Business Service Management Hub

The Hub Commentary_

The day has finally arrived to announce the closing of one chapter and the start of another.  As my loyal followers know, we did belong to Novell, but we have remained true to keeping this site focused on best practices, insight, opinion and resources and not on the vendor technology specifically.  Today I will go ahead and post this news as it is significant in the enterprise software market in general.

Those of us here are thrilled that the wait is over and are even more thrilled that what was once Data Center solutions (less SUSE Linux) will become part of NetIQ.  We very much look forward to strength that the Security, NetIQ, PlateSpin, Cloud Manager, Operations Center, etc. solutions will bring to the market as a whole creating new options in what is a somewhat mature market.

Novell Operations Center 5.0 was due to announce and launch with a big splash yesterday, however, there was bigger news on the horizon.  So many faithful followers must be scratching their heads as to why Michele and her BSM Jedi counterpart, Tobin, merely dropped two simple blogs on Novell for the Novell Operations Center 5.0 release.  Today you understand.  We’ll post additional content and press in the coming weeks, have no fear.

We are very excited about the release and look forward to sharing with the market in a bigger way in the coming weeks what is new.  We are also thrilled that the release comes comes at a great time as the simplification of the solution enables us all under the NetIQ umbrella to hit the ground at full stride.

Check out our Cool Solutions blog on Novell.com to get a glimpse into the product release and we will have much more to come in the coming weeks as part of this bigger, very exciting announcement!  We know business service management initiatives have become more of an imperative in aligning to the business and the complex infrastructure that agile technology has brought to bear on many IT organizations and we look forward to the next chapter of Operations Center!

Michele

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The Attachmate Group Completes Acquisition of Novell

HOUSTON – April 27, 2011 – The Attachmate Group today announced the completion of the acquisition of Novell, Inc., a leader in intelligent workload management, under the terms of the definitive agreement disclosed on November 22, 2010. Novell will now operate as two separate business units under the Novell® and SUSE® brand names and join Attachmate® and NetIQ® as holdings of The Attachmate Group.  (Read Full Article…)

The Hub Commentary_

I’ve commented in this similar vein on many posts this year and the cost calculation and business value is covered in my post and recorded presentation here on The Hub.  My friend Michael sums up this topic well with citations from InformationWeek and Forrester. It is not about the technology, it is about the service value the technology brings to the business, something those in the business service management practice have known for many years.

So what makes it different now and why is it so prevalent in the news?  That’s an easy answer, Competition ala service providers.  Today in fact I discussed just this topic with a global audience and why competition will be the catalyst for change or outsourcing this time.  Service providers are going direct to the business to sell their services.  They speak exactly the language the business wants to hear, make it simple to buy and this will push IT organizations to adopt a business service management practice or get outsourced.

I like the notion of a Chief Acceleration Officer.  I enjoy times and situations like this where there is a challenge to solve for and the requirement for change where I know most IT organizations are change averse.  IT has been in this cycle of 80% + spent on just keeping the lights on for more than 20 years.  This equates to 1-2% of revenue annually just running the operations and thus very little is expended to grow the top line.  This is crazy when technology should be driving business innovation and growth.

I challenge you to pick up this years Fortune 500 magazine and then pick up next years and see who takes over leading their industry and that will tell you who embraced technology to drive growth and create efficiencies within IT to shift that 80/20 pie to something more like 60/40.  I wholeheartedly agree with my friend Michael, it’s about the agility and business value that a technology brings an organization.  Efficiencies are good, but should not be the only focus.

How are you driving service value and agility to be the change in your organization?

Michele

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With the promise of cloud computing splashed across every headline today, it’s easy to lose track of where its greatest opportunities lie. Yes, saving money is important. It can help nudge the dreaded 80/20 maintenance-to-innovation ratio in the right direction. But when you’re thinking about the cloud, don’t stop there. It’s agility that can drive business growth and innovation, turning IT leaders into heroes.  (Read Full Article…)