Brian Prentice

I have surfed twice in my life.
Actually, calling what I did “surfing” is generous. It could more accurately be described as a rapid transition from lying prone on a piece of polyurethane foam to swimming in the Pacific Ocean.
Even with this minimal, and quite unimpressive experience, there’s an immediate lesson you learn about surfing. It [...]

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My colleague Tom Austin, in his post Applications for a buck…or even less, explores the potential impact of cloud computing on traditional software business models. In considering Microsoft’s recent patent application for a metered pay-as-you-go computing experience Tom says:
“Microsoft’s patent application describes how it could sell software functions to users – they need not buy [...]

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Yesterday’s announcement of Microsoft Azure was largely a statement of Microsoft’s commitment to their Software + Services strategy. There’s more work to be done but it’s hard to deny that Microsoft isn’t taking the cloud seriously.
But the more Microsoft addresses the technology underpinning their cloud efforts the more pressing the questions on their cloud economics [...]

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I had an interesting conversation with Lee Bryant of HeadShift yesterday. They’re a professional services organization focusing on the deployment of social software solutions.
Something that I found to be particularly noteworthy was that only 20% of their consultants are technology-related. The other 80% are actually trained in sociology and anthropology. The blend of their staff [...]

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