In spite of all kind of promises, search engines have not really increased their intelligence. Complex questions with multiple variables are still nearly impossible to get answered and the suggestions to improve my question are mostly about my spelling or because the search engine would have liked a different subject to be questioned on.

So nothing really good is coming from search engines then? Well most arguably search engines have brought us cloud computing and a very powerful access to lots and lots and lots of data, otherwise known as ‘the world wide web’.

No wonder I envision that powerful access and cloud computing are the two most important values we want to keep while increasing the capacity and intelligence to do real analytics on large data sets.

In an upcoming whitepaper of the Atos Scientific Community, these 2 elements are explored in great depth:

• Data Analytics needs cloud computing to create an “Analytics as a Service” – model because that model addresses in the best way how people and organizations want to use analytics.

• This Data Analytics as a Service – model (DAaaS) should not behave as an application, but it should be available as a platform for application development.

The first statement on the cloud computing needs suggests we can expect analytics to become easily deployed, widely accessible and not depending on deep investments by single organizations; ‘as a service’ implies relatively low cost and certainly a flexible usage model.

The second statement about the platform capability of data analytics however, has far reaching consequences for the way we implement and build the analytic capabilities for large data collections.

“Architecturally, and due to the intrinsic complexities of analytical processes, the implementation of DAaaS represents an important set of challenges, as it is more similar to a flexible Platform as a Service (PaaS) solution than a more “fixed” Software as a Service (SaaS) application”

It is relatively easy to implement a single application that will give you an answer to a complex question; many of the applications for mobile devices are built on this model (take for example the many applications for public transport departure, arrival times and connections).

This “1-application-1-question” approach is in my opinion not a sustainable business model for business environments; we need some kind of workbench and toolkit that is based on a stable and well defined service.

The white paper describes a proof of concept that has explored such an environment for re-usability, cloud aspects and flexibility. It also points to the technology used and how the technology can work together to create ‘Data Analytics as a Service’.

Update: the white paper is available for download here.

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The possibility to collect large amounts of data from everyday activities by people, factory processes, trains, cars, weather and just about anything else that can be measured, monitored or otherwise observed is a topic that has been discussed in our blogs many times.

Sometimes indicated as ‘The Internet of Things’ or, with a different view ‘Big Data’ or ‘Total Data’, the collection and analysis of data has been a topic for technology observations and a source of concern and a initiator for new technology opportunities.

This blog is not about the concerns, nor is it about the new technologies. Instead it is about a view introduced by a new white paper by the Atos Scientific Community called “The Economy of Internet Applications”; a paper that gives us a different, more economic, view on these new opportunities.

Let’s take a look at a car manufacturer. The car he (or she) builds will contain many sensors and the data from those sensors will support the manufacturer to enable better repairs for that one car, it can provide data from many cars for an analysis to build a better car in the future and it can show information to the user of the car (speed, mileage, gas). The driver generates the data (if a car is not driven, there is no data) and both the driver and the car manufacturer profit from the result.

Now pay attention, because something important is happening: When the car manufacturer provides the data of the driver and the car combined to an insurance company, a new business model is created. The user still puts in the data by using the car, the car manufacturer sensors in the car still collects the data, but the insurance company gets the possibility to do a better risk analysis on the driver’s behaviour and the cars safety record. This would allow the insurance company to give the driver a better deal on his insurance, or sponsor some safety equipment in the car so there is less risk for big insurance claims in health or property damage. It would allow the car manufacturer to create more value from data they already have collected and it would give the driver additional benefits in lower insurance payments or improved safeties.

What just happened is that we created a multi-sided market and it is happening everywhere.

“If you don’t pay for the product you are the product”

The white paper explains it in more detail but the bottom line is that due to new capabilities in technology, additional data can easily be collected. This data can be of value for different companies participating in such a data collection and the associated analytics platform. Based on the economic theory of multisided markets, the different participants can influence each other in a positive way, especially cross sector (the so called network effect).

So there you have it, the simple recipe for a new business model:

1) Find a place where data is generated. This could be in any business or consumer oriented environment. Understand who is generating the data and why.

2) Research how:

a. that data or the information in that data, can give your business a benefit and

b. how data that you own or generate yourself, can enrich the data from the other parties.

3) Negotiate the usage of the data by yourself or the provisioning of your data to the other parties.

In the end this is about creating multiple win scenarios that are based on bringing multiple data sources together. The manufacturer wins because it improves his product, the service provider wins because it can improve the service and the consumer wins because he is receiving both a better product and a more tailored service.

Some have said that Big Data resembles the gold rush (2) many years ago. Everybody is doing it and it seems very simple; just dig in and find the gold – it was even called ‘data-mining’.

In reality, with data nowadays, it is even better, if you create or participate in the right multi-sided market, that data, and thus the value, will be created for you.

We will let you know when the white paper is available for download

(1) http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/digital-records-could-expose-intimate-details-and-personality-traits-of-millions

(2) http://www.forbes.com/sites/bradpeters/2012/06/21/the-big-data-gold-rush/

Update: the white paper is available for download here.

The post Watch this space: A new business model in 3 easy steps appeared first on The Scientific Community.

In a soon to be published White Paper of the Atos Scientific Community, Liquid IT is positioned not only as a technology or architecture; it is also very much focussed on the results of this change on the business you are doing day to day with your customer(s).

“A journey towards Liquid IT is actually rather subtle, and it is much more than a technology journey”

The paper explains in detail how the introduction of more flexible IT provisioning, now done in real time allows for financial transparency and agility. A zero latency provisioning and decommissioning model, complete with genuine utility pricing based on actual resources consumed, enables us to drive the optimal blend of minimising cost and maximising agility. Right-sizing capabilities and capacity all of the time to the needs of the users will impact your customer relationship – but, very important, designing such a systems starts with understanding the business needs.

“Liquid IT starts from the business needs: speed, savings, flexibility, and ease of use”

Existing examples of extreme flexibility in IT (think gMail, Hotmail or other consumer oriented cloud offerings) have had to balance between standardization and scale. The more standard the offering, the more results in scaling can be achieved. This has always been a difficult scenario for more business oriented applications. The paper postulates that with proper care for business needs and the right architecture, similar flexibility is achievable for business processes.

Such a journey to ‘Liquid IT’ indeed includes tough choices in technology and organization, but also forces the providers of such an environment to have an in-depth look at the financial drivers in the IT provisioning and the IT consumption landscape.

“The objectives of financial transparency dictate that all IT services are associated with agreed processes for allocation, charging and invoicing”

There are two other aspects that need to change in parallel with this move to more agility in IT; the role of the CIO will evolve and the SLA that he is either buying or selling will change accordingly.

Change management will transform into Information Management as the use of IT as a business enabler is no longer the concern of the CIO. IT benchmarking will become a more and more important tool to measure the level of achieved agility for the business owners. The focus on the contribution to the business performance will be measured and needs to be managed in line with business forecasts.

The white paper authors conclude that “Business agility is the main result of Liquid IT” – sounds like a plan!

Update: the white paper is available for download here.

The post Watch this space: Would you like a cup of IT? appeared first on The Scientific Community.

Whilst the concept of Big Data has been around for a number of years and is relatively well understood, it is now becoming clear that everything we do is leaving a trail of data that can be analysed and used. Examples include the payments we make on a credit card, the books we read on an e-reader and our energy use by driving an electric car. This will lead to a new era of Total Data that, in turn, will lead to new business models, services and economic growth. We don’t yet understand all the implications of this – for businesses and society – but organisations that are able to harness and make sense of the vast quantities of heterogeneous data from disparate sources will gain valuable insights into market trends and opportunities.

• An ‘Ecosystem’ of new management tools is taking shape, covering the various layers of the data stack in the enterprise and capable of delivering a ‘Total Data’ approach

The technology that supports the Information Management Lifecycle in the enterprise is going through a profound change, due to the emergence of new solutions, many from open source background (NoSQL databases, Hadoop, analytical tools like R, visualization tools). To enable the ‘Total Data’ environment, the new technologies need to connect into and partly replace traditional technologies.

• In some scenarios, data must be obtained, processed and correlated with insights being derived and actions initiated as close to real time as posible.

Yesterday’s data is not interesting unless it helps predict tomorrow. Yesterday’s traffic report isn’t helpful in plotting a journey today unless it is known to represent today’s pattern as well, and combined with other data can improve future congestion. Pattern Based Strategy enables huge amounts of historical data to be analysed for previously invisible patterns. These patterns give us the power to start predicting what is likely to happen in the future, so we can plan and improve, both in real-time and in non-real time scenario-planning. For example, real time predictive analysis will plot the route for transporting donor organs across a city safely and quickly, continuously adapting the route to changes in the traffic patterns as they are happening. Another example is a country to make compliance recommendations (and potentially becoming a legal requirement) to companies for maintenance regimes for their infrastructures or industry plants using analytics on historic data and thus establishing an automated “what are the lessons learned” process.

• Everything will be digital and everything will be connected.

Everything will be captured; “your life is becoming a video” – you can even replay your actions, thoughts and analyse in various forms and for multiple purposes (see http://quantifiedself.com/ for examples); this is not only becoming possible for peoples life’s, but anything that can be measured can be tracked, traced and put in a digital context for analysis. The ability of businesses to process this wealth of information is still unclear. What these developments – and others related such as 3-D printers and cognitive computers that will be able to replicate smell and touch for their users – mean for society, laws and concepts such as individual privacy need to be reassessed and will prove a huge challenge to governments, businesses and individuals in the 21st Century; for example long-established laws and concepts such as individual privacy need to be reassessed.

• After an initial confusion phase, traditional and ‘Big Data’ orientated approaches to analytics will converge in a unified ‘Total Data’ platform.

Big data relies on its sister technologies of optimised IT networks, rapid mobilization communication tools and cloud computing. Data Analytics as a Service could emerge from a combination of Big Data, Pattern Based Strategy and Cloud technologies. Businesses will need to improve in areas such as increased forecasting and enhanced automation capabilities or building new business propositions upon the discoveries they can do using Total Data as a source of undiscovered information.

The post The ‘Data Explosion’ is real appeared first on The Scientific Community.

In an upcoming whitepaper of the Atos Scientific Community, this evolution of ‘the net’ is described and put in the context of the additional functionality we now expect from our interactions on the internet. The authors challenge the current technology stack that is making up the many, many connections and network capabilities that have to be served to make the internet do what it is supposed to do.

“The topology of the Internet has evolved through economic and technological optimization decisions to a flatter structure where major content providers and distributors get as close as possible to the access networks used by their customers”

There seem to be good reasons to have a good look at this technology evolution and make some choices to  continue to enjoy the internet:

1. Because of the cloud computing trend, more and more traffic is concentrated between several internet powerhouses; Facebook, Amazon, Google and Microsoft. The distributed nature of the original internet simply does not exist anymore.

2. Because of the huge increase in mobile internet usage, the way that information is accessed, changed and presented is different from the past models – the existing networking functionality is not optimized for this type of usage.

3. Future scenarios predict that through the assignment of an IP address to about any device you can think of we will create a huge peer-to-peer network, where human interaction will be only a small portion of all connections; “the internet of things”. The current internet technology is not designed for this.

These changes raise some fundamental questions and these are described in more details the paper. Most noticeable the authors bring our attention to the fundamental nature of the internet as it is built at the moment, a decentralized web of processing and access points.

“On the long run, the question is raised whether the Internet will durably follow a concentration trend driving it towards a more centralized network or if we will see a new wave of decentralization.”

This whitepaper  dives into the technology of the internet and shows where we are facing potential bottlenecks.

update: the white paper is available for download here.

The post Watch this space: Three reasons to change the Internet now appeared first on The Scientific Community.

Central in the paper is the question: “Where is the mind of the future robot?”, and by outlining the concept of a robot that can utilize everything that is available in cyberspace you may find it difficult to answer that question.

Today it is hard to predict where on earth all of the data about you is stored in the cloud and we have never been able to communicate more easily. It is easy to see that robots will be everywhere, able to utilize all available information.

This will lead to a new class in robot persona’s and capabilities.

“Once the robot is part of a social network, it could virtually interact with humans as well and thus start truly mimicking human behavior.”

When I was (much) younger we had a program on our home computer that was called ‘Eliza’. This program would behave as an electronic psychiatrist. It had some limited learning capabilities and some clever language skills to ‘trick’ you in having an actual conversation. If you would type things like “I hate talking to a computer”, Eliza would answer with “Hate seems to be important to you, can you explain that?”

If we now multiply the capabilities of this ‘Eliza’ by a thousand (using cloud computing scalability) or more and bring in the analytics of all of your ‘likes’ or ‘diggs’ or even the behaviour of your friends, combined with knowledge about your locations and multiply that by analysing all the things you did 5 years ago, 10 years ago and today …. Well I think you get the picture.

The more a future robot knows or has access to, the more it will be able to fulfil his role in supporting us. This may not sit well with everybody, but if we utilize this capability in a clever way, I believe we can benefit.

Especially if we also take into account that a robot can take different forms, could exist virtually or maybe even be in multiple locations at the same time, with access to the right information and computing power to use that to our benefit. The whitepaper describes some of these scenarios and puts it in the perspective of the role of IT providers and systems integrators.

Based on my reading of the whitepaper I was thinking that maybe the statement ‘I cannot be in two places at the same time’ will soon become a thing of the past.

Update Novermber 29, 2012: The whitepaper is now published and can be found here.

The post Watch this space: How big is your robot? appeared first on The Scientific Community.

Simple terminologies like ‘services’ and ‘infrastructure’ have a fundamental different meaning when discussed as part of the Siemens or Atos portfolio. Where parts of Siemens thinks of maintaining pumps and sensors, we think of process consulting and implementing software; and pipelines and manufacturing belts are not the same as networks, storage and servers.

Still Atos and Siemens believe there is additional value when we look to combine these elements in other and new services. Similar to our clients we are continuously looking to get this value through the convergence of OT and IT.

This topic is now also addressed in an upcoming whitepaper by the Atos Scientific community, which looks into the specific issues round IT/OT convergence and suggests methods to master the process.

“Implementing IT/OT Convergence successfully will imply that IT- and OT-Strategies will be harmonized, common governance and process models will be installed, security and data will be managed centrally and resources will be re-skilled to understand and know the requirements of both disciplines”

The quote above from the whitepaper indicates we are dealing with a multifaceted implementation that is by far not easily accomplished. It is certainly not about tooling and seems to be more about organisation and business processes.

The whitepaper mentions at least 3 areas of expertise that support a successful IT/OT convergence:

1. Strong change management; because IT and OT are domains on their own, we need to manage the convergence in such a way that we do not negatively influence the value that each domain has on its own.

2. Process Harmonization; standardization of definitions and the way things ‘get done’ is necessary to avoid ad hoc solutions and costly mistakes.

3. A service oriented architecture; standardization in technology and making sure no technology lock-in can happen allow for the necessary flexibility when change happens.

One could argue that IT/OT convergence is not a high priority; we have been very successful without it for a very long time. But I think it was not by choice we have chosen to look away – it was simply too hard, too difficult to achieve. The authors of the whitepaper seem to agree:

“Now, new ideas and concepts are developing around IT/OT providing major opportunities for those who understand to leverage their IT know-how to the shop floor. Now is the time to capitalize on them! “

Update November 22, 2012: The whitepaper is now published and can be found here.

The post Watch this space: IT is from Mars, OT is from Venus appeared first on The Scientific Community.

Batteries are empty when you need them most (look at any horror movie and you know what I mean). Cars are expensive and they pollute our planet. There is a multitude of battery formats and you have to go to the store to buy them – or you need to charge them and that takes a lot of time (iPhone anybody?).

So, electric cars, cars fuelled by batteries, is something that I find an unlikely combination. Charging them is time consuming and a charger is not available everywhere. The use of changeable batteries might seems like a good idea, but is it really convenient and what about formats and availability?

Exactly this dilemma of ‘Electromobility’ is described in an upcoming whitepaper of the Atos Scientific Community:

“The success of Electromobility depends on addressing two major challenges: User acceptance and the availability of supporting infrastructure and services.”

After looking into the subject it became clear that next to user acceptance and the support infrastructure, we can also see this as a huge area of new revenue possibilities and innovation. Leasing and pay-for-use in mobility are much better business cases for both the vendor and the consumer. It also ‘fuels’ (sorry, I could not resist making that joke…), the innovation process because you take out the big capex investment for the end user.

“New business models like battery leasing, simple easy to use charging infrastructure and the involvement of all stakeholders are the key to a positive business case.”

Instead of buying a new car every 5 or 6 years, the consumer (and companies) can choose to either own a car or lease one according to his needs of today. With the right infrastructure he can choose to just change battery or even change the whole car. And through some clever analysis the supplier can even predict the end user behavior. This prediction leads to a more tailored offering and in itself will drive further innovation. Such analysis, combined with extending the eco system for example into insurance companies, food and beverage providers, holiday brokers and other leisure providers can create whole new commercial eco systems.

“Electromobility needs multi-sided flexible business platforms with open interfaces to create new value.”

This is of course all very much in the future and will mean we need to change our habits, both on the provider and the consumer side of driving a car. But change is inevitable and with the right standardization to support ease of use, and a well-integrated system for payments and loyalty schemes, I might be persuaded to buy into such a solution for visiting my mother.

For now we just need to start to understand what is at stake, what is possible and which actions we need to take. For this the upcoming whitepaper is an excellent first step. We will let you know when it is published.

Update Novermber 15, 2012: The whitepaper is now published and can be found here.

The post Watch this space: How many batteries do you need to visit your mother? appeared first on The Scientific Community.

It was like having public surgery.

This experience came to mind when I was reading the new white paper of the Atos Scientific Community that is about to be published shortly (we will let you know when). The document explores the world of mobile payments.

“Mobile payment is not about printing money or inventing a new currency, but about a customer, a merchant (or both) using a mobile device during the payment of a transaction.”

The paper describes in detail the technological challenges and looks into the way that business need to adapt themselves to accommodate the use of mobile devices for enabling payments.

Several business scenarios are explored in the paper showing the benefits of this way of handling transactions.

Normally when we introduce this concept we focus on the benefit for the customer. Mobility, no need for cash and ease of use are obvious positive points. It becomes interesting if we move our view to the merchant and look at what mobility can do at the ‘other side of the transaction’.

- Firstly a mobile point of sale introduces more flexibility in store concepts and a intimacy between sales person and buyer; this enhances the shopping experience and makes the transaction a more natural part of the shop visit.

- Secondly, the investment in the point of sale equipment is lower, any mobile device will do and there is a great choice available.

- Finally the digitalization allows for multiple payment scenarios including different levels of security (each with their own cost level), connecting loyalty schemes and ad hoc sales promotions.

Although the benefits look compelling there are still hurdles to overcome. These include the obvious security challenges as well as the physical capabilities of the devices such as encryption, local storage and Near Field Communication. Also you do not want your roaming contract or mobile data plan to become an inhibitor when you see that once in a life time opportunity at the local market in that cute little village in Peru.

“Can technology make physical money irrelevant? That may be a statement that is too bold to make today, but it is certainly not too difficult to envision. One of the main enablers for such a zero-cash scenario is mobile payment.”

Once the white paper is published we will add the download location so you can download it and discuss it with your local grocery store.

Update October 25, 2012: The whitepaper is now published and can be found here.

The post Watch this space: 3 reasons why you should embrace mobile payments appeared first on The Scientific Community.

Is this good? I do not think so. My main objection is that you will end up with a cloud solution that is no different than any solution you have previously designed and installed yourself, at a cheaper rate and lower quality SLA.

True cloud solutions should not only focus on cost reduction, increased agility and flexible capabilities. You should also be buying something that supports portability between the private and public computing domain, and across different vendor platforms.

In early cloud solutions, mainly the ones focussing on Infrastructure-as-a-service, this portability has been heavily debated (remember the ‘Open Cloud Manifesto’?) and in the end we concluded that server virtualization solved a lot of the portability issues (I am simplifying of course).

We also had Software-as-a-service and some publications showed that the portability could be addressed by looking at standardized business process definitions and data normalisation (again, I am simplifying).

Now the Atos Scientific Community is about to publish a whitepaper that looks at the most complex form of cloud computing; Platform-as-a-service.

“PaaS offerings today are diverse, but they share a vendor lock-in characteristic. As in any market for an emerging technology, there is a truly diverse array of capabilities being offered by PaaS providers, from supported programming tools (languages, frameworks, runtime environments, and databases) to various types of underlying infrastructure, even within the capabilities available for each PaaS”

So a common characteristic that can be extracted of all this diversity is the fact of PaaS users currently are being bound to the specific platform they use, making the portability of their software (and data) created on top of these platforms difficult.

As a result we see a slow adoption of PaaS in the enterprise; only those groups that have a very well defined end-user group are looking at PaaS – and mostly for the wrong reason: ‘just’ cost saving through standardization. In the whitepaper they are identified as:

“Two primary user groups which benefit from using Cloud at the Platform as a Service level: Enterprises with their own internal software development activities and ISVs interested in selling SaaS services on top of a hosted PaaS.”

The current situation where PaaS is mostly resulting in a vendor lock-in scenario is holding back the full potential for applications on a PaaS. By introducing a general purpose PaaS, we would allow a comprehensive, open, flexible, and interoperable solution that simplifies the process of developing, deploying, integrating, and managing applications both in public and private clouds.

Such an architecture is proposed and explained in detail in the whitepaper; it describes the desired capabilities and building blocks that need to be established and it also offers an analysis of market trends and existing solutions, in order to establish a future vision and direction for PaaS, as well as outlining the business potential of such a solution.

We can all continue to feel positive about the power and the business potential of cloud computing. Changing your cost base from capex to opex, increasing your speed in your go-to-market strategies and the flexibility in capacity and location are very important for your business. We should not however confuse vendor specific solutions with cloud solutions only because they promise flexibility in cost and easy deployment; being able to shift and shop around is always better – also in cloud computing.

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Update October 18, 2012: The whitepaper is now published and can be found here.

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