Luis Daniel Soto Maldonado
A Zettabyte is a big step for IT but a small step for mankind
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- Sr. Director for Technical Product Management at Microsoft CorporationComputer Software | Greater Seattle Area, USSummaryBusiness-focused, results-driven, and dedicated technology strategist providing 18 years of record achievement and proven success driving early adoption of new technologies. Expertly analyze requirements, identify key trends, and define needs to formulate and present comprehensive long-range strategies to achieve business objectives in global context. Creative visionary capable of fostering and sustaining key business relationships, along with penetrating new markets. Adaptable leader able to quickly learn new products, navigate complex organizations, and continuously motivate cross-functional teams to realize top performance. Utilize solid communication skills to effectively communicate ideas clearly and thoughtfully. Efficiently identify and resolve technical issues to ensure client satisfaction and reliable technology.Specialties: Data Intensive Computing, OLTP, Data Warehousing, BI, Big Data, Strategic Planning, Database appliances, Database as a service, Product Launch, Software Marketing, Social Media and Emerging TechnologiesExperience
- Aug 2010 - PresentSr. Director for Technical Product Management, SQL Server / Microsoft CorporationLuis Daniel Soto Maldonado works for the Server and Tools Business Marketing at Microsoft, leading the team responsible for SQL Server technical content and messaging, technical readiness, customer engagement programs and technical compete. Responsible for building the core technical subject matter expertise across OLTP, BI, Big Data, Data Warehousing database and Web/Breadth workloads and turning deep technical knowledge into business insight to maximize customer experience.
Technical Content and Messaging – drives the development of core product BOM including content, tools and demos to support the Go To Market strategy through the field and Microsoft partners.
Technical Readiness and Community – Internal technical readiness and community development of the Technical Specialist and Services and Support technical communities across the company.
Reference Architectures – own the definition, development and lifecycle management of Fast Track enterprise scale reference architectures. Lead engagement with Fast Track partners in the definition of reference configurations and prescriptive guidance for OLTP and Data Warehousing workloads.
Depth Customer Engagement – develop and drive our technical engagement programs with customers in support of the sale and deployment of our products and solutions. Partner with engineering on the definition and execution of the Rapid Deployment Program (RDP) for product validation, product evaluation, deployment and solutions implementation.
Microsoft SQL Server is the fastest growing dataset in the industry, and the market leader with over 40% unit share. Microsoft SQL Server is fundamental to the success of businesses of all sizes around the world, providing a complete approach to managing, accessing and delivering information across the organization.
Keywords: Data Intensive Computing, Database as a service, Database Utility, Database appliances, Hadoop
Additional Information-
Websites:
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Interests:Emerging IT technologies
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Tweets
- @crpietschmann it was a minimalistic definition, but ultra HD is big today but won't be tomorrow
- If it fits on a single hard drive or device, it's not #bigdataJan 27, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- Twitter revolutionizes Tweet censorship process http://t.co/lYvPyLfr
- Keep sensitive info out of your email & chat logs. https://t.co/25IaIPnQJan 26, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- Role of Video in the Technology Purchase Process http://t.co/6PIAYxh3
- Hadoop in 2012: Widespread Enterprise Adoption and Inevitable ***Project Failure*** #bigdata http://t.co/qkGCLJtG
- Europe proposes a "right to be forgotten" http://t.co/WQHfOgqw
- Why LinkedIn's Mobile Developers Dumped Ruby For Node.js @thebyard http://t.co/EvkKOgt2
- Infosecurity - Use of Google Docs is illegal in Norway: http://t.co/vPtELIuE
- At Davos, Discussions of a Global Data Deluge http://t.co/JlIKMvh9 #bigdata
- Wikipedia to be first Data Free mobile website on Earth http://t.co/i5iY3ClT
- Tablets are so 2011. Ultrabook growth to rocket through 2016, Juniper says. http://t.co/smMHZkV3
- European startup attempts many-core revolution http://t.co/6l50ShBW
- The coding game: Microsoft's Visual Studio gets badges, achievements and leaderboard: http://t.co/kUkGH3wf
- Microsoft Sells More Windows 7 than Every Mac, iOS, and Android Device Combined. http://t.co/p5GEvdn4
- I like this, but would change the title to "a Kinect on every room" http://t.co/vIZfV7JpJan 19, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- I think... the "next web" is the analytical web.Jan 19, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- Moneywatch: Largest data breach ever 24M accounts accessed. (Sony was 1M) http://t.co/oxNLu5p6
- Use It Better: The Worst Tech Predictions of All Time http://t.co/esNpvWbJ
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Posts
- May 31, 11
What are the most influential papers in the world of Big Data? Let me suggest:
And to capture the information deluge word of mouth from the last few days, visit my “Digital Genesis”
- Oct 11, 10
I searched the internet for “connect and forget”. Wonderbox.net offer is described as a “revolutionary computer server”… I think of wonderbox as a “computing appliance”, but Wikipedia limits the definition to storage and network only. The endpoints are better defined: The PC continues being the most productive device to create digital content while information appliances including Smartphone's, PDAs, embedded systems and in-car systems mostly consume content.
I believe Database technologies are shaping the future of IT. Consider how this important workload can be delivered:
- As traditional software-only and hardware servers
- Over the public cloud, enabling new scenarios. Either as a “fabric” cloud offering or a plain RDMBS software appliance.
- Hardware Database appliances will be the delivery mechanism for private clouds. After ~16B have been spent by Oracle, SAP, EMC, IBM and Microsoft on acquisitions (Netezza, Sybase, Greenplum, 3PAR…) during the last few months, there is little question that full stack databases technologies are the future. Most of these vendors sell hardware/software singularities as the new market standard.
- There is a thin line on when a Reference Architecture (RA) ends; the SQL Server Fast Track Data Warehouse reduces hardware testing and provides better performance out-of-the-box than costly fine-tuning that has take place over many years. Before a computing appliance exists, there must be a RA that is used by OEMs and system builders.
The fundamental change is automation going beyond a few servers to thousands of servers. While we’re still early in cycle of data crossing boundaries (e.g. MDM), the new models are arriving – become a leader and embrace computing appliances and hardware+software reference architectures for database and other IT workloads.
- Sep 13, 10
10 years ago IT professionals considered database technology “mature” and analysts were preparing to slide it into a commodity status… But on the Exabyte era, we depend on databases to run packaged applications, custom solutions, end customer data storage and the web itself.
- Managing hundreds of TBs continues a challenge to traditional software-only solutions
- Reference architectures deliver specialized fine tuning to specific workloads, e.g. Microsoft SQL Server Fast Track Data Warehouse 2.0 can alleviate the problem on the majority of the organizations
- IBM, Britton-Lee, Netezza and most recently Oracle have participated as database machine vendors. There are niche markets for building special-purpose computer hardware for specialized workloads. None of them has delivered a long-term solution.
- During the last 12 months there has been growing activity on database appliances: XML database appliances, database security sniffer appliances and those announced by vendors to create private clouds. Some of them for the very large database, some of them for analytics on smaller markets.
The new delivery model for information management will include embedded, in-premise, cloud, software appliances, hardware appliances and database machines. A big task is ahead, evaluating the benefits and limitations of each model on deployment, isolation, extensibility, etc. Higher level automation is knocking on the door… but a lot more DBAs will be required to manage the Exaflood.
- Aug 22, 10
“The information age is an idea that the current era will be characterized by the ability of individuals to transfer information freely, and to have instant access to knowledge that would have been very difficult or impossible to find previously” Wikipedia.
Computer miniaturization advances plus the internet reaching a critical mass is shaping the modern society. The social generation expects that second and third tier web to be 7x24: MySpace has supported over 4.4M concurrent users, gambling site bWin running 30,000 transactions per second. Data volumes are exploding with event data streaming from sources such as RFID, sensors and web logs – the ability to monitor, analyze and act before information gets stored provides opportunity to more a new “near real-time”.
The consumerization of technology is here but according to IDC, more than 20% of enterprise IT spending goes to acquire and service mission critical workloads. This week, I started a new role at Microsoft Corp. as Director of Technical Product Management for SQL Server. I’m very exited to lead the future of the database: where it runs today and and on highly balanced Appliances that integrate hardware (CPU, IO, storage), software reference architectures for specific workloads. e.g. the Fast Track Data Warehouse. Stay tuned for the PASS 2010 summit.
The application platform for the “Unlimited information era” will be the result of the many changes I will continue discussing on this blog… PLEASE VOTE and collaborate of my proposed “Future of non-cloud databases and application platform” session at SXSW.
- Jun 25, 10
“Content is king” is the golden rule of the SEO. The semantic web is all about data. Any web or traditional application has no value without data. Few people have discussed the future of Data, Pat Halland being one of the most prolific ones. Data is and will be everything:
- An internet scale document living on the cloud has significant differences to the design for 140 characters. In addition to the vast amounts of information being produced, it’s getting harder to get “all the data” stored on memory. This means there is never a consistent global view of the whole structure. Implementing an “eventually consistent” version of data is a hard problem that impact the design and responsiveness of future applications. For example, Microsoft Outlook implements an <offline> mode – simulating expected results on the client requires additional logic. It works very well. Most twitter clients wait for user actions to take place, instead of doing the work on the background – however the operation might actually never take place on the cloud. More on this later.
- Social computing is allowing many users to participate on collaborative creation, this means that data structures need to use more unique identifiers so versioning and consolidation can take place. There is a significant performance and UI impact for building these multi-screen applications. Envision how memory requirements would affect excel for adding multiple versions of each cell.
- The Social generation will continue releasing additional personal information, combined with location and activity. See data life of the future. A key way to combat the information overflow is to display information that is relevant on very specific moments. We should expect this functionality on future e-mail and communication clients. Acquiring, tagging and classification will continue relevant.
- It’s expected that applications will leverage information from many sources as well as information on public cloud databases (Dallas, AWS). Pay attention to the emerging OData proposal. Toby Segaran published a great presentation on Social Data analysis.
The problem goes beyond data to visualization, we can argue that after 25 year of the existence of Microsoft Word, most users cannot produce a good looking document. Three months ago I blogged on storage limits. Emerging topics also include proposals allowing cloud developers to control their data travels across devices. Yes, the Exabyte age is just arriving…
- May 15, 10
Microsoft is associated almost exclusively with Windows and Office. Unfortunately a lot more innovation areas are not well known… Is Microsoft losing the cloud apps?
Let me share with you the perspective that I have as owner of the Microsoft Cloud initiative for Latin America:
- On March 4, 2010 Steve Ballmer announced that moving forward, the Cloud was the #1 priority for Microsoft. There were no service announcements, but only the aspiration to bring the false perceptions to reality and to lead the "enterprise cloud”. Previously it was not our “top” priority.
- All industry players and companies agree to three benefits the cloud brings: Agility as #1, a new economic model with no upfront costs as second and finally getting rid of deployment and management functions that do not add value. Secondary benefits include mobile access, lowering carbon consumption and others.
Microsoft is the only Cloud provider that:
1. Provides flexibility to run in-premise or on the cloud.
o Traditional Enterprise IT vendors want to enable the datacenter so that non-IT departments can consume services per hour/terabyte.
o Internet companies want to move “everything to the cloud”. They cannot offer a “dedicated cloud” for specific customizations. Microsoft recommends to companies over 15,000 seats to evaluate dedicated cloud inside Microsoft datacenters. Mode details to follow.
o Only Microsoft – the leader on software business – offers the capability to execute processes in-premise, on private or remote private cloud or on a public cloud.
2. Microsoft is that only company that has solid offers across IAAS, PAAS and SAAS. Sure, you can choose SaaS offerings from multiple vendors, but how are they going to be integrated long term? Sure, you can choose an IaaS provider but how well integrated is it to their SaaS offerings?
o IaaS – Infrastructure as a Service. Microsoft enables enterprises to provide software services and computing/storage per consumption with two main offerings: virtualization and physical+virtual systems management. The competitive offer costs at least 6 times more but the channels makes a lot more money selling it…
o PaaS – Platform as a Service. A new level of abstraction and automation beyond IaaS enables to build custom and commercial solutions for the cloud. Targeting to developers using .NET, Java and PHP among others. If you are building new solutions, you must consider it.
o SaaS - Software as a Service. Microsoft software as a service portfolio is already extensive, but let’s focus on Microsoft BPOS (Business Productivity Online Services): It includes e-mail (Exchange online), collaboration (Sharepoint Online), web conferencing (Live meeting) and real-time communications (Office communications Online). Starting at $10 per user per month and down if provides great performance, service level agreements, reliability, control, end user high productivity and great mobile devices support.
3. Microsoft leads the “enterprise cloud”. We believe that the consumer cloud differs significantly from the enterprise cloud. On the first one, Microsoft has over 15 years experience: 600M users, 369M hotmail users… Most IaaS competitors cannot demonstrate they operate at this levels. Let’s focus on the businesses
o Microsoft already has more than 1.4M paying customers. 7 of the top 10 energy companies, 13 of the top 20 telecos, 15 of the 20 top financial institutions and 16 of the top 20 pharmaceutical companies already have chosen Microsoft Online. More than 500 government entities, 50% of Fortune 50 companies… Over 40 million paid seats. Other SaaS providers have many “free” customers but limited paying customers.
On Latin America we launched the Microsoft cloud services were made available April 9, 2010. Customers on Argentina, Colombia, Mexico, Brazil were running production systems on top of our Windows Azure Platform that same day. We exceeded 10,000 SaaS paid seats on the first three weeks. I’m currently responsible for the Cloud readiness of over 1000 employees in the region – delivering the message and benefits to ALL our customers and partners in the very short term is the next step but… Microsoft already leads the enterprise cloud.
Some frequent questions:
How do I get ready to move to the Cloud? As you do today, needs and requirements need to be understood. The existence of a management and identity infrastructures will be important. Move low risk applications immediately. Activate your developers to Windows and SQL Azure.
What about Cloud security? Nothing connected to the internet can be considered 100% safe. Microsoft relies on third party certifications (SAS, ISO, FISMA…). Read more on privacy. Some leading SaaS providers DO NOT allow third parties to inspect their datacenters.. Security suggestions for software developers.
Do I own my data on the Cloud? Each customer owns and controls their data. Microsoft doesn’t access, modifies or deletes information unless required to do so. Open Data Protocol (OData) and vertical/government specific (e.g. OGDI) allow for publishing data on a consistent format. Furthermore – our commercial model is not based on advertising or mining of user data.
What if the Cloud is not available? Service level agreements are important, we offer 99.9% and above financially backed plans. Cloud only is NOT “good enough” for many customers.
Does moving to the clouds means immediate savings and higher productivity? Not for all. Many large customers have the infrastructure, people and processes to run their IT at a very low fixed cost. But most do not. In general there is immediate productivity because we offer the same software on-premise now on the cloud.
Will my current application run on the Cloud? We are working to deliver a consistent software development model. Today Windows Azure offers a new layer of abstraction and automated management. Microsoft offers great interoperability HTTP, XML, SOAP, REST for connecting cloud services to in-premise solutions.
What is the licensing model for the Cloud? Another unique advantage is that Microsoft offers licensing that can cover in-premise, on the cloud or hybrid users in a single model. Our customers decide when is the right moment to move to the cloud.
- Apr 19, 10
I just finished reading “The next wave of technologies” by Phil Simon. A great read! It proposes a new Enterprise 2.0 - not related to earlier Web 2.0 related definitions: IT organizations will adopt several new technologies.
- Cloud computing. No need to provide more details on this one, benefits outweigh problems.
- PCs took over 10 years to arrive to many desktops at global organizations. Many visionaries think that the mobile transformation will take less than 5 year. All agree that portable devices will be the most common way to get to what’s left of any Intranet. “The New world of wireless” from Scott A. Snyder goes further detailing the org chart effect organizations might experience.
- Social Media, customer communities and social networks are main communication channels. However Twitter, facebook and other do not really have an enterprise product. Expect more than analytics.
- Enterprise Search and Retrieval (ESR), Master Data Management (MDM) and Enterprise Risk Management will increase relevance.
- Innovation from virtually collocated teams will continue growing.
- Great coverage of interoperability.
- Green IT will be adopted for three main reasons: cost savings, government policy and end user demand.
All the above topics under a single umbrella. Simon is only missing more comments on NUI, Augmented Reality and geo-location from my perspective to have one of the best ever compilations.
B Side. The next challenge is deeply understanding the impact the industry will live given the re-tooling of the enterprise. I hope to be wrong but most likely it will be painful:
- Several visionaries predict that hosting companies on developed countries won’t be able to compete with industry “gorillas”
- Software as a services eliminates a lot of “non-value” adding channels
- The IT profession will evolve to higher forms, e.g. Business Intelligence instead of installing/managing a RDBMS.
Let’s move now to the real Enterprise 2.0 era and the ecosystem for the next decade.
- Apr 03, 10
The 2008 trending topic everyone was talking about was the Web 2.0. On October 23 that same year, Amazon EC2 dropped the Beta label and the story accelerated:
- Less than 4 months after commercial availability of elastic computing there were over 22 definitions for Cloud computing. Today, there is still no common understanding for the concept but agreement that it has gone mainstream.
- “The state of the internet operating system” from Tim O’Reilly clearly describes the current reality: We all use the cloud as consumers and soon most organizations will be a hybrid of internal and external IT services as predicted by industry analysts.
This only means that the wait is over, the cloud is Web 3.0. Probably we should call it the “complex cloud” or “complex web” because it is very unstructured.
Sorry Tim: Semantic is fantastic but it has not crossed the chasm. Often we cannot tell what we really want to tell…
The web 3.0 is defined by interoperability; thousands of screens (different sizes) and applications on many clouds. PAAS is the real enabler of SAAS… and not the other way around:
ReadWriteWeb declared “Web 2.0 is dead” on December 2005… they missed BusinessWeek’s 1991 article Old software never dies… The web 2.0 is great; it has helped consolidate the Social Media.
The web 3.0 is already here: It’s called cloud computing. We still need a breakthrough on software development: “Until the software equivalent of a bridge collapses sw engineers aren't compelled to a higher form of excellence”, until then, the apps will slowly continue flourishing.
- Mar 27, 10
The 12th Annual Emerging Technologies Update Day @ Wharton was very helpful on helping us not forget how IT is evolving longer term:
- Microprocessor. Workloads that required 200 servers 5 years ago can now be executed with only on 13 servers. An increase of 15X computing power on the period 2005-2010 by reducing the size of transistors with new materials. BUT, At the current rate of evolution and scale, we’ll be reaching atomic level scale by 2020.
- Quantum computing. The current binary system might be replaced after 2020. Imagine an atom as a planet with a magnetic orientation - not just pointing south (0) or north (1). On a single axis there are at least 360 directions for orientation. The Z dimension adds an almost infinite number of values. Few atoms can then store represent huge amounts of information. Follow Intel’s blog on R&D
- Wireless is finite. 4G is arriving to the US and many other cities. A great guide describing the business implications as well as the evolution of the organizational structure is “How to compete on the 4G revolution”.
- You should also follow the Digital swarm blog – now even the most basic devices include camera and other sensors.
- The spectrum available on each country determines how much information will be available. Wired connections will continue being relevant – Fiber limits are significantly higher than wireless.
- Storage limits. Traditional hard drives continue adding storage density 2-4TB will become common, but I/O is not improving. It’s typical that we reach access limits with significant free space available. Solid State drives (SSD) offer much less capacity but improved access speeds at.
- It’s very possible that a common configuration moving forward will mix high capacity drives, SSDs and high performance hard drives. Human DBAs will be replaced by fully automated software that can store COLD data on unused portions of high density drives. Follow @Teradata
- Life-like Computing. The traditional IT is being disrupted by the cloud and the mobile. The “Internet of things” vision refers to billions of devices working together. Imagine flexible devices, OLED and the Natural User Interface. Nokia presented Video 1, Video 2 and the well known Morph. There was a more interesting one not available on the web that projects a human assistant avatar providing feedback and suggestions as if we had a twin brother. Check out other future vision videos.
I still do not see anything relevant on the iPad. On the cloud wars, there are few questions that PAAS will be a lot more relevant than IAAS longer term.
There were very few discussions on software and software development (I think VS2010 is a breakthrough tool). But without a doubt, The decade of the Contextual-TI has started.
- Microprocessor. Workloads that required 200 servers 5 years ago can now be executed with only on 13 servers. An increase of 15X computing power on the period 2005-2010 by reducing the size of transistors with new materials. BUT, At the current rate of evolution and scale, we’ll be reaching atomic level scale by 2020.
- Feb 09, 10
How is Social Media evolving on emerging countries? What countries are leading and how they compare between them? It’s common to find basic benchmarking on the web: total number of facebook users, twitter activity and other. But research on new technologies is always limited on emerging countries.
Let me propose a model for evaluating the social media ecosystem maturity using 40 variables from the World Bank, OECD and Comscore: One the y-axis the ecosystem readiness composed by Educational system, Infrastructure readiness, ease of doing business, skilled workfoce and others:
Some findings, using Latin America for the analysis:
- Chile leads the region on Social media maturity
- On the BRIC view, Brazil is on a great position (without considering the $400B that will land on private and public investment over the next five years) and India lags on the online.
- There is a strong perception on a better overall web market on Argentina and Brazil, but they are in fact at the same level of the 2 other larger Colombia and Mexico. It’s interesting to find that online on Singapore is not as large as expected, at the same level of maturity on the x-axis.
Emerging countries should leverage the Social Media to create programs to develop their digital ecosystem. Now you know how different countries are doing and areas to develop. Feel free to leverage the model and comment on it.
- Jan 04, 10
Social Media provides at the end of the year more than enough materials similar to “best of the year”, “top 10 mistakes”, "10 reasons” and other lists. In fact, I liked two more than any others and can also recommend a third one on the decade that ends in 2010:
To me, the most important trend on IT is the commoditization of technology: Think what happens to hardware vendors, infrastructure software and services when the typical PC that used to cost $1500 is now only $300…. Expect to see innovations on both high end and low end computing camps and difficult economic times for the industry.
Beyond tech: Most dreams don’t last too long (either after we wake up or after we create them). Have a dream come true each day, week, month or at least one during 2010. Best wishes to you.
- Nov 23, 09
There are Six main conversations taking place now:
- Low cost computing in the enterprise. Maximize the efficiency of your IT (Server management, Desktop Management), Use technology to lower the cost of business (UC), Take advantage of technology delivery information.
- Business Insights. Solve the main two problems that BI faces: high costs and advanced skills. Empower people with business insights.
- Corporate environmental sustainability. Reduce energy demands. Manage energy and environmental footprint. Rethink business practices.
- Innovation for growth. Widen the idea pipeline, turns ideas into actions leveraging social tools. Optimize ROI and bussiness value.
- Consumerization of IT. Deliver IT flexibility while managing security on device demanded by users and not regulated by companies. Access your bank from a game console, mobile, kiosk, app or web browser.
- Cloud computing. Understand how to leverage SaaS, PaaS and IaaS effectively. Deliver consistent, connected experiences.
Are you prepared to leverage the 2010 business demands?
- Oct 15, 09
We all know that CRM and Collaboration are two workloads that have moved to the cloud. This article compares 10 hosted CRM solutions. The battle is now on the cloud.
- Productivity. Three years ago Microsoft Office was going to be killed by the browser. Today, startups are gone and Gorillas are there: Microsoft Office Web Apps and Google Apps are some of the strongest players. Look for full fidelity and editing from rich client, browser or mobile.
- Collaboration. Free e-mail has evolved to “collaboration”: IM, Office Originated phone calls from your device, audio conferencing, video conferencing, VoIP, Speech. Not only Google and Microsoft, IBM and Oracle are arriving. Evaluate:
- Off-line support. 100% web is not always good.
- Security. Who is responsible for data loss? Who validates the security at the datacenter?
- Maintenance. In what moments is it done: At the convenience of the provider?
- Interoperability. What LOB integration features are available?
- Support. 7x24? SLA covers all services?
- What collaboration level you need? Shared site, Portal, Content management, e-forms?
- Platform as a services. Software developers will see a big fight in this category. BTW, David Chappel has updated his Introduction to Azure.
- Applications. Exactly one month ago, the Us government announced a cloud portal. Emerging markets have similar offerings, e.g. Xertix on Mexico. Oracle announces 43 applications on the cloud (What a nonsense). Expect to see a lot more “software services” offerings arrive. Always remember that <Not all services are the same>. Are we ready to evaluate them?
Let me predict the growth of premium cloud services. Even for the larger companies, the free web has it’s limits. Expect to see the paid web to get more differentiation.
And always remember, the future is a combination of internal an external IT services: Software+Services.
- Sep 27, 09
I just realized that blogs will soon be obsolete artifacts. Let me explain why:
- For over 10 thousand years “writing, painting and talking” have been the most basic communication tools we use to describe our lives. In the early computing days storage was very limited; I remember tools like WinDirStat to understand how precious storage was managed. Toda on social networks we share Images, Video and we can expect to cover 3D data types in the mid term future. Released this month, “Total Recall:How the E-Memory Revolution Will Change Everything” describe how we’ll be able to save all conversations, images, music, documents from our lives. $1000 will buy 250Tb of storage, we’ll eventually have real “full biography” from individuals reproducing exactly what was said and heard. The implications are probably at the same level of the arrival of the PC or the Internet. Clearly, Personal BI will need to evolve: Tools similar to TimeSnapper that help you understand how you currently use a single device. The Cloud will be an enabler to integrate information from other devices, e.g. FitBit that daylong habits.
- Now consider other dimension, you can clearly see a lot of activity on Public data and Social networks mining (e.g. Planetary-scale views on a large instant messaging network) and Reality mining. Information Technology latest goals is to manage all the assets from our civilizations, as Carl Sagan described on the last chapter of Cosmos: we’ll need Civilization BI.
People will always appreciate a good writing without having to hear it directly from the author… but all artifacts including blogs will soon be obsolete because We’ll be able to share “full fidelity lifestreams”
- Aug 22, 09
Vote for your favorites before September 4. Register on SXSW panel picker before jumping to the links. There are over 2200 proposed panels. My selection:
- Come to my cloud: Supporting half a million visitors from day one.
- Social Media Interop: Emerging standards for portable contacts and life streaming standards.
- The future of mobile: surfing or applications?
- Digital distribution 10 years after Napster: The state of the entertainment industry
- Web mail: Is the innovation over?
- New web architecture: A lot of session on how to build web sites and user experiences
- Prototype creation using Sketchflow: If you don’t know this tool please jump to youtube.
- Internet of things: How far are we on connecting all devices?
- Screencasting lessons learned: Publishing your screen
- Silverlight accessibility: Supporting WCAG 2.0 standards
- Silverlight patterns: LOB and social best practices
- Mobil 2015: Data filtering for mobile overload and sophisticated communication algorithms.
- The realities of Augmented Reality: Macro-personalization
- Zero Waste: The future of green
- How Online Communities Impact Robotics.
- Interactive Infographics: Current state and future.
- Twitter-Sass: Promoting twitter with no ad budget, apps for volume handling.
- Cloud Technology: $2/month. 1M Connected African Teachers: Priceless: Opportunities from cloud computing
- Imagineering the Fully Digitized and Connected Future
Find out how the internet sees you using MIT’s Personas.
- Aug 05, 09
The world has changed, but does this means that customers have eliminated all critical IT projects? Quite the opposite. 18 opportunity areas and why databases continue to be big winners:
a) Reducing Cost. Some organizations cut IT up to 50% while expecting to keep their service levels. Five main projects: Reduce cost per Gb (Data warehousing), Reduce server costs (consolidation), Reduce solution portfolio (ROI), Reduce the number of steps (process integration) or increase transactions/hr (process optimization)
b) Grow the business. Five main projects: Increase customer service quality (data integration), Increase accuracy and response time (reporting and analysis), leverage the customer and partner communities (Social networks), Focus on the right KPIs (performance management) and focus on process visibility (BAM)
c) Help the users increase productivity. Four main projects: Increase customer satisfaction (multi-channel applications), Reduce transaction cost (Legacy wrappers), Increase output (UC/IM/VoIP), Increase developer productivity (ALM)
d) Never-ending regulations. Four clear areas: Management of privacy information (IRM), keeping up with fraud (new payment models), Sustainable manufacturing (green IT) and new national and International standards.
Get additional ideas on Journal 20: Architecture in turbulent times – only for technorati: rwtgv9n8kc
Why settle for just one project? Approach your customer with a combination of all elements.
- Jul 01, 09
As we evolve to a hybrid of internal and external IT Services, companies on developed markets have invested significantly on infrastructure, so they are not rushing to outsource operations.
Emerging markets have lower data center investments…Are they more fit to consume cloud services? Can we use the same tactics to reach them?
Over the last 18 months I’ve been working on enabling the "cloud software services” transformation for Microsoft Latin America. The journey has been harder than expected:
- Customers. As in any other region of the world, you will find early adopters, late majority and skeptics. Academic institutions are leveraging free e-mail offers faster than any other segment, but when provided to them as cost reduction only. The collaboration market for consumer is there, but for enterprises still focused on the interior.
- Latency. Most governments require that at least their data is kept in-Country… if you target private organizations, most US data centers can effectively cover Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. For all South America you will need to invest on a hoster partner to effectively deliver services. Be prepared to extremely low upload speeds.
- Local billing is simply not there. “Software services” can generate tax issues that make it a lot more expensive. Billing is a complex issue for small and medium size organizations that do not use international credit cards. They are also bad for SaaS providers, impacting 15-25% of the total “per user” cost.
- Marketing. The Social media is just starting to develop on emerging markets, you will need to promote using traditional media and existing partners or might not reach critical mass. Expect promotion cost to be higher than expected, because targeting is still limited.
- Partners. Business is conducted on different ways on each Country. Most customers are not ready to buy direct. This is a huge challenge because intermediaries expect to make a significant “traditional” margin. If your service is free then the problem you face is volume.
- Do you plan to use online support? Sorry, Latin America organizations demand phone support… The lower costs of HR make it possible and desirable.
- Internal Incubation. Most software organizations cannot afford the incubation process required to initiate the motion of software services sale, they rely on their existing workforces.
For Microsoft, 2007-2009 was a period to establish hundreds of partnerships that will make it possible to offer the choices to customers: internal, partner or vendor hosted mixed services. The vertical and horizontal application still need the “multi-headed” treatment so that they can be consumed by a smart client, browser or a mobile device.
The vision of getting access to your information from any device and on any place – including emerging markets – is becoming real, but will take at least 5-10 more years before it becomes truly global.
- May 01, 09
The Microsoft Disaster Response is an internal group that assists governments and organizations on global emergencies. The Mexican subsidiary and community volunteers are now working on developing emergency support systems for the Influenza A(H1N1) and H1N1, including:
- RSS, e-Mail, SMS delivery to the three screens. Notifications on the PC, phone and TV coming from news Web sites, Blogs, twitter, social networks and internal systems.
- Automated report agents can provide conversational style interactions over IM and answer question on preparedness, location of healt centers and general QA.
- Official sites might offer live translation widget that runs on multiple web platforms so that non-Spanish speakers can closely monitor new information
- The XBOX 360 can be leveraged to deliver alerts and health education material.
- Centralized notifications. Microsoft Vine is a new personal command center that receives notification from different services to be connected with the persons and places that are important to us.
- Remote work. As travel reduction is required and employees need to work from home, we expect increased use use on virtually collocated meeting tools like SharedView and Live Meeting. A lot of companies are still not keeping document repositories on the cloud. Software + Services is critical: offline is required on several locations.
- Social Media. Can misinform but is great to coordinate social activity. The “Profesionales Mexicanos en el extranjero” LinkedIn group is a channel to receive ideas from abroad.
- Visualization and research. Can be as simple as GIS mashups, moving Health organization sites to redundant data centers up to full research systems. E.g. Microsoft Amalga that enables real time exchange of information between Emergency Rooms (video).
Emerging countries are discovering the real power of the web today, this in turn will produce new creative applications and increased technology use. Open up the internal communications channels and map the people/technology/locations to ensure business availability. The reduction of the physical human contact is critical until we develop vaccines: prepare yourself.
- Apr 19, 09
There is an extensive discussion on what the “cloud” definition and standards should be, benefits and risks, etc. Probably a distraction of really critical issues:
- How the industry players will collaborate en deliver the software services is a complex discussion. We can expect hosters to get vertical expertise, and create alliances with distributors and resellers to increase software services sales capacity.
- How wull application frameworks enable the creation of a “new age era” of solutions?
- Most software organizations can simply leverage virtualization technology on “existing solutions” by partnering with EC2 to deliver them. This has clear advantages but the “brute force” approach will never achieve the same levels that are possible of “cloud native” applications.
- It’s very difficult to think that only with virtualization we’ll see Amazon performance levels: Software application frameworks can provide additional abstraction layers and the automatic systems management functionality on it’s inside. It’s not necessary to re-architect for multitenancy because the platform inherits elements to leverage the datacenter. Microsoft Azure is an example of this category.
- The expectations for new solutions is that they can run on any of three “clouds”: Internet, Partner hosted or internally hosted. In fact, a key benefit of the cloud is moving the complex stack easily between those. Users can access using the three primary screens: PC/Mac, smartphone and TV. Later also secundary screens including Kiosks, Surface PCs and Videowalls.
- I was amazed at the level of negative reactions on the McKinsey report “Clearing the air on cloud computing”… but the reality is that some organization will be able to run many software services internally at lower costs than those on the market.
Summary
Today 2/3 of the total IT Investment do not result on real differentiation. Depending on the value of each IT services, we’ll see a migration of those to any of the three clouds. IT will finally become transparent.
_________________________Note: Six months after the “Windows Azure Launch”.
There is a false perception that Microsoft Azure might not be ready for production use BUT in fact several partners are already charging for solutions built on top of it... SLAs are required but we are a lot closer than what it seems.
Pricing will be announced: we should consider the present a “free period”. Functionality and reliability will only improve. NOW It’s the time to build the “new era of solutions”.
- Mar 24, 09
Can you imagine involuntary mindcasting? Most likely all accounts would be protected; probably Twitter wouldn’t exist at all…
Recently I sent a mail to over 200 twitters inside Microsoft asking why we were using an e-mail alias instead of a protected account for sharing experiences. The first answer was Why would anyone use a Protected Updates?
Well, some of the discussed outcome:
- Context: Decrease Noise. People may not want to try to craft tweets to address different contexts and it’s easier to control the context than the interpretation. Example: mommy-Tweeters who want to write about trials and tribulations of parenting and assume that everyone who is reading understands the dramas of new motherdom.
- Privacy. Wives of persons with high visibility on certain communities, e.g. Miguel de Icaza’s wife http://twitter.com/marialaura – to carefully validate access. This also effectively helps avoid spam bots. And clearly you can use it to share non-public information. Beware, because there are reports on a false sense of security.
- Automation. You can create a private account and set automated actions. While there are more reliable messaging systems the multi-channel or multi-headed model can be interesting for consumer oriented applications.
- Internal communications. For those that do not have e-mail culture, use the same tool for communication when a lot of the workforce is mobile. Going Where the People are at.
- Live training. where you want only to keep dialog with a group of probably less than 30 attendees during a specific time period. Enter the real time web.
I’m sure you can contribute more valid reasons for leveraging twitter unprotected updates. Can you?
- Mar 18, 09
@nishshah posted a tweet related to Disruptive Simplicity citing Netbooks and the Flip Mino. Let me add more examples on how a new customer category can be created by “returning to basics”:
- Netbook vs UMPC.
- Flip mino vs Camcorders
- Widgets vs Full software applications
- RIA vs Rich Client
- Twitter vs IM
- Cloud vs In-house datacenters
- PHP vs C++
- Mp3 vs DRM
- Recessionary living vs Robb Report
- Software modeling vs Software construction
I’m sure you can comment and provide more examples on other industries.
- Mar 17, 09
A Killer Application is a need of the user group that can be filled, and by filling it, create an acceptance of that tool and the supporting methods/results
Let’s not just focus on placing your applications on the Cloud. The just is in effect a whole game changer, but let’s move further away and define some criteria to seek on the cloud killer application. Note that there are persons that consider that the Cloud doesn’t lead to software innovation but just to hardware advances exemplified by NetBooks and Smartphones. For me a Cloud Killer App will have the following attributes:
- Going beyond limits of current transaction processing. IEEE Spectrum publihed an article proposing that consumers will demand intense user experiences and focuses on a single category: electronic gaming. It makes sense for the scalability of millions of concurrent users. It needs to be demonstratad from the peformance perspective. Load and performance testing have also been nominated as killer apps.
- Breadth reach. Apps for Democracy list interesting cases that go beyond publishing public data sets on the cloud on government services that are required by all citizens of a given nation. Dan Bricklin envisioned “public IT infrastructures” on May 2004.
- Benefits from new platforms. Ray Ozzie has been focused on Live mesh. It enables software developers to build applications that sync data between the cloud and all user devices. It’s common to hear 2009 complains on the users that want their home setting to match their works but the software installation are totally independent. A killer app would most likely leverage the new cloud platforms.
- Green algorithms. The sustainability story is pretty big almost everywhere. But current software design projects do not deeply consider energy consumption. Microsoft is measuring CO2, Water and other energy consumption metrics per applications (e.g. Hotmail) on global datacenters - the operations perspective is available - but the current engineering and implementation is not explored at all. I envision the possibility of switching to different algorithms given external conditions.
- Has a real impact. The value of IT is and will always be the way it solves real world problems. I laugh when I hear a new PC Lab has been setup on a school. The real question is how the magic software is really changing the learning capacity of kids. View the first 15 minutes of this video.
There are few Killer applications patterns in existence: ‘mobile marketing’, ‘VoIP’ and other technologies have failed to be considered such. Worst case, the killer application is the existence of a large number of cloud applications helping us solve our personal and business problems. What do you think?
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Tweets
- Symantec: Dejen de usar PCAnywhere. http://t.co/IQmU30bT #fb
- Notas interesantes sobre como hemos destruido la flexibilidad en movimiento de nuestros hijos. http://t.co/ghu5fvsv #fb
- Celebrando cumple de mi esposa. Brunch a 605 pies de altura. #fb http://t.co/VF1ekxmD
- Summify del dia de hoy http://t.co/jjVGXUmo #fb
- 20 predicciones para la primer década del siglo XXII http://t.co/20cqpViq #fb
- Work-Life balance pressures: Volkswagen shuts off it's e-mail server outside of office hours. http://t.co/8SKGYUJW
- Mas que increible: Sacal arreglandose por $10 mil pesos mexicanos. Ojalá no haya Pais que lo reciba si es cierto. http://t.co/Plc86bOG #fb
- ¿Se cayó su celular al inodoro? No me refiero al video de YouTube http://t.co/yjk8yUOD #fb
- Facebook continua con crecimientos espectaculares. http://t.co/dfTM3pTF #fb
- Mapa de conflictos en el 2012. (PDF 3Mb) http://t.co/mTNi0MCg #fb
- La innovación es una condición necesaria para el éxito sostenido.
- Ampliando velocidad y capacidad de mi PC teatro en casa con un dúo dinámico. http://t.co/XlQECKBB
- Nueva entrada en blog: "2012: El apocalipsis de las Tecnologías de Información" http://t.co/ZsijCAJ5 #fbJan 07, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- Nueva entrada en blog personal "Nuestro estela digital: primer semana del 2012". http://t.co/JYLhqZpk #fb
- 30 ideas para tus planes de medios sociales en el 2012. http://t.co/SfnyQc0j
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Posts
- Jan 07, 12
Hace cinco años publique mi primer nota sobre el “cómputo en la nube”. El auge de los “medios sociales” inició también en el 2007. Hemos visto avances en software y hardware tanto en miniaturización como en poder en escala. En solo 3 años el panorama de la industria ha cambiado dramáticamente. Una pregunta clave no ha sido contestada: ¿Se convertirá la nube pública en el centro de gravedad de la siguiente generación de aplicaciones empresariales? La importancia de responder representa nada...(read more)
- Jul 05, 11
Jack Abraham es un joven de 25 años que a fines del año pasado vendió su emprendimiento a eBay por $75 millones de dólares. Milo fue creada con el objetivo de digitalizar todo lo que se encuentra en tiendas físicas para que un usuario, con la misma facilidad con que el universo virtual – se conozca exactamente en que estante y repisa del establecimiento local existe un producto determinado. Lea los detalles en el motivador artículo que nos abre el camino a nuevas rutas. Otras conversaciones en Internet...(read more)
- May 31, 11
Recientemente inicie una conversación sobre “ Big Data ”. Permitame ahora profundizar en el concepto: · El paradigma de los grandes datos se refiere a una nueva forma de pensar para manejar cada vez más información y resguardar el valor de la información. No hay un “número” de bytes estrictamente – hace años quizá era la información del censo de Estados Unidos o la mantenida por los burós de crédito. · ...(read more)
- May 19, 11
En la era de las redes sociales es asombrosa la especulación de eventos en la industria . Recientemente todos supieron de la adquisición de Skype por parte de Microsoft pero muy pocos leyeron la realidad - fue cubierta usando fondos off-shore remplazando recursos de menor desempeño combinado con importantes ahorros en impuestos europeos. Skype operará de forma propia para no perder inercia. El impacto material de la compra de Skype no es realmente representativo. Morgan Stanley señala que...(read more)
- Apr 05, 11
La Consumer Electronics Association indica que en Estados Unidos las tablet PC tienen una penetración entre el 4-5% en hogares y 8% en individuos. 73% de los consumidores están familiarizados; 37% planea adquirir una en el futuro mientras que 36% no tiene planes de hacerlo. Solo el 45% de usuarios recomendarían su compra, mientras que en la Laptop lo hacen el 81% de usuarios. El teléfono inteligente es conocido por 81% de consumidores y tiene una penetración de 32% de los mismos. Familia y amigos...(read more)
- Jan 27, 11
Primero he de señalar que – a largo plazo - la nube privada es vivir en negación de la auténtica “plataforma como servicio”, es literalmente vivir < encapsulando > el pasado en máquinas virtuales. Las empresas tradicionales el centro de datos empresarial invertirán una fortuna en asegurar que es mejor mantener el control e intentar cambiar al modelo de nube pública atenta contra su DNA- requieren de la venta de hardware y de servicios. Base de datos como servicio en nube privada . La visión...(read more)
- Dec 22, 10
La legítima masificación de las tecnologías de información ha llegado: Me parece asombroso que muchos taxistas en la Ciudad de México cuenten ya con teléfonos inteligentes para ubicarse, registrar direcciones y no solo mantenerse en contacto con clientes y familia. Como ya es tradición, América Latina omite ciclos; de acuerdo al informe de la economía blog solo contamos con el 2% de autores en el mundo aunque tenemos el 8% de la población total. La generación social utiliza no solo los sitios primarios...(read more)
- Nov 24, 10
Me parece muy certero el artículo que describe las tendencias tecnológicas vistas por Forrester, Gartner y ZapThink . Es interesante analizar como tratan de agrupar una gran cantidad de actividad en el sector. En lugar de abundar en los temas que ofrecen vínculos para explorar, creo que me voy a detener en el hoy y en el hogar. Aunque no soy un gamer , he estado usando Kinect por algunas semanas. Lo primero que he de decir es que tiene muchas potenciales áreas de mejora: De hecho, no se porque existe...(read more)
- Oct 06, 10
El futuro de la tecnología de información es de grandes oportunidades y/o retos: Se extiende el continuo del servidor tradicional a la nube , “ máquinas para problemas dedicados” ( computing appliances mas allá de los hoy descritos en wikipedia sobre almacenamiento y redes) y “ arquitecturas de referencia” en la que se basan las descritas máquinas. Las máquinas dedicadas y arquitecturas pueden ser consideradas la nube interna . El cambio fundamental con máquinas y arquitecturas es el “ conectar y...(read more)
- Aug 17, 10
A partir de hoy soy responsable por la administración de producto técnica para SQL Server en el corporativo de Microsoft. Luego de trabajar 17 años para América Latina acepte un nuevo reto. No me olvide de mi blog… la búsqueda y transición demandaron toda mi atención. Comparto el porque decidí por esta ruta: La base de datos, 2010 . Para la mayor parte de empresas, se requieren son menores costo servicios de integración, calidad de datos, análisis de impacto e inteligencia de negocios en forma de...(read more)
- Jun 24, 10
En el cómputo en la nube, el auge del teléfono inteligente y los medios sociales hay grandes áreas de consenso pero también de discusión. Anticipo que estos temas no se agotarán en por lo menos 18 a 24 meses. Hoy deseo abrir el espacio a pensamientos emergentes: 1. Construcción para plataformas variables . Inicio aquí porque es parte de la arquitectura de la nube y múltiples pantallas. Uno de los aspecto más complejos para una solución de nueva generación es lidiar con plataformas que varían en almacenamiento...(read more)
- May 14, 10
Microsoft es reconocido primariamente por Windows y Office, o tal vez debería decir “casi exclusivamente” por el software de escritorio. ¿Está Microsoft perdiendo la competencia por aplicaciones en “la nube de cómputo”? ¿Cuál es la aspiración de Microsoft por la nube en el mundo y en nuestra región? ¿Qué es Microsoft Online ? Ya que tengo el gusto de dirigir este esfuerzo para América Latina deseo compartir el relato completo: El 4 de Marzo del 2010 en la universidad de Washington, Steve Ballmer...(read more)
- Apr 16, 10
Oportunidades en el caos refleja verdaderamente la realidad, como es descrita en “ The next wave of technologies ” de Phil Simon. Recomiendo este libro recién publicado porque presenta como será necesario renovar toda la tecnología en la empresa en la década que inicia. La frase Enterprise 2.0 aplicada unicamente a llevar al Web 2.0 a la empresa es limitante. Si bien es cierto que el cómputo en la nube tiene problemáticas por resolver, los beneficios son tan claros que por lo general se decidirá...(read more)
- Apr 12, 10
Hoy anunciamos una actualización mayor a la plataforma de construcción de software Microsoft: Visual Studio 2010 permite a los desarrolladores enfocarse en su plataforma de preferencia: Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, SQL Server 2008, SharePoint, Office, Windows Azure y Windows Phone 7 utilizando las habilidades actuales de desarrollo. Los equipos de desarrollo se beneficiarán de administración de proyectos, herramientas para modelado y pruebas mejoradas. El .NET Framework 4.0 permite desarrollo...(read more)
- Apr 03, 10
En el 2008 el tema de moda era el Web 2.0 e iniciaba la discusión de sus limitantes . El 23 de Octubre del mismo año, Amazon EC2 dejó de ser un producto “beta” y la historia se aceleró: A menos de 4 meses posteriores a la primera oferta comercial de cómputo elástico, se contaba con más de 22 definiciones de “cómputo en la nube” o “nube de cómputo” . Aún hoy, no existe un entendimiento en común del concepto pero es claro que ha alcanzado a las masas. “ El estado del sistema operativo de Internet...(read more)
- Mar 22, 10
Algunas temas de creciente interés en TI incluyen: Los modelos de negocio de la nube. La mayor relevancia del PAAS a largo plazo que la virtualización La red eléctrica inteligente como evolución de la infraestructura al más bajo nivel Pero sin duda la doceava actualización en tecnologías emergentes en Wharton nos ayuda a no perder la pista de una realidad más amplia. Lo que sucede con los elementos primarios de TI durante el periodo 2010-2020: Microprocesadores . Las cargas intentas de cómputo del...(read more)
- Mar 04, 10
Hoy el Presidente de Microsoft Steve Ballmer está haciendo una reflexión sobre las “Posibilidades de la nube” , que no es un anuncio de nuevos servicios. Es una retrospección a lo que se ha logrado. El punto central de la charla es que hasta ahora ha sido vista de forma unidimensional – resolviendo solo problemas específicos. La combinación de los distintos servicios disponibles representan un “cambio importante de juego”: La nube ayuda a aprender, decidir y tomar acción . La nube aprende de cada...(read more)
- Feb 09, 10
El año pasado nuestra región - igual que el resto del mundo - vivió el auge de las “redes sociales en Internet”. Siempre es difícil medir nuevas tecnologías y su impacto. Esta combinación de factores me llevó a concentrarme en entender como nos encontramos hoy para evaluar en el futuro los programas que sean efectivo en reducir la brecha digital y generar crecimiento económico. El modelo se construye con 40 variables provenientes del Banco Mundial, OCDE y Comscore. En un eje todo lo que favorece...(read more)
- Jan 20, 10
En Octubre del 2003 Microsoft lanzó la Tablet PC , yo fui usuario durante un año de una de esas tableta. El poder de cómputo era demasiado pobre pero las posibilidades muy altas. Tres años después se lanzó Origami y en el 2007 Microsoft Surface . En noviembre del 2009 todos los asistentes al PDC recibieron una laptop multitouch que he estado usando ultimamente y me ha ayudado a entender la realidad de la Interfaz de usuario natural o Natural User Interface (NUI). El concepto actual ha culminado en...(read more)
- Dec 29, 09
La década que termina representa un cambio de dirección en cuanto a requerimientos tecnológicos: La OLPC diseñada para Países emergentes en educación se transformó en un éxito aun en Estados Unidos, en la forma de netbook. Por primera vez en la historia Windows 7 se diseñó para reduciendo requerimientos de hardware. Se ha popularizado la PC y los dispositivos de “solo navegación” cada día permiten hacer más . El celular es el nuevo orden. Nadie se fija en la calidad de las aplicaciones, lo importante...(read more)
- Nov 24, 09
Hoy pude visitar en Sao Paulo, Brasil la oficina de innovación de uno de los bancos más grandes de la región. En una vertical que generalmente que se opone al cambio fue muy satisfactoria la visita y conocer el trabajo de más de 100 presonas dedicadas a esta labor: 1993 crearon un primer cartucho para consolda de videjuegos que podía utilizar la línea telefónica para concer el saldo de una cuenta. Fue el primer banco en el mundo en ofrecer transacciones por Internet Han creado aplicaciones de realidad...(read more)
- Nov 21, 09
Windows Azure entró en operación prueba en Octubre del año pasado , la semana pasada fue “liberado a web” en el PDC. La facturación iniciará en enero y el cobro en Febrero 2010. En América Latina, Azure estará disponible 45 días después en Brazil, México, Colombia, Chile, Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, Perú y Trinidad y Tobago. En otros Paises continuará disponible en forma de evaluación hasta su disponibilidad local. El 90% de las persona no alcanzaron a “digerir” la evolución de Azure en 12 meses. (Todos...(read more)
- Oct 31, 09
¿Superficialidad de TI? . Me es interesante observar como las diferentes capas de “la nube” se están separando: la visión 2010 de Gartner sobre “Real Time Infrastructure” no lo encuentro tan distinto a “infraestructura como servicio”. Por otra parte “virtualización” es un término cada vez menos efectivo… Virtualización de ¿servidores? ¿aplicaciones? ¿escritorios? ¿la combinación de todos? Son muy distintos Microsoft considera que las conversaciones primarias para el 2010 en TI serán: Cómputo...(read more)
- Oct 21, 09
En el pasado se especuló sobre la aplicabilidad de un nuevo sistema operativo de escritorio en mercados emergentes. Estas lecciones fueron contundentes para Microsoft: No solo en el diseño original de Windows 7 sino en un esfuerzo sin precedente de preparación incluso realizadas en economías desarrolladas. Tan solo algunas de las acciones a reportar a unas horas del anuncio oficial: Windows 7 en la academia . Específicamente en América Latina decidimos llevar a cabo una actividad especial para dotar...(read more)
- Oct 15, 09
Cómputación en la nube . Ya he descrito como el CRM y el correo electrónico son dos “cargas de trabajo” que se han movido a la nube velozmente. Este artículo compara 10 Servicios de CRM hospedados. Sin duda señala el inicio de un nuevo campo de batalla en TI: La guerra en la nubes. Con el web 2.0 inició un intento por llevar la productividad individual al browser. Hoy todos la atención se ha movido de startups a los gorilas de la informática. Office Web Applications y Google Apps son los más comentados...(read more)
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Posts
- Jan 07, 12
Facebook calladamente se convierte en la biblioteca de babel actual. Estoy seguro de que para Febrero 2012 o su octavo aniversario tendrá la crónica de la vida de más de un billón de seres.
La “línea de tiempo" es una nueva función que se puede describir como un canal que me permite visualizar momentos en el pasado, aunado a mis preferencias de todo tipo, lugares visitados o en que se ha vivido y mucho más.
Ayer por la noche “curé” mi historia agregando fotos de algunos de los principales eventos en mi vida. Precación: Al activar esta función toda nuestra historia se hace pública. Es necesario “cerrar” una gran cantidad de “puertas” para mantener el control y privacidad.
Realización
Inserte las fotos de mi cumpleaños a los 5 años – mi hijo será mayor este año – luego otras a los 15 y 20 años. Pude ver ante mí la voracidad con la que el tiempo transcurre.
Me sentí “insecto” en la efímera duración de la vida. Aunque una hora dura lo mismo para todos los humanos, la decisión de como consumirla o invertirla es más importante de lo que parece.
Acciones
La técnica pomodoro es una forma más de aprovechar el tiempo ante las distracciones digitales. Necesitamos vivir una vida pomodoro, en el delicado balance del trabajo, esparcimiento, educación, meditación, comunidad.
Hoy concluye la primer semana del 2012, ¿Porqué no evaluar desde este instante el rumbo que deseamos para este año? Deseo que tu estela digital refleje muchos sueños hechos realidad.
- Nov 04, 11
Luego de unas fabulosas vacaciones me siento renovado. Esta semana he despertado temprano, a 6 horas. Excelente para hacer ejercicio, jugar un poco con mi hijo e iniciar las actividades diarias.
Para mí, el “Desconectarse” de los medios sociales y de la celeridad laboral es un lujo. Hacer una pausa para reflexionar ante la interminable lista de actividades… es una delicia. Mantenerse en el auto unos minutos más para terminar de escuchar una melodía… es una indulgencia. Leer algo distinto por un día, es cambiar la rutina.
Hoy despierto de un sueño descubriendo un maravilloso mundo alrededor. Es fantástico recibir una llamada telefónica de mi esposa rumbo a la escuela de mi hijo describiendo como nos extraña. En lo profesional, pronto cumpliré 19 años de trabajar en Microsoft… Aun con muchas áreas por perfeccionar.
Sin un significativo esfuerzo…. es difícil recordar tantos momentos tanto dolorosos como grandiosos que hemos recorrido. Es pesado tomar la iniciativa para lograr los retos que aún están pendientes, pero !hay que hacerlo!
Pronto caeremos dormidos nuevamente. Pido a Dios para todos, que al despertar nuevamente vivan en un periodo brillante.
- Jul 04, 11
Soy el mayor de 31 primos. Ya antes mencioné como a cada instante se acelera el reloj de la vida. Tengo que detenerme y describir lo que hoy estoy viendo como advertencia de que Todo va a cambiar.
- Crecimiento Profesional. En un momento las oportunidades profesionales parecen infinitas, pero pronto descubrirán que no es así. Un ejemplo común: la empresa que cuenta con 50% de su planilla en el nivel operativo, el 30% en nivel gerencial, 10% en directivo y 4% a nivel asociado. Es altamente probable que te encuentres estancado pronto. El remedio: no temas al cambio, reinvéntate cada tres años y certifícate a al nuevo cuerpo de conocimiento.
- Cuando dejes a tu empresa. Esto va a suceder… tarde o temprano. Enfrentaremos el vivir hasta 40 años sin trabajo. No hay estrategias para lograr la tranquilidad económica de la noche a la mañana, pero si existe una fórmula con la que todos pueden ser millonarios: El ahorro desde tus 20s. Empieza hoy o te arrepentirás muy pronto. Quisiera haber aplicado propuestas como las de Dave Ramsey pero hasta ahora entiendo cabalmente esto. Tampoco tú lo entiendes, pero estas equivocado. Ver la siguiente epígrafe:
- Aprende de las experiencias de otros. Conoce que te motiva y reconoce tus limitantes. Pero no te detengas ahi: Enséñale a tus hijos a que no todo lo tienen que vivir en carne propia para comprobarlo. Los consejos de los mayores son mucho más importantes de lo que estimamos. Pregunta!
Primos y primas: nuestra única vocación en este mundo es servir a Dios. Ahhh, los momentos difíciles abundan y muchos felices los despreciamos con distracciones terrenales… Busca ayuda en todo lo que desequilibra tu vida. Corrige el rumbo HOY.
- May 19, 11
Dos historias de innovación me cautivaron recientemente: La primera de un emprendedor en el área médica que por 30 años ha luchado con escépticos y el gobierno – sin el apoyo de farmacéuticas. La segunda un proyecto secreto de un gigante en alimentos de $108 billones al años.
1. Truvia: el endulzante dietético natural
En el 2004 la participación de mercado de Cargill en endulzantes de dieta era inexistente. De hecho la empresa no efectuaba ventas directas a consumidores. Solo cuatro años después con Truvia – un producto natural que endulza la yerba mate desde hace siglos y es 300 veces más dulce que el azúcar – controla hoy el 12% del mercado y con un gran potencial por delante. La planta se denomina Stevia y fue descubierta hace 100 años en Paraguay. Los retos en producirla fueron múltiples – desde la presentación hasta el modelo de negocio. Lea el detalle completo de este caso de éxito aquí.
2. Vasectomía inyectable reversible
. En India, Devendra Deshpande de 36 años ha inventado un nuevo control de natalidad masculino reversible. Verdaderamente simple – en lugar de simplemente destruir el conducto que transporta a los espermatozoides (vas defererns) se inyecta un polímero no tóxico y estable. Los fluidos pueden continuar circulando pero la carga positiva altera la membrana del esperma de forma que no puede fertilizar al óvulo. Desde que se aprobó la píldora en 1960 las farmacéuticas han buscado algo equivalente para el hombre… Se encuentra estacado en procesos regulatorios. Recientemente la fundación Bill y Melinda Gates invirtieron para crear una variante femenina del modelo. Devendra ha hecho otras asombrosas propuestas, como un corazón artificial con 13 cavidades, no basado en el humano pero capaz de controlar la presión más gradualmente. El vínculo estará aquí cuando se publique.
- Apr 29, 11
Nathan P. Myrvold ha publicado artículos en las publicaciones de mayor prestigio en el mundo en biología, tecnología, economía y ciencia. El pasatiempo más reciente del multi-millonario es verdaderamente excepcional:
Cocina Modernista (http://modernistcuisine.com/) es simplemente SOR-PREN-DEN-TE:
- 1522 recetas por 72 de los mejores chefs del mundo, enfoque en la cocina de los últimos 25 años.
- No, no es e-libro o interactivo. 44 editores utilizando impresión estocástica y tintas “chroma centric”. La fotografía es espectacular – fue cortada realmente por la mitad para ser capturada. El papel continúa siendo el único medio para entregar la máxima resolución visual en el 2011.
Espere… conozca el contenido:
- Microbiología de los alimentos y la nutrición.
- Técnicas tradicionales: Exactamente en que consiste el freir, cocer al vapor o utilizar nuevas t’ecnicas como cocinar con nitrógeno liquido. Separación perfecta de los gajos de una naranja mediante critalización.
- Animales y plantas. Estructura de los músculos, razones detrás de la suavidad de los cortes. Diferenia estructural entre peces, aves y carne.
- Integredientes y preparaciones. Emulsiones – mezclando agua y aceite. Hiper-decantación de vino. Dedica un capítulo completo a crear el mejor express posible.
- Platillos completos. Uniendo los aderezos, ensaladas. La hamburgesa perfecta por ejemplo utiliza tomato comprimido aspirado. Principios para crear el queso fundido perfecto. Como crear la papa frita perfecta.
- Manual para ser usado en la cocina. Impreso en papel a prueba de agua.
Tim Zagat lo describe como “El más importante libro de artes culinarias desde Escoffier”.
- Mar 27, 11
Mi mayor prioridad el día de hoy es agradecer a Dios por cada experiencia y aprendizaje que he tenido. Es el examinar de nuevo “la dirección” y “la magnitud” de lo que falta por realizar.
¿Quién no desea que los días especiales sean “únicos”? He visto celebraciones muy creativas: Jose Luis Oliva – quién escribió su propia obra de teatro para celebrar su cumpleaños; Victor Chapela – que transportó a todos los asistentes a su boda a otra época.
Opciones que he explorado para celebrar: Carmina Burana con 170 voces en el Benaroya Hall, Teatro ZinZanni pero decidiré por una visita de dos días a un nuevo destino: Crystal Mountain.
Mi búsqueda es no solo por un momento distinto que pueda compartir con mi esposa e hijo, que son lo mas importante hoy y siempre (ya que la distancia me impide estar más cerca de mis padres, suegros, hermana, cuñados y el resto de mi muy querida familia). Sino por vivir el resto de mi vida logrando el máximo de cada instante, compartiéndolo al máximo y en el rumbo que Dios ha marcado. Gracias, muchas gracias por acompañarme en este momento.
- Mar 01, 11
80 años equivalen aproximadamente a treinta mil días: lo que muchos anticipan vivir. Nuestro hijo Luis Daniel apenas nos ha hecho felices 1379 días.
Cuando miro hacia atrás me parece una inmensidad combinada con fugacidad lo que he vivido entre mis veintes a los cuarentas… Estos últimos meses me he dedicado a reinventar a mi ser para el futuro. He de reconocer que instantáneamente “dude”, porque la generación a nuestro alrededor es distinta: El presente ya dejó de ser como era.
Tiempo de cosechar. La semana pasada tome unas vacaciones espectaculares. La bella aldea de Whistler en Canadá es sin duda uno de los pueblos con mayor momento en todo el mundo. Pero esto no es instantáneo. Whistler fue descubierto por excéntricos y hippies a mediados del siglo pasado, para la práctica de deportes extremos. A inicios de los sesentas unos empresarios invirtieron con la intención de hospedar los mundiales de invierno del 68. Por cuarenta años esto no se logró. Fue hasta el 2010 que lograra convertirse en la sede de los olímpicos junto con la vecina ciudad de Vancouver. Qué fácil es ver al pianista ejecutando una obra y olvidarse del esfuerzo que se requiere para una ejecución…
El nuevo presente: Al cabo de casi un año por realizar mi nuevo rumbo y trabajar arduamente, regresa a mí la tranquilidad de sentirme competente en lo profesional y el vislumbrar dos décadas adelante que deben servir para crecer en lo profesional, familiar y personal.
Mi actual visión del futuro. Es difícil comprender que en el mundo existimos 7 mil millones de habitantes y en el 2050 seremos al menos 2 mil millones más. De aquí la importancia de realmente planear el futuro de largo plazo desde la mas temprana juventud y estar en estrecha comunicación con Dios – varias veces al día. Vayamos ahora a sembrar.
- Nov 26, 10
Hasta hoy nunca he festejado Thanksgiving formalmente. He vivido casi 4 años en Estados Unidos y pronto mi hijo preguntará del significado… Hoy Pablo Bárcenas e Ignacio Dávila – a quienes conocí en 1992 me invitaron a compartir la cena porque mi familia se encuentra viajando. Cada quién compartió, hasta los pequeños, el porqué está agradecido con Dios. Yo agradecí la invitación, la amistad y el apoyo cuando me mude a Seattle.
Estoy llegando a casa y gracias a Internet puedo leer mis notas redactadas en las seis pasadas navidades (en este mismo blog). Recientemente compartí a mi esposa que lo que más agradezco es haber conocido desde niño a Dios, y el gozar de su cercanía toda mi vida. No por coincidencia, mis versículos favoritos de la Biblia son éstos:
“Acuérdate de tu Creador en los días de tu juventud, antes que lleguen los días malos y vengan los años en que digas: «No encuentro en ellos placer alguno»; antes que dejen de brillar el sol y la luz, la luna y las estrellas, y vuelvan las nubes después de la lluvia.” ECLESIASTES 12:1-2
Me parece extraño no haber compartido antes esto, así que no puedo posponerlo. A los 13 años viví importantes detonadores que dieron rumbo a mi vida – la afición por la computación – por ejemplo. Pero sobre ellos destaca un libro que mis padres me obsequiaron: “Atrévete a ser diferente” de Fred Hartley. Conservo este invaluable ejemplar que habla del evitar dejárse llevar por la presión social, el resistir la urgencia de comprometer nuestros propios principios.
El nuevo objetivo es continuar mejorando: como persona, como esposo, como hijo, como nieto, como sobrino, como profesionista… y poder compartir mi hijo y a mi familia las “pepitas de oro” que he logrado identificar.
- Oct 27, 10
Nos olvidamos de que nuestra realidad fue inventada en este siglo: la sanitación en los hospitales, el drenaje mismo, la aspirina, la línea de ensamblaje, el cine, la penicilina, el papel de baño, el refrigerador, los crayones…. De hecho la mayoría en los últimos 50.
La semana pasada escuche de Juan Vargas – un investigador de Microsoft Research este contexto y el cómo un ingeniero del MIT que heredó aserraderos en Seattle – el lugar menos propicio para desarrollar su profesión – decidió continuar con sus sueños de crear aviones para venderlos al servicio postal norteamericano.
Un gran problema era la falta de aeropuertos… De ahi que tenían que aquatizar en aguas quietas. Y es por esa precisa razón que Boeing tiene como sede el estado de Washington.
La aceleración de la innovación va a hacer realidad el mundo de sueños que todos vivimos cuando pequeños. No abandonemos los sueños, perseveremos ante el mal clima hasta la cima.
- Sep 28, 10
Todo es nuevo. El pasado 16 de agosto asumí un nuevo rol en el corporativo de Microsoft. Después de 17 de años en México y América Latina mi interés es ahora por mercados más desarrollados. Mi cambio es de función, área, código postal, escuela para mi hijo, clima, contexto…. Inicie hace dos semanas y el proceso de inmersión ha sido muy intenso, tratando de lograr cambios en 6 semanas, 90 dìas y el año fiscal completo. Tengo que reposicionarme en los medios sociales, crear una nueva red de contactos, interactuar con culturas adicionales… pagar mas impuestos : (
Miro el pasado como una etapa fabulosa, con grandes satisfacciones y aprendizajes. Con amigos que permanecerán ante el cambio. El futuro es incierto, positivo o negativo pero dificilmente neutro. TODOS TENEMOS QUE ESTAR PREPARADOS PARA EL CAMBIO DRAMATICO porque casi siempre sucede de forma no planeada. Nos toma por sorpresa. ES MEJOR TOMAR el control en realizar el cambio. De hecho, hoy estoy pensando quién será mi remplazo dentro de aproximadamente 36 meses. Recomiendo hacer lo mismo, recomiendo preparar a la familia a enfrentar el cambio.
El tiempo es limitado y no podré escribir más por ahora. Pero recuerden: la búsqueda en Internet es el mejor aliado que tenemos. Yo lo uso para absolutamente todo – si necesito evaluar si una persona se acoplará al equipo, obtengo consejo. Todas las preguntas clave de preparación a una junta, las indago para complementar la imagen. Hace poco dije “el internet hace al mas tonto parecer bien informado”, pero el que utiliza al máximo el Internet es el que más se beneficiará. ¿tu?
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Checkins
- The Westin Seattle1900 5th Ave
- Grand Hyatt Seattle721 Pine St
- Haiku Sushi & Seafood Buffet7548 164th ave ne
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