Rich Morrow, Author at Gigaom Your industry partner in emerging technology research Wed, 14 Oct 2020 00:42:04 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.5.3 Enterprise Machine Learning https://gigaom.com/report/sector-roadmap-enterprise-machine-learning/ Fri, 27 Oct 2017 12:00:37 +0000 http://research.gigaom.com/?post_type=go-report&p=954259/ The Machine Learning as a Service (MLaaS) space is changing at a dizzying pace, and as a result, the future outlook for

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The Machine Learning as a Service (MLaaS) space is changing at a dizzying pace, and as a result, the future outlook for the platform is as important as its current state. This Gigaom Sector RoadMap describes the market, comparing solutions by identifying several Disruption Vectors that will drive the space in the coming 12 to 24 months.

Five Disruption Vectors were chosen that highlight the suitability of each vendor to both the current and future of MLaaS platforms. Tech buyers can use the Disruption Vector analysis to assist in selecting products that best match their own situation.

Key findings of this analysis include the following points.

  • A breakdown of the various aspects of machine learning (ML), and how each vendor scores in the disparate categories for image recognition and analysis, voice and speech analysis, and voice response shows that many vendors differentiate themselves with not only the number of raw services, but the capability of each service.
  • It is important to compare the different vendor clouds on which these MLaaS services run, especially with the perspective of how that platform affects MLaaS workloads and costs, taking into account raw number of services.
  • Developer productivity should be a paramount concern when deciding upon a vendor. Ancillary concerns like network speed, streaming capabilities, analytics, and other factors can dramatically impact developer productivity as well as end-user satisfaction. Additionally, many vendors like IBM and Microsoft have started to bundle their MLaaS services into solutions for particular use cases or verticals, reducing the time-to-market for apps that fit into those boxes.
  • As a part of developer productivity, support may also be a concern, especially if machine learning is a discipline new to your organization. Most vendors roll their ML support into a general “cloud support” contract, but Google has created a dedicated services team specifically for ML.
  • Google, Microsoft, and IBM are in a dead heat for top provider. AWS is showing up as 2nd in the MLaaS arena, with their newly announced ML-specific services. It’s still too early to determine who will emerge as the clear leaders in the future. Although significant differences exist between the vendors, as features and capabilities coalesce around a standardized feature list, vendor offerings will start to closely resemble each other.
  • Machine Learning is a broad umbrella under which many individual projects and use cases are grouped. Therefore, at the end of each vendor’s section, we call out several specific use cases and rate the individual platforms as useful for particular use cases.

Key:

  • Number indicates company’s relative strength across all vectors
  • Size of ball indicates company’s relative strength along individual vector

Source: Gigaom

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Containers in the Cloud: What to look for https://gigaom.com/report/containers-in-the-cloud-what-to-look-for/ Tue, 06 Sep 2016 19:31:26 +0000 http://research.gigaom.com/?post_type=go-report&p=950779/ “Containers” and “Docker” are without a doubt, two of the hottest words in technology today, and “Containers as a Service” or CaaS,

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“Containers” and “Docker” are without a doubt, two of the hottest words in technology today, and “Containers as a Service” or CaaS, is an acronym that is being used more often as companies pivot to deploy more of their online services with fast-starting, easy to deploy containers. For those new to this space, confusion reigns as to why containers are so useful, how they could be used to gain strategic advantages, and the various models to deploy and maintain container-based services.
Even after an organization understands the value of containers, confusion takes over again as they go through the due diligence of picking a cloud-based provider. Which providers offer which services? How do the cloud providers differ with regard to ancillary services that wrap around and/or interface with CaaS? How do cost models differ? Which container managers outshine others?
This report offers a concise investigation into all of the above.
Key findings include the following:

  • A quick introduction to the value of containers and how they compare to VM-based services like Amazon Elastic Cloud Compute (Amazon EC2).
  • A look at the importance of launching containers in the cloud and why this model is so beneficial from efficiency, maintenance, and cost perspectives.
  • An in-depth review of CaaS offerings available at the “Top Three” cloud providers: Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Microsoft Azure.

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Coding to standards and quality: supply-chain application development https://gigaom.com/report/coding-to-standards-and-quality-supply-chain-application-development/ Fri, 07 Nov 2014 21:40:12 +0000 http://research.gigaom.com/?post_type=go-report&p=240560/ Modern software development is a fast moving, highly fragmented, and highly distributed supply chain, with parts built by disparate teams, running on disparate platforms. Code quality and security can no longer be an afterthought.

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The monolithic codebase is dead. Modern applications are built of code from a variety of sources including employees, partners, and contractors from different geographies, with different skill levels, and working on a number of platforms. Application development is a supply chain, with dependencies supported by a network of systems ranging from greenfield development to legacy integrations, and utilizing a patchwork of code from custom, open-source, and commercial third-party sources. Ensuring consistency, security, and standards in such an environment can be challenging but is essential for maintaining reputation, relationships, and customers.

This report will help IT organizations and application development teams prepare for the fast-approaching future state of modern software development and benefit from an increased focus on code quality and security.

Key findings of this report include:

  • Code quality and security can no longer be an afterthought bolted onto the software development life cycle (SDLC).
  • Tools such as test-driven development (TDD) are ill suited for today’s dynamic, heavily integrated stacks.
  • Modern software development is a fast moving, highly fragmented, and highly distributed supply chain, with parts built by disparate teams, running on disparate platforms.
  • Previous vulnerabilities such as Shellshock and Heartbleed highlight the fact that companies must increase code quality and security. Richer, faster end-to-end tests are needed, and these tests will require investment in appropriate resources, tools, and infrastructure.
  • DevOps, continuous integration (CI), and continuous delivery (CD) are the preferred ways software companies enable development, testing, and delivery within fast moving, dynamic stacks.
  • Static code-analysis tools add agility by enforcing code and security standards — common code problems that traditional testing may miss. This agility helps new developers understand inherited code.

 

Thumbnail image courtesy: iStock/Thinkstock

 

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Sector Roadmap: cross-platform mobile development https://gigaom.com/report/sector-roadmap-cross-platform-mobile-development/ Thu, 30 Oct 2014 20:20:17 +0000 http://research.gigaom.com/?post_type=go-report&p=239734/ Mobile application development is becoming increasingly complex. Vendors and developers need to be ready for the key disruptors that will shape the development landscape in 2015 and beyond.

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Cross-platform mobile app development is already complicated. However, due to the dizzying pace of mobile fragmentation it will become substantially more difficult over the coming years. As a result, the future plans of mobile development vendors are far more important than the toolsets those developers currently offer. This Sector RoadmapTM identifies five Disruption Vectors — forces with the potential to reshape the market and demands for mobile application development platforms — and evaluates a number of different vendor approaches in light of those forces.

Key findings in this Sector Roadmap include:

  • The “talent crunch” will continue to be largest factor influencing adoption of a platform.
  • Platforms that provide full end-to-end solutions from the integrated development environment to the back-end offer the most benefits for developer productivity and security.
  • Open and plugable approaches are best-suited to take advantage of the rapid changes likely to continue in the mobile space.
  • Network speed, MBaaS, analytics, and other factors can dramatically affect end user experience and developer productivity.
  • Most vendors have their eyes on the IoT space and can offer a consolidated approach to deploy apps into yet-unknown platforms and form factors.

 CrossPlatformUber

Key:

  • Number indicates a company’s relative strength across all vectors
  • Size of ball indicates a company’s relative strength along an individual vector

Source: Gigaom Research

 

Thumbnail image courtesy: iStock/Thinkstock

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Total experience quality: integrating performance, usability, and application design https://gigaom.com/report/total-experience-quality-integrating-performance-usability-and-application-design/ Mon, 27 Oct 2014 16:00:12 +0000 http://research.gigaom.com/?post_type=go-report&p=239159/ Lack of performance out of the gate can kill a web or mobile-based app quickly. Designers must focus on performance considerations as part of the entire UX equation.

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As the number of consumption models in the digital delivery landscape has grown so has the burden on application designers. From desktop to web to phone to tablet and beyond, many designers create an entirely new user experience (UX) for each target platform — but often in a vacuum. Despite a growing acceptance of responsive design principles and the improvement of cross-platform tools, designers frequently target one primary platform.

One result is that decisions made during design can be barriers to performance down the road. When new platforms launch, performance is typically an afterthought to be optimized later. This is short-sighted: Lack of performance out of the gate can quickly doom a web or mobile-based app (both referred to here as apps). It is imperative that performance considerations play a front-seat role in the entire UX equation.

User experience is heavily dependent on underlying technical structure, and those structural choices are often dictated by usability. To navigate the possibilities of native, hybrid, and responsive designs and the myriad backend services that support them, UX designers must have an intimate knowledge of the limits to which they can push app performance. This report will help designers make educated, value-driven decisions about app experiences.

Key findings include:

  • The separation of an application’s content and logic is a necessary first step toward increased performance, but it must also be paired with a strategy that places both as close to the user as possible.
  • By speeding the delivery of both static and dynamic content, a content delivery network (CDN) is the most effective tool to increase performance, usability, and user satisfaction.
  • Cross-platform compilers abstract device-specific considerations from front-end design, increasing developer freedom and efficiency.
  • A devops approach that pairs agile project management practices with case-specific tools is essential for fast, high-quality iterations.

 

 

Thumbnail image courtesy: iStock/Thinkstock

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A developer’s checklist for deploying the internet of things https://gigaom.com/report/a-developers-checklist-for-deploying-the-internet-of-things/ Wed, 10 Sep 2014 21:45:22 +0000 http://research.gigaom.com/?post_type=go-report&p=236783/ While every development project requires a different set of skills, and the internet of things is still in its earliest stages, there are certain tools with which budding IoT developers should be familiar.

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The “things” in the “internet of things” (IoT) encompass a wide range of devices: sensors and sensor arrays like the Nest and SmartThings, wearables like the Pebble smart watch and Google Glass, and embedded technologies like Tesla and Ford’s Smart Cars. Even Samsung, the current leader of the mobile space, has its eyes set on the smart-home market, with refrigerators that will text you (or the Amazon Grocery delivery truck) when you’re out of milk.

The possibilities are staggering, but these “things” represent some significant challenges to app developers. Developers, in particular, will have to cope with an unprecedented explosion of supported devices and form factors, extensive network optimizations to make both the front end and back end more responsive, highly capable edge devices to which more processing may (and should) be pushed, and finally, a plan to capture, process, and wrangle business value and from all of the data these devices generate.

While each development project will require different skills, and the IoT is still in its earliest stages, there are certain tools with which budding IoT developers should be familiar. These include:

  • IaaS, MBaaS, and REST APIs
  • Cross-platform development tools
  • CDNs and data streaming services (like PubNub)
  • Big data ingestion, storage, and processing tools like Hadoop/HDFS, Spark, Storm, and Flume

Thumbnail image courtesy of iStock/Thinkstock.

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Cloud and data centers join forces for a new IT platform for internet applications and businesses https://gigaom.com/report/cloud-and-data-centers-join-forces-for-a-new-it-platform-for-internet-applications-and-businesses/ Mon, 04 Aug 2014 17:00:24 +0000 http://research.gigaom.com/?post_type=go-report&p=234427/ An increasingly large swath of businesses are realizing that the cloud-plus-data-centers model provides the best of both worlds, and integrating the public virtual cloud with the physical data center is the best way to cost effectively scale, secure, and serve modern production workloads.

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Business and IT are no longer separate silos. Your application is your business, and software development is the glue that holds it together. But how can you develop your business and the applications that support it at the same time? How far can you push one before the other breaks? The monolithic application is dead, and it’s time we started acting like it. Modern applications provide and consume different services with different needs, and each of those services passes through a number of hands on the journey between conception and production. As a result, there is no single “right” platform for application development and production. For some applications, the quick provisioning of the public cloud may provide an ideal prototyping or dev/test environment, though actual production may happen on in-house servers. For others, competitive or privacy concerns may dictate exactly the opposite strategy. To extract maximum value from their infrastructure, developers must move beyond their current binary thinking and evaluate platform choice based on the various phases of application development and the many roles that touch an application during those phases. An increasingly large swath of businesses are realizing that the cloud-plus-data-centers model can provide the best of both worlds, and integrating the public virtual cloud with the physical data center is the best way to cost effectively scale, secure, and serve modern production workloads.

Key findings include:

  • Public cloud infrastructure is excellent for many use cases, but it exposes only the most common 70 percent or so of the functionality that a business may need.
  • The cost, control, and security benefits of a data center can be significant differentiators for business applications.
  • Cloud-plus-data-center provides the best option for most businesses, maximizing cost, functionality, and agility benefits.

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Determining when PaaS is appropriate https://gigaom.com/report/determining-when-paas-is-appropriate/ Mon, 28 Apr 2014 18:00:46 +0000 http://research.gigaom.com/?post_type=go-report&p=228823/ Before a business can ask whether PaaS makes sense, it must first understand its own needs and the differences among the wide variety of PaaS offerings.

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Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) solutions are increasingly popular and can speed time to market while cutting costs, but they are not for all organizations and they are not all the same. Before a business can ask whether PaaS makes sense, it must first understand its own needs and the differences among the wide variety of PaaS offerings. Then it must consider the realities of its existing infrastructure and staff and how to best integrate those resources with service-based offerings.

This report defines PaaS, investigates the available options, and then supplies concrete recommendations for what to use where and when.

  • PaaS solutions have been in the background for years, but they now range from traditional PaaS, which simply abstracts out the infrastructure for a single hosting provider, to PaaS solutions that provide model-based app building and deploy to public, private, and hybrid clouds.
  • Organizations should be investigating choices and choosing a PaaS provider now to guard against cloud-provider lock-in.

The number of savvy developers a company has combined with its availability are primary criteria for determining if PaaS is the right choice and how much productivity gain can be realized.

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How to unlock the promise of agile in the enterprise https://gigaom.com/report/how-to-unlock-the-promise-of-agile-in-the-enterprise/ Wed, 18 Dec 2013 22:35:57 +0000 http://research.gigaom.com/?post_type=go-report&p=209517/ From budget forecasting to performance benchmarking and accountability, agile presents new disruptions to traditional business processes.

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The promises of agile — getting product in front of users faster, embracing requirements changes, choosing and trusting solid contributors — map incredibly well to today’s business environments, where disruptive technology and the ability to quickly capitalize on opportunities either make or break entire verticals. While agile methodologies have had tremendous success in task-oriented teams, many larger businesses have been slower to embrace them as a corporate standard. But agile is not a panacea, and not all projects, business processes, and corporate cultures are natural fits.

The typical enterprise will support multiple methodologies, and making them work together isn’t easy. From budget forecasting to performance benchmarking and accountability, agile presents new disruptions to traditional processes. At the same time, its more granular, responsive approach and the tools that support it can bring new efficiencies to the projects, teams, and organizations implementing them. This report will examine the current state and the future of the multi-methodology enterprise and examine procedural and technological changes that can help enterprises integrate agile methodologies into a larger ecosystem.

Key highlights include:

  • A high-level overview of the palette of project-management methodologies available to enterprises, and how and where each can provide value.
  • Discussion of the cultural, technical, and political barriers to agile adoption in the enterprise, and how focus on culture, people, and product are requirements for an organization planning on using agile.
  • An examination of the software tools available that allow teams to collaborate and correspond in an agile fashion, and an investigation of how important tool choice is for the internal perception and support of agile.
  • A look at how independent, and seemingly non-complementary methodologies can be threaded together in even large, complicated enterprise-level projects.
  • Concrete direction and advice for CIOs, CTOs, and project managers on how to either introduce or expand agile adoption at their organization.

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Hybrid application design: balancing cloud-based and edge-based mobile data https://gigaom.com/report/hybrid-application-design-balancing-cloud-based-and-edge-based-mobile-data/ Thu, 14 Nov 2013 07:55:36 +0000 http://research.gigaom.com/?post_type=go-report&p=204919/ More powerful devices, better data-sync capabilities, and peer-to-peer device communications are dramatically impacting what users expect from their apps and which technologies developers will need to utilize to meet those expectations.

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We’re now seeing an explosion in the number and types of devices, the number of mobile users, and the number of mobile applications, but the most impactful long-term changes in the mobile space will occur in mobile data as users increasingly interact with larger volumes and varieties of data on their devices. More powerful devices, better data-sync capabilities, and peer-to-peer device communications are dramatically impacting what users expect from their apps and which technologies developers will need to utilize to meet those expectations.

As this report will demonstrate, the rules are changing quickly, but the good news is that, because of more cross-platform tools like Xamarin and database-sync capabilities, the game is getting easier to play. CIOs, CTOs, application developers, architects, and cloud service providers need to understand that:

  • Tablets and smartphones are becoming more powerful every year, yet most mobile apps remain server-centric and network-intensive.
  • As more power gets pushed to the edge, both users and developers will want to leverage that power. As more device types come into being, cross-platform, data-centric app design will become crucial.
  • Peer-to-peer communication and client-side storage will free apps of network latency and connectivity concerns, extending interactions beyond today’s thin client-network dependence. They also will pose significant challenges to security and data integrity.
  • The drastic and foundational changes coming in all layers of the mobile space—network, hardware, software, and, most importantly, data storage—require us to revisit many chapters of our app-design playbook.

Thumbnail image courtesy of flickr user Pays de Montfort en Brocéliande

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