voke Market Mover Blog

Citrix Embraces Virtual Lab Management and Acquires VMLogix Citrix is acquiring VMLogix ! For those who may be unaware of VMLogix, the company is the creator of products in the market segment known as “ virtual lab management ”. This is the part of virtualization that is going to transform the application lifecycle as we know it. This acquisition is big news, especially for anyone that deals with getting software or applications to market on time, on budget, and with a high level of quality. I just realized, that sums up pretty much every business in the world, so why hasn’t VMLogix and its product category of virtual lab management taken the world by storm? We believe that virtual lab management is the biggest innovation for software to come to fruition since the introduction of the IDE (integrated development environment). If you use virtual lab management technology in your organization it is guaranteed that you have saved your organization lots of money, lots of time, and have be...

HP and Fortify – Application Security Now in the Lifecycle HP announced its intent to acquire Fortify Software. Fortify represents one of the last standing original independent application security software vendors. Back in 2003, application security vendors were all the rage. The idea that security vulnerabilities occur rather frequently at the application level was 100% accurate. The problem with getting development and QA shops to fully embrace the notion of application security was one of skills and communication across organizational boundaries. Think about developers and testing professionals, they have full time jobs that keep them more than busy. Now, add the complexity of developing and testing for security – that is a difficult task to add to an already full docket. Thus, application security, while necessary and vital, never gained the traction in the market that was expected. So, slowly one by one, the pure play application security vendors were either acquired or disappear...

Citrix Synergy – Setting the Bar for the 2010 Conference Season It is official – the 2010 summer conference season is now underway beginning with #CitrixSynergy in San Francisco! Citrix set the bar quite high for the 2010 conference season, Synergy was all about simplicity. And with the explosion of complexity in IT over the past decade, simplicity is exactly what everyone is craving. Citrix clearly understands that while the cloud is great and interesting and a cost saver and every other adjective that has been attached to it, the cloud is not the only component of modern solutions. Citrix clearly and concisely identifies “virtualization + networking + cloud” to create synergies across the stack and deliver virtual computing enabling people to work where and how they desire. This is brilliant and yes, simple. Making things “simple” is painstakingly difficult, that is why so few technology vendors can articulate a clear and concise value proposition – simple is hard. Citrix CEO Sets th...

Virtual Lab Management – Bringing Peace Between Testers and Developers Every person has heard a developer say “it works on my machine”. This simple and true statement has been at the center of so many non-reproducible software defects. The problem is testers need to work in an environment as close to production as possible, that means keeping developers out and keeping the test environment pristine. Developers need to move through the development process and make sure their code works, which means having an environment that suits their needs. In other words, the developer environment may not be pristine, but it works the way they need it to work so the developer can continue to work. So in this age old conflict of “it works on my machine” who is right, the developer or the tester? Guess what, both are right! And now, thanks to virtual lab technology the phrase “it works on my machine” can be stricken from the vocabulary of a developer and never heard by a tester again, because they wil...

Your Next PC? The Personal Cloud, of Course Since the introduction of the personal computer, we all like to longingly think about what our next PC will have. Will it be lighter? Will it have better graphics? Will it be faster? And the biggest question of all, do we really need all of the latest and greatest features. All of these are questions we ponder when a new operating system is released, or when our current PC just decides to quit functioning (usually at the most inopportune of times). Well, what will your next PC be? No, it is not your next Personal Computer, it is your Personal Cloud! That’s right, the next PC you invest in may well be a Personal Cloud. The Apple iPad is just the beginning of this move from the Personal Computer to the Personal Cloud. With the iPad, Apple has hit a grand slam, scored a hattrick, a touchdown, or any other superlative sports metaphor you can conjure up. The iPad is the next step in the computing revolution. If you think Steve Jobs, the Roark of t...

Wanted: Virtualization Opinions The benefits of virtualization are well documented. We want to know what you think about or what your organization is doing with virtual lab management. As an analyst firm, we are constantly seeking information on how technology is being used, what the pros and cons are, and what the primary benefits are. Virtual lab management is the technology we are currently investigating. The sweet spot of virtual lab management is for testers to have an environment as close to production as possible. The result of virtual lab management – eliminating the never ending back and forth between testers and developers about defect replication, environments, etc. But this sweet spot is only one use case for the technology. Let us know what you think, how you are using the technology, what would you like the technology to do. All of this is covered in our survey . If you take the survey , you will receive a copy of the research report when we publish it. So, giv...

2009 voke Innovator Recognition Today, we announced the inaugural voke Innovator recipients. voke recognized 19 companies or products for their innovation around the global lifecycle. All of the 2009 voke Innovators are having a profound market impact through their innovative products and services. The 2009 voke Innovators all demonstrate and deliver ways of doing more with less to help organizations achieve greater productivity and value. Figure out how your organization can be ready for the next big wave of IT expansion. Check out the list of 2009 voke Innovator recipients at http://www.http/vokestream.com t

Wanted: Your Opinion on the Economy Everybody is talking about it. Everybody has an opinion on it. It’s the economy! Visit vokeStream to participate in voke’s survey on the economy and how it is affecting your organization. As a “thank you” for participating, enter to win an upgraded membership to vokeStream and one 30 minute inquiry with a voke industry analyst. While you are there , request a membership and get a copy of our latest research “Fortune 500 Spending Required for IT Cost Savings.” This is the research everybody is referencing when the discussion turns to the economy and IT spending. Discover new and innovative ways to deliver strategic value to your organization. t

The Results Are In!!! Remember a couple of months ago we put out a call to Business Analysts to take our survey on the role of the BA. Well, the results are in! The full report – voke Market SnapshotTM Report: The Role of the Business Analyst is available to subscribers at www.vokestream.com . Here are a couple of nuggets to whet your appetite: - 91% of survey participants say they use ineffective tools to define requirements - 58% of participants say their applications “only sometimes” or “never” meet the needs of the user We will be speaking in more detail about the report and how business analysts can enhance their roles in a webinar on Thursday, August 21 2008 at 2:00 PM Eastern / 11:00 AM Pacific. Join voke , Blueprint , and HP Software to find out the keys to business analyst success. Register here . In other news, we launched the voke Market Mover ArrayTM Chart where we rank the leaders of the application lifecycle market based on technology leadership and market leaders...

Services and Virtualization – Two Technologies Together! Virtualization and SOA are like milk and cookies, peanut butter and chocolate, or baseball and peanuts – one without the other just does not seem right. Join me in a webinar sponsored by iTKO , the purveyor of LISA with VSE (Virtual Services Environment) and learn how to optimize your SOA experience around load and performance testing using VSE. The webinar is on Wednesday, May 28 at 2:00 PM Eastern / 11:00AM Pacific. Register here for the event. This is a must hear for anyone who is concerned with performance throughout the entire lifecycle.

Wanted: Business Analysts One of the most critical roles emerging in the enterprise IT organization is that of the Business Analyst (BA). We are conducting a survey exploring the role of the BA, the processes they adhere to and their opinion on the market readiness of technology targeted to the BA. We invite BA’s or anyone interested in requirements to take the survey ! We look forward to hearing from you. Act now, the survey ends May 18, 2008. t

Share Price, Reinvention, and Google Envy – 3 Good Reasons for Microsoft to Buy Yahoo! Today, Microsoft put in an unexpected bid of $44.6B to acquire internet pioneer Yahoo ! This is indicative of Microsoft, the pioneer in PC software making a move to stay relevant. Microsoft is the quintessential software company. With its franchise business of Windows being challenged by technologies such as virtualization and Microsoft’s own insular view of how people want to work and connect Microsoft is attempting to modernize itself with this move. The problem with the Microsoft bid for Yahoo! is that Microsoft’s DNA is bound in a bits in a box, ownership of the stack, shrink wrap mentality. This DNA is what made Microsoft successful and dominant. However, the game of the 21st century is around connection, communication, and collaboration in a mobile environment. Will Yahoo! accept the tempting offer? Will Microsoft take over one of the internet pioneers, dramatically change their business ...

LISA LISA...ENCORE ENCORE The iTKO SOV (Services Oriented Virtualization) was SRO (Standing Room Only)! Since there was such an incredibly large interest in this webinar, we will be doing a live encore performance! In case you missed the event, you can catch it live again – all you have to do is register here . I will be presenting along with iTKO Chief Scientist John Michelsen. On the analyst side, I will present some statistics around virtualization including cost savings and discuss the need for virtualization strategies in every organization. From the iTKO perspective, John will talk about the solutions in SOA environments using LISA with VSE and discuss real life scenarios where LISA with VSE helped to significantly reduce costs while delivering both higher quality and a faster time to market. So join us on Thursday, December 13 at 11:00 AM Eastern / 8:00 AM Pacific to learn about virtualization and services. Just remember to register here . t

Everything is Virtually Virtual!!! A few months ago during a swim workout, one of the other swimmers in my lane seemed to be spending quite a bit of time on the wall. Not wanting to miss my interval, I waited until after the workout to inquire why she was glued to the wall during our longer sets. “Oh, I did a virtual 500”, she proudly stated. Being curious, I asked what a “virtual 500” was. She announced she “thought” about the 500 meter swim while the rest of us actually did the 500 meter swim. Hmmmm…I have heard the word virtual used in some interesting ways, but to virtually swim!!! This was by far the most creative way to be virtual!!! The swimmer’s name, by the way, was Lisa. Now, here’s a LISA that does virtualization the right way, iTKO’s LISA with VSE (Virtual Service Environment). Check out how virtualization can really help in testing in an SOA. I will be participating in a webinar with iTKO Chief Architect, John Michelson. iTKO has just released their latest version...

Hey, Hey It’s the Application Lifecycle 2.0 And as Davy Jones of the Monkees once said “I’m a believer!” Do you too want to be a believer? Don’t “monkee” around, learn more about the application lifecycle 2.0 by joining me in an MKS sponsored webinar: “Begin With the End in Mind” on August 28 at 11AM Eastern / 8AM Pacific. Register here . Get the latest analysis on… - What the application lifecycle 2.0 is and how it impacts you - What technologies play a role in the application lifecycle 2.0 - Silos, what are they good for - Will your IT organization survive the transformation And more…the application lifecycle 2.0 is here and ready to make an impact, don’t be left behind! This is an exciting time for the application lifecycle – new technologies are emerging, acquisitions are being made and the IT organization is no longer just for techies – they are business partners in every sense of the word. t

Is It Virtual Or Real? The big news today was the Citrix acquisition of open source virtualization company XenSource . I have commented many times in the past year about the future I think virtualization has and how it will be one of the defining technologies of the 21st century. So, here is my philosophy on the acquisition….one if you are inclined to be a geek and another if you fancy yourself more of a business person. Either way, the net / net of this is virtualization is real and coming to an enterprise near you. Citrix Acquisition of XenSource for Geeks Citrix’ acquisition of XenSource to more effectively compete with VMware is a positive move for the market. This acquisition shows that the criticality of the virtualization market is understood and enterprises are focused on using the technology in multiple aspects of their business. Virtualization delivers a malleable environment unconstrained by barriers. VMware has been diligent at delivering virtualization to the entire en...

Oh What a Week! Early June 2007…The IBM/Rational Software Developer Conference or RSDC for those in the know kicked off with two major acquisition announcements. The first announcement made on June 6 was the acquisition of Watchfire . Watchfire is an application security company with a solid lineup of products and services that will fit well with and complement the Rational brand. Application security is one of those things that everyone *knows* they should be doing but conveniently and blissfully ignores it. This is IBM’s opportunity to solidify its dominant position in the application lifecycle by offering a holistic focus on application security. Watchfire technology and services is a natural fit in the application lifecycle. And, IBM with its broad enterprise reach is in a position to educate the market on and implement application security solutions. And, just to show you how serious IBM is about the software lifecycle, IBM announced its intention to acquire Telelogic . This mo...

Back to the Future Part IV Premieres at Microsoft TechEd 2007 Retro is in – all hail to the 80’s! But in software? I was fortunate to be in attendance as Microsoft kicked off its 15th annual TechEd conference in Orlando, FL with a “Back to the Future” spoof complete with an authentic DeLorean , a remarkably well preserved Christopher Lloyd and Microsoft's Bob Muglia transformed to Michael J. Fox complete with an authentic 80’s wardrobe and hair. Microsoft was a good sport and poked fun at some of its past predictions including what the world would be like if the once much ballyhooed “BOB” had achieved any market traction. In the keynote, Microsoft opted out of vision and presented reality. At the start of his keynote, Microsoft’s Bob Muglia said he would not give a “vision talk”. And, he was right, the listener had to make their own judgment about what was visionary or back to the future and formulate their own conclusions. The crowd of 12,000+ developers went wild when the comma...

The Week That Was… I had the pleasure and honor of participating in the inaugural podcast of “SD Times The Week In Review” with SD Times Editor-in-Chief David Rubinstein. This is a weekly podcast that David will host and moderate while getting views, analysis and opinion of the analyst community on the week that was. In this first ever SD Times podcast we discussed: - JavaOne and the Sun announcement of JavaFX - Microsoft and its Silverlight announcement - VMware and their release of Workstation 6 - Coverity’s release of Prevent SQS - SQE’s STAREast conference the week of May 14 and my presentation on “Communicating the Value of Testing” Many thanks to SD Times and David Rubinstein for inviting me as a guest. So, tune in and get voke’s insight on the highlights of the week we just had. t

We Go Together Like… David Cassidy and puka shells, Donny Osmond and purple socks, or chocolate and peanut butter. OK, I am dating myself, but there are just some things that do go together. I spent the past 2 weeks realizing there is some truth to this concept, even in technology. On April 25, 2007 I was honored to deliver the keynote address at the SQS Software Quality Conference in Dusseldorf, Germany . This is a major event in the software quality world, with attendees coming from around the European Union to hear about quality and exchange ideas with others. While preparing the content for my keynote, I had several conversations with SQS CEO, Rudolf van Megen. Mr. van Megen has a unique outlook on the quality market and its future direction. During our conversations he told me of the big push in the German market, specifically, to using offshore providers. This move to offshore work by German corporations was not surprising in as much it was an interesting study in market tre...