Little Known MDM Successes

The success of a product is ultimately proved out by customer adoption. For some reason, MDM is an area where poor market perception has severly limited its progress. Shifting strategies by Oracle, IBM, and SAP have stunted this emerging market. It's caused concern over whether MDM is a viable opportunity, whether any vendors have a complete solution, and whether customers really want it. Well, I can tell you, customers definitely want it. Webinars on the MDM topic is consistently sold out. The pipleline for MDM is jam-packed, across several industries. Yet, it is that bias against MDM as the red-haired stepchild after several initial stumblings in product direction (mistakes committed by SAP and Oracle alike) that continues to stunt MDM growth.

Like I said, ultimately it depends on the customers. Today, SAP has more than forty customers live and more than thirty references. If that doesn't say "good product" with a solid future, I don't know what does. Only IBM may have more customers through acquisitions and service engagements.

A Note on the "Bloatosphere"

Tom Smith from InformationWeek makes a great point about the proliferation and longevity of blogs:

The number of blogs has increased 100-fold since 2003 to 50 million. In addition, the total has doubled every six months for about two years, according to a new report quantifying the blogosphere by Technorati. In July alone, there were 1.6 million blog postings daily, or 18.6 per second. Two blogs were created each second of each day.

While the report and its author say the rate of blogging activity and growth can't continue, the data begs many questions about the direction of blogging: Are quality blogs simply getting lost in the noise? Or more precisely, is quality even relevant in the blogging world? How do you find blogs worthy of consistent return visits when the universe of blogs has reached into the tens of millions? If you do have a quality blog, is it even possible to build a sustainable audience and consistently deliver valuable (or entertaining or insightful) information to readers?

I do think that we're getting to a point where there IS a lot of noise. But if you are an informed reader, you can easily make the distinction between a quality blog and someone who is just spewing. Starting a blog is easy but maintaining it and finding a voice in a sea of very opinionated industry insiders is challenging. I do agree that over time, they will consolidate, like any other market. However, I am constantly amazed at the breadth and depth of blogs and continue to discover blogs of note in every walk of life -- from ones dedicated to niche software markets to ones on fashionable purses. I mean, the key is community, right? As long as you can build and sustain a community interested in a certain topic, consistently providing updated and interesting information, then you are hardpressed to find another one just like it.

The Difference Between SAP MDM and Oracle Data Hubs

SAP’s MDM approach is to primarily synchronize and harmonize data, letting BPP or SAP solution modules retain their individual master data persistence. This is different from Oracle’s DH approach, which dictates DHs as the only master data storage. It does not allow EBS modules to retain master data persistence. In this way, Oracle had ambitions to control all master data in an organization, regardless of what systems they had, SAP or otherwise. This centralized hub and spoke model however, is highly inflexible and has its weaknesses. Oracle realized this and recently changed its product plans to shift all DH technology to the Siebel platform. This move improves upon Oracle’s DH offering because Siebel lends a federated or distributed master data management approach, where any installation can be a master and any installation can be a slave. This approach is more similar to SAP’s as it allows flexibility in adapting data management to whatever business process flow the customer wants.

If the customer wants its CRM system to be the single source of creation for customer master and the one that retains all customer records, then that is easily enabled. The rules for data mapping, data distribution, and data validation for source and destination systems are easily defined as processes for managing data. The customer would not have to continually ping the hub for master data any time updates or changes need to be made. While these are Oracle’s future DH plans, currently the DH product is still based on old Oracle technology. Oracle will likely maintain the old DH product as it develops the new Siebel-based product.

The Scarlet Letter "E"

This is hilarious. Same could be said for Motorola's Razr and its new lineup, the KRZR, the RIZR, and the SLVR.

Q U O T E D

Your absence has really thrown a spanner into the trademark and IP strategy of a lot of Web 2.0 firms. Where do you think you're missed the most?

"There definitely are companies that may be showing signs of having issues. In addition to Flickr, there are companies like Beggr, Coastr, Colrpickr, Fastr, Frappr, Gabbr, Mappr, Nabbr, Phrasr, Soonr, Talkr, Zooomr and probably a metric ton of other ones. A few individuals have flamed me for 'stifling innovation,' but I prefer to think of it as an opportunity to help those organizations out of a creative rut. Unfortunately, few seem to have risen to the challenge."

-- In an exclusive interview with BidnessWeek, the letter "e" talks about what he's been doing for the past few years

Prison Outsourcing

Prison outsourcing was heralded as the next India for BPO (close to home, no "cultural" barriers, and high productivity). How crazy is this suggestion? It's one thing to have prisoners do manual labor but can you imagine ordering a pair of J.Crew khakis through Sing Sing? I can think of so so many security breaches. In India, we're talking about highly trained professionals, many with masters and PhD's answering phones. I would fathom we won't find the same level of education amongst our prison population. Oh, well...it's nice to entertain the idea, albeit a bit scary.

SAP Buys Praxis

SAP AG acquired Praxis, n CRM e-commerce company to target the SMB market. This move is not so different from Oracle's continued acquisition binge, except that SAP is much more careful about which vendors to pick up. There's no reason that SAP shouldn't have an appetite for acquisitions despite its commitment to organic growth. While Praxis doesn't give SAP anything for its on-demand solution, it does lend important functionality that SAP needs for its on-premise offering which SAP can eventually offer as hosted somewhere down the line.

The bottom line on this acqusition is that it is a smart one if SAP is serious about SMB...and it is. Business One needed better CRM functionality and now it has it. Certainly, integration with Praxis will be far easier than the hairy monster Oracle is dealing with right now. Small aquisitions, small wins, for small businesses.

Quote of the Day - 7.11.06

"People think that we started Firefox just to take down Microsoft, just to win some kind of competition. Why would we want to win? There's no money involved for us. There's no (initial public offering) for this company; it's a non-profit. Why would we want to do this unless there's a real need? The truth is I think Microsoft is very directly responsible for spyware and adware and the pop-up ads in general that proliferated across the Web after they abandoned their product. I mean, this is the world's most-used software application ever ... and I just think it's irresponsible for a company to abandon it simply because they can't find a financial incentive to continue development on it."

-- Blake Ross, one of the founders of the Mozilla Firefox project

Oracle's 585 B.S.

Oracle recently released a ridiculous press release that said “585 Customers Selected Oracle Over SAP in Fiscal Year 2006.” In it, 12 customer names were named as examples of wins over SAP. Oracle also named yet another 15 wins against SAP in its Q4 2006 earnings announcement.

This is pure marketing b.s.! Having gone through this list of customers, only a handful were actually competitive deals. The rest, it seems, Oracle dreamt up or counted as wins on their own whim. The majority of claims were upgrades for Oracle or extensions of apps for vendors it recently acquired. Just a whole lot of smoke and mirrors...typical Oracle fare.

If Oracle spent half as much time on integrating its apps and finishing up Fusion as it did picking on SAP, it would have a killer product set. But no, it continues to pick petty battles and create false campaigns around its successes instead of focusing on customers. Face it, Oracle is just a big bully with a lot of hot air.

Quote of the Day - 7.4.06

"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it."

— Thomas Jefferson


Happy Fourth of July!!!

Demantra - Just An "OK" Purchase for Oracle

Oracle bought Demantra last week, which seemed odd at first. Then realizing just how bad Oracle's APS solution was shed light on why Demantra is a good buy. Certainly, this is a technology purchase and an industry play - Demantra does not boast of many customers. During my analyst days, I recall Demantra not making much headway in terms of customer traction or real innovation. Of course, if you ask the analysts out there today whether this was a good purchase, no one's going to say it's not, for fear of an Oracle backlash. But whether this really puts Oracle ahead or even on par with the likes of SAP and the one or two other SCM best-of-breeds left out there, I would say...probably not. Where Oracle can gain an advantage, I believe is tying Demantra together with ProfitLogic and of course Retek. But until those pieces are integrated, they are just that...random pieces of technology.

Interesting Database Innovation

IBM Database pioneer, Don Haderle innovates on database technology with Ants Software.

Since most database management software products are proprietary and incompatible, its costly and risky for companies to migrate from one to another. In comes Ants, which claims to be "universally compatible." This means it can mimic all database management software, enabling companies that tailored applications to run on Oracle or DB2 to easily run them on other databases.

But will Oracle or IBM just buy them up? What's the competitive differentiation here? According to Haderle:

"If Ants viewed itself as a DB2 killer, they'd die along with all the other object database companies," Haderle says. "Even if we could operate three times faster, those differences only last for a moment in time. IBM would throw the hordes on it and have it figured out and build it, or buy it. "The question in my mind is how to find growth in areas not supported by existing database systems and be synergistic with the big guys," Haderle adds.

SAP & Microsoft Reintroduce Mendocino as "Duet"

SAP and Microsoft introduce Duet software, bringing together the worlds of productivity and enterprise applications.

The Microsoft spokesperson in the press release explains what the product is:

“Duet is a business mashup of Microsoft Office applications with SAP enterprise information and processes that can improve the quality and speed of decision making and workforce productivity. With Duet, SAP will be easier to access and more relevant for many more users who spend their workdays in the ‘Microsoft’ Office.”

This is a prime opportunity for SAP to extend its reach beyond R/3 users and the targeted segment of people that touch ERP systems. Everything happens in Excel and Outlook anyway. What's in it for Microsoft? It gets to maintain itself in the frontline, owning the business user...AND it gets to build on integration with enterprise applications which it can then leverage for its own apps products later.

Oracle Acquires Net4call

Deal adds a building block to Oracle's service delivery platform (SDP) portfolio and strategy.

"Oracle has acquired Norway's Net4call for an unspecified sum. The deal doesn't the fit the recent pattern of Oracle acquisitions, which have largely involved vertical-specific applications providers. Net4call is more on the IT infrastructure side, with its main competence coming in an application development product for the Parlay environment."

I would disagree with Line56's assessment. This certainly has a vertical play - telecom. Seems like Oracle is trying bolstering its telecom service provisioning capabilities through this acquisition.

Quote of the Day - 4.27.06

"There was a mango lassi machine. As if everyone is entitled to a mango lassi. What kind of world is this? Mango lassi is special, exotic, meant for only those who deserve such a treat. Unless you are at Google, where it's mango lassi madness."
-- A recent visitor marvels at the exotic wonders of Google's Mountain View campus.

...At SAP, we get Coke AND Pepsi! Whoo-hoo!

Manugistics Acquired By JDA - Supply Chain Blunder or Firesale Win?

JDA Software, a specialist in retail-facing e-business applications, is acquiring Manugistics for $211 million.

Supply chain vendor, Manugistics, had been floundering for the last few years and it's not a surprise that it was finally acquired. Having seen success during the dot.com boom as one of the top best-of-breed supply chain players, Manugistics joined the likes of i2 when the SCM market matured and demand for manufacturing software was tapped out. As SAP and other behemoths entered the market with a best-of-suite option (as well as bundled APO with SAP ERP purchases), SCM specialty vendors found it increasingly difficult to compete.

Manugistics then attempted to expand its value proposition to encompass demand chain management, offering profit and revenue optimization solutions to retailers, CPG, high-tech, and hospitality and travel companies. The company was unable to establish a new market for itself in PRO, despite the promising ROI it offered customers.

At some point, Manugistics was going to be an acquisition target but who would buy them given the maturity of the SCM market? What is surprising is that JDA stepped in. While it makes sense that retail, wholesale distribution, and CPG manufacturing is covered by the combination of JDA and Manugistics -- targeting a demand chain strategy, it is unlikely that JDA will succeed in entering manufacturing. This definitely opens the door for SAP. The crux of Manugistics' installed base is CPG manufacturers that have a SAP R/3 and Manugistics SCM landscape. Converting these customers to all SAP is a likely scenario.

What does JDA get then? Well, besides SCM - which I think is a non-starter, JDA gets Manugistics' transportation management (TMS) solution - which is known to be the best software in its category. This could benefit JDA's retail customer base. Also, Manugistics' PRO capabilities could help JDA with retail price optimization - an area that SAP now owns with its Khimetrics acquisition and Oracle owns with its ProfitLogic plus Retek combination.

However, all in all, what JDA gets is a SCM company that has already seen its best days and despite getting the company on the cheap, JDA has likely made a supply chain blunder.

Oracle is a Contender

We were recently named one of America's Most Admired Companies 2006 by Fortune Magazine. SAP is #3 and Oracle is #7. I'm surprised Google's not in there.

The Epitomy of Geekdom (I Mean, Go SAP!)

This video eptiomizes just how geeky my world is. As "exciting" and "sexy" as software can be, videos like this snaps me into cruel reality.

Darth Ellison vs ABAP

Quotes of the Day - 3.29.06

Q: Do you have an iPod?
A: No, I do not. Nor do my children. My children--in many dimensions they're as poorly behaved as many other children, but at least on this dimension I've got my kids brainwashed: You don't use Google, and you don't use an iPod.

-- Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer says the Ballmer family prefers to dine on its own dogfood.

"For all those who lament the pre-inclusion of Internet Explorer, it's worth noting that if IE WASN'T pre-installed, most people wouldn't be able to download all that IM, media playing, or even alternative browsers such as Firefox. In other words, if IE wasn't pre-included with Windows, the market for software -- including open source software targeted at desktop computers -- might actually shrink."

-- Microsoft's John Carroll says Firefox users, the open source community, all of us owe Redmond an enormous debt of gratitude.

-Silicon Valley

Google's "Oops "

Google accidentally deleted its official Google blog Monday afternoon leaving its Blogspot URL vacant, apparently leaving it to be picked up by some random person. After an hour or so, the blog was reclaimed along with a Google apology:

"We've determined the cause of tonight's outage. The blog was mistakenly deleted by us (d'oh!) which allowed the blog address to be temporarily claimed by another user. This was not a hack, and nobody guessed our password. Our bad."

That's pretty bad (and humiliating) that Google can't get it together -- what hope is there for other corporate blogs?

Oracle Admits Data Hubs Not Good Enough?

There have been many rumors lately that Oracle plans to drop its Customer Data Hub (CDH)product and move over to using its acquired Siebel Universal Customer Master (UCM) instead. If Oracle does make this move, then it is basically admitting that Data Hubs aren't good enough and going with Siebel is a better option.

This will have interesting implications since Oracle has been pushing a single data schema approach, one that encompasses their EBS data model. What will it mean if Oracle drops CDH? It means that they will have to eventually offer the Siebel data model in CDH also. Offering all of these data models pre-packaged will take lots of time because Oracle probably wants to include PeopleSoft and JDE's data models as well. All of these rewrites and integration work admist plans for Fusion is pretty tough. But it makes sense for Oracle to prioritize Siebel UCM integration if it is dropping all other CRM applications in its portfolio in favor of the Siebel CRM solution. The problem is, Oracle gets into this conundrum of continuously re-writing Data Hubs and picking and choosing data models to give to customers.

The reality is that 95% of customers end up re-working and re-shaping their data models anyway and need data objects they hadn't thought of. Customers require the proper tools to create a data model customized for their specific business process. What customers want is data model flexibility, not data model rigidity. I mean, isn't the SOA movement--which Oracle, SAP, IBM, and Microsoft can all agree will happen--all about business process flexibility? Dictating a data model to customers is not the best way to offer flexibility.

What should customers' approach be then? They need a true MDM SOA "service" -- one that allows you to create your own data model. That's truly applying the SOA principle.