Tech Industry Analysis

Convio (CNVO) gets acquired by Blackbaud (BLKB) for $16/share - MGI Analyst Blog

Convio (CNVO) gets acquired by Blackbaud (BLKB) for $16/share - MGI Analyst Blog.

New Research: Is SaaS Ready for Manufacturing Solutions? - MGI Analyst Blog

New Research: Is SaaS Ready for Manufacturing Solutions? - MGI Analyst Blog.

New Research: MGI Scorecard - Large Systems Vendors Oct 2011

New research published: "Large Systems Vendors Scorecard: October 2011"  @mgiresearch #IBM, #CSCO, #ORCL, #EMC, #Dell, #HPQ, #VMW, #BRCD, #NTAP, #JNPR

Our current, October 2011 vendor scorecard provides a qualitative rating for large systems vendors such as Hewlett-Packard, Oracle, Dell, IBM, EMC and Cisco. The note contrasts these ratings with quantitative MGI Index scores measuring business model efficiency and with growth and valuation parameters. The recent upheaval at HP provides an interesting backdrop to our rating scores. With a drop in HP stock, a number of analysts and investors have been turning positive on the company. We think that such enthusiasm is a bit premature. HP’s stock is cheap for a reason. In a related research note: “Who Benefits from HP Disarray?” we analyze the opportunities and threats for HP and its peer group.

Other recent MGI Research reports include:

Is Manhattan Associates an Acquisition Target?

Getting the Right IT Deal: A 20 Questions Interview with a leading IT contracts guru

CIO Critical Success Factors: Conversation with Martha Heller, a noted CIO recruiter

 Visit www.mgiresearch.com for additional information. To schedule analyst appointments, call +1 (888) 801-3644

New Research: Is Manhattan Associates an Acquisition Target?

New research report: Is Manhattan Associates an Acquisition Target? @mgiresearch #MANH

Despite the huge cash hoard sitting on software companies balance sheets, perennial predictions of a massive wave of 2011 industry consolidation have not materialized. SaaS company mergers are few and far between while enterprise software companies have been cautious to avoid any non-accretive deals. We believe that amongst several possible industry merger transactions, Manhattan Associates, a provider of supply chain execution software is now themost likely acquisition target. Among the short-list of potential acquirers are SAP, Oracle, Infor, and JDA Software as well as a few private equity firms. 

New Research: Getting the Right IT Deal - 20 Questions with Joe Galuszka

New Research: A significant amount of time, money and effort is spent in the evaluation, selection, negotiationand acquisition of technology assets. In spite of all of this effort, many companies chronically over-pay for those assetsand sign sub-optimal contractual agreements. Andrew Dailey of MGI Research recently conducted an in-depth interviewwith Joe Galuszka, a widely recognized expert in the area of IT Contract Optimization, Joe works directly with CIOs and CFOs to assist them in maximizing their negotiation leverage and achieving additional cost savings and advantageous contract terms and conditions. He has over 25 years of experience in the IT industry, and Joe’s negotiation experience spans both client buy-side and vendor sell-side engagements.

New Research - CIO Critical Success Factors: 20 Questions with Martha Heller

New Research:  - CIOs today face four major disruptive trends: cloud computing, mobile computing, social networking, and agile development. In addition to determining how to best leverage those trends for the business, CIOs are increasingly challenged with risks of security breaches, system downtime, and rising user demands for easier to use, faster to deploy IT systems to support today’s fast-moving, global business requirements. Andrew Dailey of MGI Research recently conducted an in-depth interview with Martha Heller, a well-regarded executive search consultant and Contributing Editor of CIO magazine. Based in Boston, Martha has placed CIOs and senior IT leaders at clientcompanies like Edison Learning, Key Bank, Hertz, BJ’s Wholesale Club and Providence Equity Partners, among others. Prior to executive search, Martha was the founder and Managing Director of CIO magazine’s CIO ExecutiveCouncil.

New Research - 20 Questions with CEO of CollabNet Bill Portelli

Agile is a massive change agent that is dramatically transforming timeframes, quality and economics of software development. As part of “20 Questions”- an MGI Research Interview Series with leading technology industry innovators, investors, and executives, Andrew Dailey recently conducted an in-depth interview with Bill Portelli, CEO and co-founder of CollabNet, a leading vendor of Agile tools and services. Prior to CollabNet, Bill was Senior VP and GM of Cadence Design Systems’ global consulting business. Since co-founding CollabNet with Tim O’Reilly and Brian Behlendorf (co-founder of the Apache Project), Bill has been at the forefront of collaborative software development tools for global enterprises and the SaaS delivery model.

 

New Research - 20 Questions with CEO of FinancialForce.com Jeremy Roche

In this 20 Questions interview, FinancialForce.com CEO Jeremy Roche shares his views on building financial apps in the cloud, leveraging the Force.com platform and on strategies for building a successful SaaS business.

New Research: Three Key Trends Shaping Cloud Computing

In a new research report "Three Key Trends Shaping Cloud Computing" we examine both the drivers as well as the barriers to cloud computing adoption. Several recent cyber security incidents spotlighted Cloud Computing vulnerabilities, generating questions about the durability of the overall adoption trend for the Cloud. The focus of the report is on the current intersection of cloud strategies of LOB users, central IT and cloud vendors and how pragmatic economic and technological factors are shaping their decisions with regard to Cloud adoption. We expect the pace of adoption for cloud computing to accelerate. The recent shift from confrontation to collaboration between central IT and the cloud providers, signals a removal of a significant road-block to cloud adoption. The focus of internal IT on virtualization first has now come into question as more users are looking at pursuing both mega-trends but not at the same speed and not for the same portions of their applications portfolio. The challenges posed by cloud security and management issues are serious, but are not the insurmountable barriers to broader adoption of cloud computing. Both the cloud as well as virtualization are driving a redefinition of the requirements landscape for security and management tools. This disruption creates a growth opportunity for cloud start-ups and a challenge for incumbent vendors of software and security tools such as CA, BMC, HPQ and IBM. We expect the re-acceleration in this space to benefit RAX, AMZN, CRM, CNQR, TLEO, KNXA, as well as the cybersecurity vendor group. This report is a must read for anyone interested in gaining an in-depth insight of the current business and technical trends that are shaping the opportunity for cloud computing.

 

Apple's iCloud Grabs Consumer and SMB Productivity Cloud

We believe Apple's iCloud product could be a game changer. iCloud fires a shot across the bow directed squarely at Microsoft's Office365, and Google's Small Business Apps cloud productivity offerings because iCloud provides a near frictionaless adoption path for Apple iOS device customers. It is quite likely that the iCloud announcement serves notice to investors in highly visible upstarts  Dropbox, Surgarsync, Evernote and others that their free ride is over.

Amongst the raft of features announced by Apple at the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, the announcement of iCloud was in our view the most significant. It is also the one announcement that got somewhat lost in press coverage as the iTunes in the cloud music sharing service overshadowed what is in our view a real game-changer for the personal and groupware productivity solutions markets. iCloud, in our view, is the first cloud solution from a major vendor that has a clear brand identity; an understandable, compelling offer; and is likely to re-shape multiple markets in the next twelve months.   

Apple did away with its much maligned MobileMe service that provided a virtual folder capability and email for $99/year. In its place, Apple announced iCloud, -a cloud-based service with a robust, integrated and mostly free set of personal productivity apps (Mail, Contacts, document and file sharing, etc. ) that provides email, storage, and PUSH-based synchronization capability for iWork documents. Apple will provide each user with a 5GB free storage and is making its storage APIs available to developers prior to the product go-live date in this fall. The new, reworked apps represent a rather complete set of personal productivity and small office tools that allow for sharing of contacts, calendars, and files using a relatively seamless and familiar interface. The suite is AD-free.

From here on, any individual professional or a small business or a group can easily and freely establish a cloud-based, shared and synchronized office environment. This is a direct shot at Google Docs as well as at Microsoft. With the simple announcement of iCloud as a free productivity solution, Apple has quickly outpaced Microsoft and Google, both of whom have been trying now for a few years to carve out a viable productivity cloud strategy and are now forced to play catch up. Initially, iCloud will make things more difficult for Google than for Microsoft Live offering, but the speed with which Apple entered and established itself in the cloud space is a clear warning sign for Microsoft. We are not ready yet to write the Microsoft Office and Exchange obituaries, - large companies will continue to rely on these mature products. Apple still has a long way to go to make iCloud appealing to enterprises and there is no indication that they have any interest in this market. Moreover, Apple, (and Google), does not offer the management tools needed by enterprises to deploy and administer large groups of users, but clearly Apple is not that far away from being able to do so, given that similar technology underpins much of what is iCloud internally. Microsoft, Google, RIM, and all the third-party hosted email providers should all take note.

Security is an additional issue as the PUSH nature of iCloud and similar products can make them the distribution mechanisms for infected code. Given the recent spate of highly visible security breaches at various tech companies and consumer businesses, anyone looking to deploy an office solution based in the cloud is going to want to get additional assurances of tight security monitoring as well as evidence of tools, process and staff to combat any emerging security threats. 

For individuals and small businesses, iCloud makes it very difficult to justify paying a lot of money for personal productivity applications, email, and storage. Overnight, Apple has established itself and the iCloud brand as the dominant consumer and personal productivity cloud offering. 

June 10th 2011. (c)2011 MGI Research, LLC.