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Crippleware, Now Available from your (once Favorite) Integration Vendor

yvesm — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 04:46:48 PDT

This was quite an amazing move from Informatica. In one swift series of announcements, they achieved more than what Talend did to them in 6 years of aggressive competition. This week Informatica achieved the following:

Released a product that is so limited that nobody will use or buy it (more on this below).
Created brand new price negotiation opportunities for clients (more below).
Proved (once again) that they don’t get the community concept, and still believe that open source simply means free download (I have already commented on this a while back).
Confirmed that during all this time, when were saying “Talend? We never encounter these guys...” they were in fact dissecting our product and model to see how to counter the threat and win back market shares.

All of this in one week. Not bad, right?

Talend... You Mean the Big Data Company, Right?

yvesm — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 22:58:24 PDT

This post was contributed by Talend’s cofounder Bertrand Diard

“Talend… you mean the big data company, right?” is what a less informed minister would probably have asked her chief of staff when he presented her the program of her first day in the Silicon Valley. Now, of course, that did not happen with Fleur Pellerin, the French Minister for Digital Economy, because she knows exactly who Talend is, she and I having met multiple times.

Despite being intimately familiar with Talend, Ms. Pellerin chose to start her Silicon Valley tour at Talend’s headquarters in Los Altos. And our discussion topics revolved primarily around… big data, of course! Why big data? The answer is simple: Ms. Pellerin has understood that big data is a unique opportunity for the French software industry to carve out a leadership position on the global software market.

Does Big Data Start or End (up) in the Boardroom?

yvesm — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 02:26:36 PDT

Just a week ago, I was interviewed by Ian Murphy in a podcast for Data Informed. The topic was: How Big Data Projects Can Start in the Boardroom. Ian was excellent in driving pointed questions and I believe this resulted in a spirited discussion. Check it out and let me know what you think! (the player is at the bottom of the article).

The keyword here is “start”. At the end of the day, big data projects do make their way to (end up in) the boardroom and influence executive decision makers. But more often than not, they are started by individual knowledge workers, with or without the help from IT.

Integration at Any Scale: Scale Skills

yvesm — Thu, 30 May 2013 00:22:42 PDT

Talend’s new tagline, introduced earlier this year is Integration at Any Scale. Scale, in this context, has many meanings, and after focusing recently on the data angle and on the project angle, I would like to highlight today the third dimension: scaling team skills.

According to a Decision Management Solution survey we reported on earlier this year, integration projects remain extremely siloed. Actually, less than one-third of such projects are truly collaborative across the multiple dimensions of integration. Why is that? There is not one single reason, but a combination of many factors. However, most of them relate to one issue: the (in)ability of integration teams to work on these multiple dimensions.

Data, Beyond Structured

yvesm — Mon, 27 May 2013 04:50:46 PDT

At the Gartner Application Architecture, Development & Integration Summit (#GartnerAADI) in London, Talend made a second announcement related to version 5.3 (the first announcement essentially addressed big data news, around the Data, Big and Easy theme). This announcement discusses new capabilities of the data services platform, and the extension of support for complex and semi-structured data sets.

I know I am probably opening a can of worms here, but I consider there are three broad categorizations of data when it relates to structuration:

Live Tweeporting from #GartnerAADI: Convergence

yvesm — Fri, 17 May 2013 08:34:49 PDT

For the past few years, Gartner analysts Ted Friedman and Jess Thompson have been collaborating on the topic of the convergence of Application and Data Integration. This session at the Gartner Application Architecture, Development & Integration Summit (#GartnerAADI) was a great summary of the key points, under the tile: “Application and Data Integration: Converge Them For Maximum Value.” Because at the end of the day, it’s about getting value, right?

The Ted & Jess show at #GartnerAADI: converge #DataIntegration & #ApplicationIntegration for maximum value
What's the best tool for the job? is the wrong question. #GartnerAADI pic.twitter.com/KFXdrMrB2f
By 2017, 50% of all orgs will have federated their application & #DataIntegration COEs #GartnerAADI

Live Tweeporting from #GartnerAADI: You Know It’s Big Data When...

yvesm — Fri, 17 May 2013 08:33:30 PDT

More on information management at the Gartner Application Architecture, Development & Integration Summit (#GartnerAADI). Ted Friedman delivered a fast paced session on Big Data: what it is, how to define it, some of the risks. Impossible to cover it all in half an hour, but nevertheless a good way of busting a few myths!

#GartnerAADI is keeping @ted_friedman busy today... After the #DataIntegration #MagicQuadrant he's about to talk about #BigData.
Eventually the words #BigData will go away and it will just be there. As it has always been! #GartnerAADI
Lots of hype, many definitions of #BigData #GartnerAADI pic.twitter.com/9dwhOsDGWC

Live Tweeporting from #GartnerAADI: Data Integration

yvesm — Fri, 17 May 2013 06:04:27 PDT

Information management’s mindshare is growing at every iteration of the Gartner Application Architecture, Development & Integration Summit (#GartnerAADI). Ted Friedman may still introduce himself as “the guy from the other team”, but sessions are getting more and more crowded, and so does (I suspect) his one-on-one agenda. Gartner clearly needs to bring more Information Management analysts to this conference!

Anyway, to set the stage on Information Management, Ted started with the “core” of this market: Data Integration. The official session topic was a review of the Magic Quadrant, but the content was richer than just that.

Waiting for @ted_friedman's #DataIntegration #MagicQuadrant to begin at #GartnerAADI
Now that's a good idea: @ted_friedman has his Twitter handle on his title slide. #GartnerAADI
Integration is taking multiple things of independent design and origin and making them work together to achieve common purpose #GartnerAADI

Live Tweeporting from #GartnerAADI: Cloud Service Integration

yvesm — Fri, 17 May 2013 02:17:47 PDT

The first session I attended today clearly lived up to expectations. At the Gartner Application Architecture, Development & Integration Summit (#GartnerAADI), Massimo Pezzini provided an in-depth review of CSI, aka Cloud Service Integration (no, not the TV show…) – probably one of the fastest growing integration segments today.

It is really interesting to see how the analyst’s thinking is evolving and morphing to the continuous shifts in the market. I have been tracking Gartner’s view of this space for some time now, and the least we can say is that this is a very fluid market.

The session’s actual title was “Cloud Service Integration: Enabling SaaS and On-premises Applications Working Together”.
Second day of #GartnerAADI starts with Massimo Pezzini on #Cloud integration: on-prem & SaaS apps
Any app portfolio does or will include both on-prem and cloud apps. #GartnerAADI

Live Tweeporting from #GartnerAADI: Change the Culture to Design for Life

yvesm — Fri, 17 May 2013 01:50:21 PDT

The second part of the opening keynote of the Gartner Application Architecture, Development & Integration Summit (#GartnerAADI) featured analyst Andy Kyte discussing the changes in culture required for IT to embrace the ever growing needs of the business, and be successful at doing so. The key here is to “design for life” with the big picture in mind.

I know my tweets won’t do justice to an engaging and energetic presenter who delivered a thought-provoking keynote, but these nuggets are interesting (I hope!)

Demand unmet by IT creates a market, in which vendors are going to jump and bypass IT. #GartnerAADI
How does IT embrace the need for ever growing demand, and be successful at it? #GartnerAADI
In best organizations, there is only one team and it's the company. #GartnerAADI