David Mitchell SmithAs leader of Gartner’s cloud computing agenda, I don’t normally respond to random blog posts, but this from James Watters in Siliconangle requires some response. I will limit it to the facts and leave readers to draw their own conclusions. (This includes references to Gartner published research which requires a subscription to see the entire document).
James uses the following “facts” to make his #FAILCLAIMS:
In the last two months they have:
1. Claimed ‘cloud computing’ is a $46B addressable market, on track to grow to $146B by 2013 (four years).
FACT: Actually, the market study is for cloud services, not cloud computing.
2. Defined ‘cloud computing’ for the first time officially.
FACT: Actually we first published our definition over a year ago in “Cloud Computing: Defining and describing an emerging phenomenon.”, (Gartner subscription required). It is in the last two months that we made a minor tweak to that definition in “Five Refining characteristics define public and private cloud computing”. (Our definition is “Cloud Computing is a style of computing where scalable and elastic IT-enabled capabilities are delivered as a service to multiple external customers using Internet technologies”. The tweak we made replaced “massively scalable” with “scalable and elastic”.)
3. Announced cloud hype had hit its hype peak and would be downhill for the foreseeable future.
FACT: That’s not the way hype cycles should be interpreted. Hype cycles measure Hype. Can anyone reasonably say that cloud computing is not at the peak of inflated expectations? Nobody has said otherwise. Now it may stay there for a while, but the hype will have to go downhill. That doesn’t mean that the concept or technology will be downhill, just the hype around it. And it is not a contradiction to have a forecast for growth in something that is peaking in hype.
4. Ranked IBM in the ‘leaders’ quadrant for cloud computing despite their lack of an offering, as they themselves detailed — meanwhile ranking Amazon equal on ‘vision’ for the category and lacking in ability to execute.
FACT: the MQ referred to here is titled “Web Hosting and Hosted Cloud System Infrastructure Services (On Demand)”. while there is SOME cloud in it, it is a great stretch to call this a quadrant for cloud computing. It is primarily about web hosting, as the title says (see colleague Lydia Leong’s blog post on this).
Also, all these research positions come from Gartner Research, not Gartner Consulting, which is part of Gartner but does not publish research positions like this.
I hope this clarifies what we actually wrote so people can form their own opinions
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2 responses so far ↓
1 James Watters August 22, 2009 at 2:28 pm
David,
Thanks for the additional commentary on your publishing timelines. I’ll write my response here where comments are not moderated. I will also send these same comments to your blog, your decision if you want to publish them there. All, what’s in quotes is from David’s blog:
“1. Claimed ‘cloud computing’ is a $46B addressable market, on track to grow to $146B by 2013 (four years).
FACT: Actually, the market study is for cloud services, not cloud computing.”
This unfortunately is a great case in point of dissonance David. There really isn’t a market for ‘cloud services’ without ‘cloud computing’. Without the hype around ‘cloud computing’ you NEVER would have written this. You clearly wanted to latch on to the hype an inject an expensive research report into the mix. ADP is a mainframe shop I believe, it gets talked about all the time as a cloud style architecture and most smart computing people I know reject the idea.
What people really need is INSIGHT into how cloud computing is evolving. If you can’t deliver that at your prices you are an intellectual #fail just as I claimed. Calling all compute heavy outsourcing ‘cloud services’ instead of actually helping us figure out what cloud computing is all about is why I think your group is #fail.
Trying to nail me on semantics only reinforces the dissonance of the messages taken at face value. Other professional cloud practictioners also were upset about this reports title, I wasn’t remotely the first.
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“2. Defined ‘cloud computing’ for the first time officially.
FACT: Actually we first published our definition over a year ago in “Cloud Computing: Defining and describing an emerging phenomenon.”, (Gartner subscription required)”
I’ve already covered this in comments. You had previously DESCRIBED it, and in a private research report at that. When you defined it this year you clearly said what it was, and what it wasn’t. Pretty please show me the quote from the private research report where you say the defining characteristics of it and what it isn’t.
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“3. Announced cloud hype had hit its hype peak and would be downhill for the foreseeable future.
FACT: That’s not the way hype cycles should be interpreted. Hype cycles measure Hype. Can anyone reasonably say that cloud computing is not at the peak of inflated expectations? Nobody has said otherwise. Now it may stay there for a while, but the hype will have to go downhill. That doesn’t mean that the concept or technology will be downhill, just the hype around it. And it is not a contradiction to have a forecast for growth in something that is peaking in hype.”
Ahh. How fast can you back away from this one David, you are dropping the literal content of your reports like a hot potato. DUH there is hype, you are a big part of it with your BS cloudwashing of ADP!! I get that, and I’m mad about it. “at some point it will come down” OMG sorry, OMG
The literal description of the trough includes not just a drop in hype but failures in pilots that cause a crisis for the technology. Cloud computing isn’t even a technology. Please respond to my full follow up on this topic here:
http://siliconangle.com/ver2/2009/08/21/after-thoughts-on-the-gartner-cloud-collision-failbucket-brawl/
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4. Ranked IBM in the ‘leaders’ quadrant for cloud computing despite their lack of an offering, as they themselves detailed — meanwhile ranking Amazon equal on ‘vision’ for the category and lacking in ability to execute.
FACT: the MQ referred to here is titled “Web Hosting and Hosted Cloud System Infrastructure Services (On Demand)”. while there is SOME cloud in it, it is a great stretch to call this a quadrant for cloud computing. It is primarily about web hosting, as the title says (see colleague Lydia Leong’s blog post on this).
Again, I’ve made a detailed response to this VERY semantic point by saying that research and titles written by committee don’t ad clear intellectual value to understanding the market. Its in the ‘after thoughts’ link above. Your input appreciated. At the very least this is again cloud washing.
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“Also, all these research positions come from Gartner Research, not Gartner Consulting, which is part of Gartner but does not publish research positions like this.”
Simple question David. Do you perform both research, MQs and studies as well as advising clients for a fee as a consultant? 100% of my interactions with Gartner, over about 3M in spend there have shown me that the answer is yes. I’m intentionally digging at you guys for being dollar driven when I call you this.
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Gartner has been epically silent on the list of VPs who have left to become fortune CIOs or start technology companies. I actually thought they would produce a few examples here.
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I’m glad you took the time to visit and respond and blog back. In addition to these semantic responses, I hope you’ll also take my core charge of intellectual dissonance to heart. It was the core attack, and no one has answered back to it.
Give me a call anytime to discuss that point privately. 415.990.6664
Best-
James
2 /SAbackchan August 22, 2009 at 2:53 pm
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