Articles

Affichage des articles du novembre, 2010

10 Business Books In 2010

These are the 10 business books published in 2010, that I would recommend you to read. Originally, I wrote this on Quora, in response to " What are must read business books of 2010? ". Yes, I have read all of them, and no, they are not in any specific order. 1) What the Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell I am a big fan of Malcolm Gladwell and his style. This is a compilation of his "The New Yorker" stories. Even though the articles are available on his website, this book makes it a great read. 2) Cognitive Surplus by Clay Shirky The next time someone asks you how come people have so much time to blog, answer questions on Quora, or contribute to Wikipedia, ask them to read this book. 3) The Big Short by Michael Lewis Want to know all about CDO and subprime mortgage and still be entertained? This is the book. Michael Lewis has great storytelling skills that makes serious and complex topics fun to read. I like this book as much as I liked Moneyball - http://amzn.to/b9YP...

Challenging Stonebraker’s Assertions On Data Warehouses - Part 2

Check out the Part 1 if you haven’t already read it to better understand the context and my disclaimer. This is the Part 2 covering the assertions from 6 to 10. Assertion 6: Appliances should be "software only." “In my 40 years of experience as a computer science professional in the DBMS field, I have yet to see a specialized hardware architecture—a so-called database machine—that wins.” This is a black swan effect ; just because someone hasn’t seen an event occur in his or her lifetime, it doesn’t mean that it won’t happen. This statement could also be re-written as “In my 40 years of experience, I have yet to see a social network that is used by 500 million people.” You get the point. I am the first one who would vote in favor of commodity hardware against a specialized hardware, but there are very specific reasons why the specialized hardware makes sense in some cases. “In other words, one can buy general purpose CPU cycles from the major chip vendors or specialized CPU c...

NIST Moves Forward on Cloud Computing

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Last week the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) held their second Cloud Computing Forum and Workshop . Skillfully shepherded by Ms. Dawn Leaf, the agency’s senior executive of cloud computing, the event reinforced the US Federeal government's move towards the cloud. Of particular note to me was the  cloud computing simulation model project , known as Koala, that focuses on the behavior of infrastructure-as-a-service cloud systems. Other highlights included: A cloud computing standards panel moderated by Mike Hogan and Teresa Schwarzhoff Ms Cita M. Furlani, Director NIST Information Technology Laboratory , view of the cloud Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Khawaja S. Shams description of a cloud oriented architecture Dawn Leaf's overview of the NIST Cloud Computing Program Danielle Kriz of the Information Technology Industry Council presentation on global cloud computing security; and Jean-Francois Junger of the European Commision talk on Europe's digit...

Robert Duffner Interviews Chris Kemp, NASA, and Kevin Jackson, NJVC, on GovCloud

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Recently, I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Mr. Robert Duffner , director of Product Management for Windows Azure , as part of his " Thought Leaders in the Cloud " series.  In this interview , we discussed: Actual government IT successes, especially using cloud computing Deconstructing the hype around cloud computing and talking about its real characteristics and value How clouds need a critical mass to function and provide elasticity, and how the size of the US places it in a strong position to develop these kinds of clouds Industry transition from system integration to service integration Use of clouds among defense departments and other organizations with other high security requirements Synergy between cloud computing and geospatial data I was honored to follow Mr. Chris Kemp, NASA CTO , in this series.   During his interview with Robert, they discussed: Mandate to consider cloud computing for every major government IT project "Be a Martian" - NASA usi...

Bottom Of The Pyramid – Nokia’s Second Act

The two-third of world’s 4.6 billon mobile users live in the emerging markets. Millions of these users live below the poverty line and are part of the bottom of the pyramid (BOP). Nokia is the market leader in these emerging markets, at least for now, with 34% market share. It’s clear from rapidly declining Nokia’s marketshare and an appointment of new CEO, Stephen Elop , that Nokia needs a second act. I believe the BOP is what could be the next big thing for Nokia. The recent NYTimes story highlights a Nokia’s service, to supply commodity data to the farmers in India, using a text message . So far, 6.3 million people have signed up for this service. Nokia is planning to roll out this service, Life tools, in Nigeria as well. This is part of their Ovi mobile business. I have written before on impact of cloud computing and mobile on the bottom of the pyramid and the importance of public policy innovation in emerging markets . The BOP is one of the biggest opportunities that Nokia curren...

NJVC, Invertix Announce Cloud Computing Demonstration at GEOINT 2010

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VIENNA, Va. -- (BUSINESS WIRE) -- NJVC ®, one of the largest providers of information technology (IT) solutions to the U.S. Department of Defense , and Invertix Corporation , a proven technology company supporting the United States Intelligence Community, will offer a joint cloud computing platform demonstration at the NJVC booth (#375) at the GEOINT 2010 Symposium , Nov. 1 – 4, in New Orleans. The portable cloud platform is also installed at NJVC Center for Technology Integration – West in O’Fallon, Ill., and an Invertix office in Northern Virginia. The NJVC and Invertix team will demonstrate both administrative and mission-oriented capabilities enhanced by the power of cloud computing. The effort includes the configuration of an open source software-based distributed cloud platform on innovative green commodity hardware that improves enterprise capabilities while reducing cost. The demonstration will also highlight widget and mashup technologies configured for web-based enterprise se...