A Little Case of History Repeating

I was in the office earlier this week when a colleague a ‘few years’ younger than me showed me a 10 Terra-byte disk drive that he was reviewing and supporting sales of for a client. That’s a huge capacity and meant a lot more to me than him: I recalled a client engagement when I was his age and working for IBM. We were bidding a hospitals management solution to a local area health authority. The bid was being led by the Health and IT Services of a global Systems Integrator who were also providing the solution architecture, there was specialist software and a box of tricks from a US based ISV, and IBM was supplying the development and support software and hardware. I was responsible for a small mainframe, 4331 for those that might like to know, running VSE and an array of 3350 DASD. The mainframe was in the back of an artic and the DASD in the back of a large panel van. Total 1.25 Gb.

There were some basic learning points in that exercise all those years ago. Someone in the consortium needed to own and understand the solution design and delivery required, from an architecture, solution, and cost point of view. Someone needed to own the delivery of the project plan end-to-end. And someone needed to own the client relationship, understanding their need and representing the complete solution successfully back to the client. In this example we were partially successful – it required many long hours and sleepless nights to get to the successful end game.

Times Have Changed

Times have changed and yet the business model is totally familiar today. A consortium of vendors, business partners, and an ISV with software and hardware all being built, integrated and delivered to a complex client need. We spent many nights getting the gear to work, refining the solution, then building the demo ready for the bid. I know that hasn’t changed as that is what still happens today: the technology is smarter, their capabilities are more amazing, but the partner networking, "solutioning" and (especially) hard-work still has to happen.

A significant difference today is the scale is greater. Building, deploying and maintaining meaningful client business solutions on an expanding hybrid cloud platform can be a more extensive exercise requiring management of more moving parts, partners and design elements. Especially as these solutions expand into areas of IoT and the ecosystem and technology challenges these bring. I’d be tempted to suggest that Hybrid Cloud solutions are all but defined now as basic building blocks – but the gaps in that thinking are still the need to find people with the right technical skills (architects) to fit the pieces together meaningfully and cost-effectively – let’s call that ‘Design & Build’ or ‘Create’. There is still a need to manage build and deliver – let’s call that ‘Deploy’. And then of course, maintain and drive for success – ‘Maintain’.

Partnering Today

What does that mean for vendors, ISVs and partner ecosystems today? As Hybrid (and IoT) become more predominant, effective working relationships in partner ecosystems are crucial. It’s not just a matter of the ‘right partner’, it’s going to be important to have partners working with partners working with other vendors. So (at least in these developing areas) it’s down to the skills and attitudes of partners and vendors (more than perhaps their size and ability to shift kit) that will make a difference in these solution areas.

Partners once identified as Create, Deploy, or Maintain now begin to identify as ‘hybrid’ as they strive to add value and increase market share. The sales motions also begin to blur or overlap: communities where the smart vendors are driving consumption are now centered on ‘Build With’, ‘Go to Market With’ and ‘Sell With’ the vendor. These developing partner communities (‘marketplaces’, ‘ecosystems’) also re becoming more relevant.

That’s perhaps a different way of looking at the partnering world than many have been used to, but it’s always been there in history and through the years – maybe it’s now becoming more relevant relevant, especially as these Hybrid and IoT solutions will be generating and consuming masses and masses of data filling truckloads of disks and DASD.

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