfolio, moving from templates, APIs and examples to separate products is equally positive.

On the concern side - I was not so sure if SAP got the marketing $s back from a large booth at MWC. Apart from the Telco and Comms industry vendors - MWC is not a mainstream IT event. But certainly good to be at the party for SAP.

Overall good to catch up with SAP in many of its technology offerings. Sapphire looms large - only 3 monhts till the gathering in the Florida swamps.

And more on SAP:

Market Move - SAP acquires Callidus - More Sales Effectiveness in the Back Office of the Front Office - read here
News Analysis - SAP HCM On-Premise Option for SAP S/4HANA - or is this S/4HCM? - read here
News Analysis - Microsoft and SAP join forces to give customers a trusted path to digital transformation in the cloud - read here
Event Report - SAP Hybris Live 2017 Barcelona - YaaS morphs and more agility ahead - read here
News Analyses Roundup - SAP's September Tech Announcements - SAP doubles down on technology - read here
Event Report - SAP SuccessFactors SuccessConnect - New Leadership - Old Challenges - read here
Summer 2017 News Analysis - SAP Leonardo event July 2017 - read here
Event Report - SAP Sapphire 2017 - All in on Leonardo, but wait there is more... read here
News Analysis - SAP reshuffles Executive Board - sets up for next 5 years - read here
Event Report - SAP Ariba Live - The quest to make Procurement awesome - read here
Event Report - SAP Capital Markets and S/4HANA Update - Good Plan - Execution matters in 2017 - read here
News Analysis -SAP Introduces Jump-Start Enablement Program for SAP Leonardo IoT Portfolio >> Bundling and Simplification matter for IoT - read here
Event Report - Event Report - SAP TechEd Barcelona - Analytics, ML, PaaS and HANA 2 - read here
News Analysis - SAP to unveil HANA 2 - New platform vs a fork's tine - read here
News Analysis - Microsoft announces SAP's choice of Azure to help enterprises transform HR - The SaaS land grab is on - read here
Event Report - SAP / Trenitalia Digital Summit - SAP is serious about IoT - read here
First Take - SAP BW/4HANA - Data Gravity and Cloud win - read here
Event Report - SAP SuccessFactors SConnect - Push on all fronts - read here
Event Report - SAP Insider Vienna - HCP, BI and SuccessFactors are the takeaways - read here
Event Report - SAP Sapphire 2016 - Top 3 Positives & Concerns: SAP changes - probably for the better - read here
First Take - SAP Sapphire Day #2 Keynote - read here
News Analysis - SAP and Microsoft usher in new era of partnership to accelerate digital transformation in the cloud - read here
First Take - SAP Sapphire Bill McDermott Day #1 Keynote - read here
Event Preview - SAP Sapphire 2016 - What to expect and look for - read here
News Analysis - Apple & SAP Partner to Revolutionize Work on iPhone & iPad - read here
Progress Report - SAP SuccessFactors makes good progress - now needs appeal beyond SAP - read here
News Analysis - SAP HANA Vora now available... - A key milestone for SAP - read here
Event Report - SAP Ariba Live - Make Procurement Cool Again - read here
News Analysis - SAP SuccessFactors innovates in Performance Management with continuous feedback powered by 1 to 1s - read here
Event Report - SAP SuccessFactors SuccessConnect - Good Progress sprinkled with innovative ideas and challenging the status quo - read here
News Analysis - WorkForce Software Announces Global Reseller Agreement with SAP - read here
First Take - SAP SuccessFactors SuccessConnect - Day #1 Keynote Top 3 Takeaways - read here
News Analysis - SAP SuccessFactors introduces Next Generation of HCM software - read here
News Analysis - SAP delivers next release of SAP HANA - SPS 10 - Ready for BigData and IoT - read here
Event Report - SAP Sapphire - Top 3 Positives and Concerns - read here
First Take - Bernd Leukert and Steve Singh Day #2 Keynote - read here
News Analysis - SAP and IBM join forces ... read here
First Take - SAP Sapphire Bill McDermott Day #1 Keynote - read here
In Depth - S/4HANA qualities as presented by Plattner - play for play - read here
First Take - SAP Cloud for Planning - the next spreadsheet killer is off to a good start - read here
Progress Report - SAP HCM makes progress and consolidates - a lot of moving parts - read here
First Take - SAP launches S/4HANA - The good, the challenge and the concern - read here
First Take - SAP's IoT strategy becomes clearer - read here
SAP appoints a CTO - some musings - read here
Event Report - SAP's SAPtd - (Finally) more talk on PaaS, good progress and aligning with IBM and Oracle - read here
News Analysis - SAP and IBM partner for cloud success - good news - read here
Market Move - SAP strikes again - this time it is Concur and the spend into spend management - read here
Event Report - SAP SuccessFactors picks up speed - but there remains work to be done - read here
First Take - SAP SuccessFactors SuccessConnect - Top 3 Takeaways Day 1 Keynote - read here.
Event Report - Sapphire - SAP finds its (unique) path to cloud - read here
What I would like SAP to address this Sapphire - read here
News Analysis - SAP becomes more about applications - again - read here
Market Move - SAP acquires Fieldglass - off to the contingent workforce - early move or reaction? Read here.
SAP's startup program keep rolling – read here.
Why SAP acquired KXEN? Getting serious about Analytics – read here.
SAP steamlines organization further – the Danes are leaving – read here.
Reading between the lines… SAP Q2 Earnings – cloudy with potential structural changes – read here.
SAP wants to be a technology company, really – read here
Why SAP acquired hybris software – read here.
SAP gets serious about the cloud – organizationally – read here.
Taking stock – what SAP answered and it didn’t answer this Sapphire [2013] – read here.
Act III & Final Day – A tale of two conference – Sapphire & SuiteWorld13 – read here.
The middle day – 2 keynotes and press releases – Sapphire & SuiteWorld – read here.
A tale of 2 keynotes and press releases – Sapphire & SuiteWorld – read here.
What I would like SAP to address this Sapphire – read here.
Why 3rd party maintenance is key to SAP’s and Oracle’s success – read here.
Why SAP acquired Camillion – read here.
Why SAP acquired SmartOps – read here.
Next in your mall – SAP and Oracle? Read here

And more about SAP technology:

Event Prieview - SAP TechEd 2015 - read here
News Analysis - SAP Unveils New Cloud Platform Services and In-Memory Innovation on Hadoop to Accelerate Digital Transformation – A key milestone for SAP read here
HANA Cloud Platform - Revisited - Improvements ahead and turning into a real PaaS - read here
News Analysis - SAP commits to CloudFoundry and OpenSource - key steps - but what is the direction? - Read here.
News Analysis - SAP moves Ariba Spend Visibility to HANA - Interesting first step in a long journey - read here
Launch Report - When BW 7.4 meets HANA it is like 2 + 2 = 5 - but is 5 enough - read here
Event Report - BI 2014 and HANA 2014 takeaways - it is all about HANA and Lumira - but is that enough? Read here.
News Analysis – SAP slices and dices into more Cloud, and of course more HANA – read here.
SAP gets serious about open source and courts developers – about time – read here.
My top 3 takeaways from the SAP TechEd keynote – read here.
SAP discovers elasticity for HANA – kind of – read here.
Can HANA Cloud be elastic? Tough – read here.
SAP’s Cloud plans get more cloudy – read here.
HANA Enterprise Cloud helps SAP discover the cloud (benefits) – read here

Find more coverage on the Constellation Research website here and checkout my magazine on Flipboard and my YouTube channel here.

We had the opportunity to attend SAP Ariba's user conference in Ariba Live, held in Las Vegas at Ceasar's Palace from March 5th till 8th 2018. The conference saw record attendance, it had to move from the Cosmopolitan.

Don't want to read - but prefer to watch - here is a short video (if it does not show up - please check here)

And here is the 1 Slide summary from Slideshare:

Event Report - SAP Ariba Live - 2018 - Las Vegas - Sustainability and new UX from Holger Mueller

Prefer to read - here is my 5 Tweet event sequence on Twitter:

MyPOV

A good event for Ariba. Progress on product, a new UX is always positive. Short on new announcements, capabilties - but that's the usual 'lull' with an executive transition. Padgett seems to get started and the next quarters will be important, next year's Ariba Live will be the full record card.

On the concern side, SAP Ariba did not talk and show as much AI / ML and Blockchain that it talked about in 2017. Though the contract text analysis in the partnership with IBM has been delivered, it is not the broad uptake the technology needs in Procurement. Did anybody say software agents?

But for now, a good event. The mix or more soft / feel good topics vs. product and customer news is new - and I am very curious to talk more to customers, prospects and partners to see how it was accepted. Stay tuned.

And more on SAP:

Event Takeaways - SAP at MWC 2018 - read here
Market Move - SAP acquires Callidus - More Sales Effectiveness in the Back Office of the Front Office - read here
News Analysis - SAP HCM On-Premise Option for SAP S/4HANA - or is this S/4HCM? - read here
News Analysis - Microsoft and SAP join forces to give customers a trusted path to digital transformation in the cloud - read here
Event Report - SAP Hybris Live 2017 Barcelona - YaaS morphs and more agility ahead - read here
News Analyses Roundup - SAP's September Tech Announcements - SAP doubles down on technology - read here
Event Report - SAP SuccessFactors SuccessConnect - New Leadership - Old Challenges - read here
Summer 2017 News Analysis - SAP Leonardo event July 2017 - read here
Event Report - SAP Sapphire 2017 - All in on Leonardo, but wait there is more... read here
News Analysis - SAP reshuffles Executive Board - sets up for next 5 years - read here
Event Report - SAP Ariba Live - The quest to make Procurement awesome - read here
Event Report - SAP Capital Markets and S/4HANA Update - Good Plan - Execution matters in 2017 - read here
News Analysis -SAP Introduces Jump-Start Enablement Program for SAP Leonardo IoT Portfolio >> Bundling and Simplification matter for IoT - read here
Event Report - Event Report - SAP TechEd Barcelona - Analytics, ML, PaaS and HANA 2 - read here
News Analysis - SAP to unveil HANA 2 - New platform vs a fork's tine - read here
News Analysis - Microsoft announces SAP's choice of Azure to help enterprises transform HR - The SaaS land grab is on - read here
Event Report - SAP / Trenitalia Digital Summit - SAP is serious about IoT - read here
First Take - SAP BW/4HANA - Data Gravity and Cloud win - read here
Event Report - SAP SuccessFactors SConnect - Push on all fronts - read here
Event Report - SAP Insider Vienna - HCP, BI and SuccessFactors are the takeaways - read here
Event Report - SAP Sapphire 2016 - Top 3 Positives & Concerns: SAP changes - probably for the better - read here
First Take - SAP Sapphire Day #2 Keynote - read here
News Analysis - SAP and Microsoft usher in new era of partnership to accelerate digital transformation in the cloud - read here
First Take - SAP Sapphire Bill McDermott Day #1 Keynote - read here
Event Preview - SAP Sapphire 2016 - What to expect and look for - read here
News Analysis - Apple & SAP Partner to Revolutionize Work on iPhone & iPad - read here
Progress Report - SAP SuccessFactors makes good progress - now needs appeal beyond SAP - read here
News Analysis - SAP HANA Vora now available... - A key milestone for SAP - read here
Event Report - SAP Ariba Live - Make Procurement Cool Again - read here
News Analysis - SAP SuccessFactors innovates in Performance Management with continuous feedback powered by 1 to 1s - read here
Event Report - SAP SuccessFactors SuccessConnect - Good Progress sprinkled with innovative ideas and challenging the status quo - read here
News Analysis - WorkForce Software Announces Global Reseller Agreement with SAP - read here
First Take - SAP SuccessFactors SuccessConnect - Day #1 Keynote Top 3 Takeaways - read here
News Analysis - SAP SuccessFactors introduces Next Generation of HCM software - read here
News Analysis - SAP delivers next release of SAP HANA - SPS 10 - Ready for BigData and IoT - read here
Event Report - SAP Sapphire - Top 3 Positives and Concerns - read here
First Take - Bernd Leukert and Steve Singh Day #2 Keynote - read here
News Analysis - SAP and IBM join forces ... read here
First Take - SAP Sapphire Bill McDermott Day #1 Keynote - read here
In Depth - S/4HANA qualities as presented by Plattner - play for play - read here
First Take - SAP Cloud for Planning - the next spreadsheet killer is off to a good start - read here
Progress Report - SAP HCM makes progress and consolidates - a lot of moving parts - read here
First Take - SAP launches S/4HANA - The good, the challenge and the concern - read here
First Take - SAP's IoT strategy becomes clearer - read here
SAP appoints a CTO - some musings - read here
Event Report - SAP's SAPtd - (Finally) more talk on PaaS, good progress and aligning with IBM and Oracle - read here
News Analysis - SAP and IBM partner for cloud success - good news - read here
Market Move - SAP strikes again - this time it is Concur and the spend into spend management - read here
Event Report - SAP SuccessFactors picks up speed - but there remains work to be done - read here
First Take - SAP SuccessFactors SuccessConnect - Top 3 Takeaways Day 1 Keynote - read here.
Event Report - Sapphire - SAP finds its (unique) path to cloud - read here
What I would like SAP to address this Sapphire - read here
News Analysis - SAP becomes more about applications - again - read here
Market Move - SAP acquires Fieldglass - off to the contingent workforce - early move or reaction? Read here.
SAP's startup program keep rolling – read here.
Why SAP acquired KXEN? Getting serious about Analytics – read here.
SAP steamlines organization further – the Danes are leaving – read here.
Reading between the lines… SAP Q2 Earnings – cloudy with potential structural changes – read here.
SAP wants to be a technology company, really – read here
Why SAP acquired hybris software – read here.
SAP gets serious about the cloud – organizationally – read here.
Taking stock – what SAP answered and it didn’t answer this Sapphire [2013] – read here.
Act III & Final Day – A tale of two conference – Sapphire & SuiteWorld13 – read here.
The middle day – 2 keynotes and press releases – Sapphire & SuiteWorld – read here.
A tale of 2 keynotes and press releases – Sapphire & SuiteWorld – read here.
What I would like SAP to address this Sapphire – read here.
Why 3rd party maintenance is key to SAP’s and Oracle’s success – read here.
Why SAP acquired Camillion – read here.
Why SAP acquired SmartOps – read here.
Next in your mall – SAP and Oracle? Read here

And more about SAP technology:

Event Prieview - SAP TechEd 2015 - read here
News Analysis - SAP Unveils New Cloud Platform Services and In-Memory Innovation on Hadoop to Accelerate Digital Transformation – A key milestone for SAP read here
HANA Cloud Platform - Revisited - Improvements ahead and turning into a real PaaS - read here
News Analysis - SAP commits to CloudFoundry and OpenSource - key steps - but what is the direction? - Read here.
News Analysis - SAP moves Ariba Spend Visibility to HANA - Interesting first step in a long journey - read here
Launch Report - When BW 7.4 meets HANA it is like 2 + 2 = 5 - but is 5 enough - read here
Event Report - BI 2014 and HANA 2014 takeaways - it is all about HANA and Lumira - but is that enough? Read here.
News Analysis – SAP slices and dices into more Cloud, and of course more HANA – read here.
SAP gets serious about open source and courts developers – about time – read here.
My top 3 takeaways from the SAP TechEd keynote – read here.
SAP discovers elasticity for HANA – kind of – read here.
Can HANA Cloud be elastic? Tough – read here.
SAP’s Cloud plans get more cloudy – read here.
HANA Enterprise Cloud helps SAP discover the cloud (benefits) – read here

Find more coverage on the Constellation Research website here and checkout my magazine on Flipboard and my YouTube channel here.

Ultimate Software had their yearly user conference, UltiConnect at the Wynn in Las Vegas, from March 11th till 14th 2018. The event was very well attending with over 4k+ customers and prospects, Ultimate had to find a new home for UltiConnect as the conference has outgrown the Bellagio. I wasn't able to attend, but Ultimate was so kind to rope me in remotely into keynote and analyst meeting sessions, very much appreciated.

Take a look at the event video first (if it does not show up - please check here):

Here is the 1 slide condensation (if the slide doesn’t show up, check here):

Event Report - Ultimate Connections 2018 - More HCM, more WfM and more Xander from Holger Mueller

Want to read on? Here you go:

[Factuall Correction] UltiPro Workforce Management, including both Time and Scheduling have been generally available since January, 2018.

Overall MyPOV

Good to see Ultimate follow up on its substantial road map promises made at Ultimate Connections 2017 and deliver product across the announced areas. Equally good to see more application of Xander in 'natural' AI application areas as with Recruiting, elimination of bias and improving Performance Management. The move into Workforce Management is a natural expansion of Ultimate footprint, welcome by Ultimate clients. It will be a few years, realisitically though, till the Ultimate Scheduling capabilities will match the leading best of breed workforce management solutions.

On the concern side the variety of the Ultimate platform sticks out. While all technology ensembled are proven, it looks more like a yearbook of technologies that were up and coming in the last three to four years back. While the variety does not hurt Ultimate customers at the moment, the vendor will have to strive for a more unified and harmonized platform in the not too distant future.

But overall good to see the progress by Ultimate delivering on promises and pushing the AI yardstick further. It remains interesting that no major HCM player except fot Ultimate has named its assistant (yet) and it's unlikely the key HCM players will match or expand the scope that Ultimate offers today and announced for 2018 with Xander. A good position for Ultimate customers. Stay tuned.

More on Ultimate Software:

Progress Report - Ultimate Software Analyst Day 2017 - Keeping the momentum - read here
Event Report - Ultimate Software Connections 2017 - Broadest product push (ever?)! - read here
Event Report - Ultimate UltiConnect - Product, Platform and Services Innovations - read here
First Take - First Take - Top 3 Takeaways from Ultimate’s UltiConnect Day #1 Keynote - read here
Event Report - Ultimate Software Connection - People first and an exciting roadmap ahead - read here
First Take - Ultimate Software UltiConnect Day #1 Keynote - read here
Event Report - Ultimate's UltiConnect - Off to a great start, but the road(map) is long - read here.
First Take – 3 Key Takeaways from Ultimate’s UltiConnect Conference Day 1 keynote – read here.

Find more coverage on the Constellation Research website here and checkout my magazine on Flipboard and my YouTube channel here.

We had the opportunity to attend ADP's 25th Meeting of the Minds (MOTM) user conference, held in Orlando at the Walldorf / Hilton from March 18th till 23rd 2018.

Take a look at the event video first (if it does not show up - please check here):

Here is the 1 slide condensation (if the slide doesn’t show up, check here):

Event Report - ADP Meeting of the Minds 2018 - Stay the course from Holger Mueller

Want to read on? Here you go:

If you want to learn more about the keynote, key tweets are collected in this Twitter Moment here.

MyPOV

A good event for ADP customers and prospects. ADP keeps delivering on a steady pace and creates value for its customer base. The focus on diversity and inclusion is high on people leader's agenda, so it is no surprise that ADP also focuses on this important topic. Good to see also the first TMBC assets making it to the mainstream North American customer base that ADP is targeting with its Meeting of the Minds conference.

On the concern side, ADP is moving at a conservative, maybe too slow speed. One year is enough time for most vendors to create integrated value from an acquisition like TMBC. And ADP announced its new payroll product, Pi, back at the HR Tech conference in fall - so an update to the MOTM attendees would have been timely. Not to mention ADP's new HR core system Lifion, that ADP advertises for talent publicly, but choose to mention in Orlando. It's always good for enterprises software vendors to be conservative and quality focused, and ADP customers certainly expect that, but vendors can't be too slow rolling out differentiating capabilities either.

Overall a good event, customers and ecosystem are happy with the progress. A lot of new innovation should see the light at ADP MOTM 2019, fingers crossed. Stay tuned.

More on ADP:

Event Report - ADP ReThink - Great event and a lot in the making - read here
Market Move - ADP Acquires WorkMarket to Further Extend Human Capital Management to Contingent Workers [...] - The Gig Economy looms on the Future of Work- read here
Progress Report - ADP pushes on - 2018 will be BIG - read here
Event Report - ADP MOTM - Time get customers on board!? Read here
Event Report – ADP ReThink – Great event and great value coming for customers - read here
News Analysis - ADP Acquires The Marcus Buckingham Company to Expand Talent Portfolio - read here
Progress Report - ADP Analyst Day 2016 - ADP has turned around Vantage HCM - read here
Event Report - Event Report - ADP MOTM - ADP delivers: New UI, Benchmarks, Market Place & More - read here
News Analysis - Workday and ADP partner to Deliver a Seamless Customer Experience for Global Payroll - read here
Progress Report - ADP Analyst Day - ADP executes, kills (most) ghosts from the past - read here
Event Report - ADP Meeting of the Minds - It’s all coming together for ADP in 2015 - product wise - read here
First Take - ADP Meeting of the Minds - Day #1 Keynote - read here
Progress Report - ADP shows great vision, delivers product innovation - now it needs adoption - read here
Site Visit - ADP's new innovation lab in Chelsea - read here
News Analysis - ADP announces Spin-Off plans for Dealer Services, sharpens ADP's focus on HCM - read here.
Event Report - ADP's Meeting of the Minds - ADP has made up its mind (almost) - customers not yet - read here.
First take - 3 Key Takeaways from ADP's Meeting of the Minds Conference Day 1 Keynote - read here.
ADP innovates with with verve and good timing – read here.

Find more coverage on the Constellation Research website here and checkout my magazine on Flipboard and my YouTube channel here.

We had the opportunity to attend Oracle’s HCM World conference, held from March 20th till 22nd in Dallas. Held in the busiest week of the spring conference circuit, the conference had good analyst and influencer representation and was overall well attended (Oracle claimed 2200+).

Prefer to watch – here is my event video … (if the video doesn’t’ show up – check here)

Here is the 1 slide condensation (if the slide doesn’t show up, check here):

Event Report - Oracle HCM World 2018 Dallas from Holger Mueller

Want to read on? Here you go:

Oracle keeps delivering in HCM– Since its early beginning the Oracle HCM product, has done well and is growing at an almost metronomic takt rate. New capabilities are created in the product, and Oracle delivers customer adoption of them in the following 6-12 months. Customers, partners and the overall ecosystem is now on the by-yearly announcement schedule of HCM World in Spring and OpenWorld in Fall, and in between customer adoption manifests themselves in go lives. The result is likely the most comprehensive singe platform HCM Suite in the market.

Oracle HCM Cloud HCM World Holger Mueller Constellation Research

Oracle HCM Cloud Spring 2018 Release Highlights

Good DNA in Spring 2018 Release– Along the same lines the 2018 Spring release of Oracle HCM Cloud is a rich release that pushes the boundaries. Oracle replaced and strengthened the Onboarding capabilities in the suite. Given the best practice uncertainty that at the moment plagues Performance Management, Oracle has (wisely) opted for a suite of performance management tools. People leaders can choose from four different approaches to address performance management in their enterprise. The good news is that they can even choose to use different best practices / flavors of performance management across the enterprise – slice and dice by operating company, division, people type etc. The right approach and it will be interesting to see adoption. And last but not least more AI, no conference without AI in 2018… Oracle pointed out that it always has had some form of ‘intelligence’ but no the offerings are serious and it’s good to see Oracle speak of AI (vs the a tad misaligned ‘adaptive intelligence’ term of the past.

The new Oracle HCM Cloud UX paradigm

A new UX - Having been a critic of the Oracle HCM UI for a long time, the new UX is a welcome first step in the right direction to improve this situation. Not surprisingly Oracle opts for the mobile focus of the largest user population, and for the high volume transaction. The new UX looks modern, easy to use and has some of the key inner workings a UX in 2017 should have – it’s responsive and can be used across devices and form factors as well takes an aggressive stance on defaulting, suggesting entries. At the core is a newsfeed paradigm, that users are familiar with from consumer websites. The newsfeed manages to collapse menu structures and to surface the relevant information at the right time. Not easy to get right - think of the challenges Facebook has had getting this UX right, but from what we saw about the Oracle HCM newsfeed, it's a well working first implementation in an Oracle enterprise application. All welcome by busy enterprise users, who have to do a real job and can’t afford to be held up too long by administrative systems (like any HCM system). Next step is to check in on customer feedback, roll out plans and roadmap.

Oracle has invested to get the Newsfeed right

MyPOV

A good HCM World for Oracle, the product keeps progressing and customers and ecosystem are positive. Customers tap more and more into the suite benefits, adding modules after originally going live on more administrative functions as ESS / MSS and Payroll. Needless from the start though, suite level benefits are tangible and create productivity for users as well as HR departments, all leading to a more positive stance towards the product, in this case Oracle HCM Cloud.

On the concern side the event seemed smaller than last years events. Maybe the timing and the location in Dallas did not help. But in general you expect a growing attendee number. Equally in the ecosystem we saw less partner activity... it looks like Deloitte (for NA SIs) and Infosys (for the Indian SIs) seem to have capture the pool position. Next year's HCM World will be a data point on how much Oracle can activate users and prospects to come to an event like this on. For the record, happy users do not need to travel to user conferences as much, as they know what's coming and are busy implementing and using the software.

But overall a good event for Oracle customers and prospects. Oracle HCM Cloud is probably the most complete, single platform, single code base HCM Suite out there. Stay tuned.

More on Oracle: