The first of two Get IT Together seminars on how to create business results from information technology took place yesterday in Connecticut and was a tremendous success.
In a jam packed, standing-room only event, it brought together Magic Software's customers and prospects to hear about the latest innovations in the world of application platforms and business integration technology.
Here are some of the inital photos from the event (excuse some of the quality here). Thanks to Cathy for these!
Regev Yativ, our CEO and President for Magic Software Americas (seen speaking here) gave a visionary keynote address, laying out the major challenges faced by both enterprise companies and ISVs today.
Eyal Pfeifel (standing, right) our newly appointed CTO, presented Magic Software's technology roadmap.
Attendees at the Connecticut 'Get IT together' seminar. We received excellent customer feedback on the evaluation forms all the way around.
Glenn Johnson, our VP Marketing for Magic Software Americas, explains the workings of the iBOLT Business Integration Suite's Studio.
Regev Yativ, in his keynote address - elaborating on the business advantages of metadata application platforms.
The Get IT Together presenters, (from the left), Eyal Pfeifel, Regev Yativ and Glenn Johnson.
An excellent video featuring Forrester's Research Chairman and Chief Executive Officer George Colony. In this clip he tells us the 7 points he would tell your CEO - revolving around the theme of evolving IT into BT (Business Technology).
I particularly liked how he defines Business Technology as: "technology which is impacting business results" and that IT should really be about impacting revenues increases, bringing costs down and increasing market share.
Although the clip is from 2007, the ideas are spot-on and scarily relevant to today's economic crisis..
He also mentions that CIO's cannot be the driving force behind business innovation, simply because process innovation is about business. And this requires what he calls 'Technology Knowledgeable Business Executives' or TKBE's.
There is therefore no longer any justification for allowing CEOs and business executives to not understand the technology that drives their business.
Why do I mention all this? Because uniPaaS works on a metadata principle that isolates the technical complexity from the application development process. This enables business executives to better understand their IT. They can then get more involved in ensuring that their IT projects deliver the real business results that we mentioned earlier, namely;
- revenue increases
- lower costs
- more market share
In short, uniPaaS can help turn Information Technology (IT) into Business Technology (BT). I explain how in greater detail here and here.
In our previous post we established that too many IT projects are failing. By 'failure' we mean one or more of the following three things:
1. Not completed on-time
2. Not delivered on-budget
3. Doesn't answer the requirement brief
These three factors are particularly sore points today because of the recession. When budgets are tight the benefits of building business applications can be easily outweighed by the costs and effort involved.
That's why many are now opting for Cloud-based solutions that mitigate the risks and costs involved in building and deploying applications in-house.
Well, why not just opt for a SaaS solution like Salesforce.com then? The answer is that while Salesforce.com may be perfect for many enterprises and businesses, it ties you to the Force.com platform.
There is therefore, some insecurity knowing that your mission-critical data is held on another company's servers. There's also a limited scope in how much customization you can demand from your provider. One size generally fits all. And in some instances, this may not be good enough for businesses attempting to differentiate themselves from their competitors in today's tough economic climate.
What's needed then is a platform that can develop powerful, modern applications, such as Rich Internet Applications and SaaS, at low cost, while minimizing the chance of project 'runaways' and which combines the input of both IT specialists and business managers.
Not an easy order to fill.
So, what exactly does uniPaaS offer that's so different?
Well, it can be summarized in 3 short points:
1. uniPaaS is an end-to-end environment for software developers.
2. uniPaaS is based upon a metadata engine.
3. uniPaaS applications can run in multiple deployment modes.
Each of these three points deserves its own entirely dedicated post. So coming up we will deal exclusively with point 1 - uniPaaS' end-to-end environment - and what that means for businesses trying to deliver on-time, on-budget and according to project specs.
With the economic dowturn having maginfied into a full-blown recession, there is little, if no tolerace any more for resource wastage when it comes to IT and software projects.
As well as the above clip, here's another example from the UK Times Newspaper, in this headline from February 2009:
"Secret computer deals that are costing the taxpayer billions"
To summarize, the article comes to a number of conclusions:
1. The cost of most large IT projects is ballooning. The UK Government admits that only about 30 per cent are completed on time and on budget.
2. The UK Government will spend more than £100 billion on IT over the next five years, according to Kable, a public sector research company. Since most projects overrun, the actual amount spent could be much higher.
3. The main suppliers, EDS, BT, Capgemini and Fujitsu, reap hundreds of millions in profit. Accenture, one of the smaller suppliers, earned a profit margin of at least 30 per cent.
To me, these points show that there's a potential for vendors that are offering smarter (i.e more cost-effective) ways to meet the objectives of their client's IT projects.
That's where Magic Software's products begin to really stand out from the rest.
Magic Software produces technology designed to accelerate the process of building, deploying and integrating business apps. Part of this is also the ability to rapidly customize apps to efficiently meet changing business needs.
In short, the company aims to make IT project delivery easier, cheaper, and more accurately meet business requirements. And that's exactly what businesses and people are looking for today.
Our next job is to explain exactly how Magic Software achieves these tasks. Next time..
Well, this is my first start for Magic Software's official blog!
First, a little bit about me. My name is Sam Green. I'm the creative and content manager here at Magic Software HQ. I've been with the company now for almost 2 years. It's been a good 2 years, with lots of positive developments that I intend to share with you as we go.
I'm going to set myself the task in this blog of showing you why I believe in Magic. Everything in good time though. For now, let me introduce you to the basics:
Magic Software is one of the first fruits of the 'Silicon Wadi', a term used to describe the most important concentration of hi-tech companies and industries outside of Silicon Valley.
What does Magic Software do? They provide an application platform for building and deploying business applications - known as uniPaaS.
The company also provides an integration platform, iBOLT, used for integrating and synchronizing the data within diverse enterprise IT applications.
What do these products share in common? They adhere to the following principles (that really define Magic Software too):
The principles that drive Magic Software:
- Hide complexity and facilitate change;
- Automate repetitive tasks, accelerating development and reducing the risk of human error;
- Provide interoperability and sharing through the support of business logic across multiple platforms and geographies;
- Empower business designers as well as the programmers.
Sounds good right? Further on we will be referring back to these points and expanding on them as we refer to our solutions in greater detail.
That's it for now. Just a taster, a small tidbit to keep you coming back for more. And there is more. Lots more!