

Cloud Wars Live with Bob Evans
Bob Evans
Cloud Wars analyzes the major cloud vendors from the perspective of business customers. In Cloud Wars Live, Bob Evans talks with both sides about these profoundly transformative technologies, and with monthly All-Star guests from across the business community about the trends impacting how the world lives, works, plays, and dreams. Visit https://cloudwars.com for more.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Jun 23, 2021 • 45min
Is Big Data Overhyped? Uphoff on Industry
The Big Themes:Why isn’t big data producing big insights? In our last episode we tee’d up the idea that while we have seen extraordinary advances in big data, data analytics and data science, it’s harder to find examples of extraordinary insights of the use of big data.How should business leaders factor human judgement: In his latest book, “Noise,” Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel Prize winning economist suggests that the issue is about human judgement and not data.The era of augmented intelligence: We are seeing some remarkable advances in AI and ML learning — and there are wide ranging implications for business, politics, and society.Many companies are rethinking what “return to office” means: As major companies announce return to office, employees have seen the benefits of remote work. The Big Quotes:“We're spending a lot of time watching artificial intelligence takeoff in the industrial marketplaces and manufacturing marketplaces.” “So this is a human element and there is an X factor oftentimes in human interactions that is very difficult to articulate.” “And this is a truly extraordinary time. We are at an inflection point where the enabling technologies and our ability to understand how to use them.” This episode is brought to you by BMC Software.
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Jun 21, 2021 • 33min
CEO Cybersecurity To-Do List: Sadin on Digital
The Big Themes:Wake-up call for boards and C-Suites: What do we hear from victims? “We didn’t think we’d be a target.”In our emerging acceleration economy: Firms can’t afford the lost time, the lost revenue/added costs, the hit to reputation a successful attack causes.Firms must do six things well: Robust prevention, quick detection, defense in depth, keeping secrets secret, effective repair/restoration, and not keeping your eggs in one basket.Manage systemic risk, not just cybersecurity: If someone can waltz in and unplug the firewall, are you secure? The Big Quotes:“There's a John Chambers quote that I've used before. There are two kinds of companies: those that have been hacked, and those they don't know that they've been hacked.” “And if you're an executive and you had trouble understanding that, listen again, because nothing I said is very technical.” “If your systems are cruddy and 15 years old and not connected, you might be in a full-time hygiene mode.” This episode is brought to you by BMC Software.
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Jun 17, 2021 • 32min
Snowflake and Data Cloud Phenomenon: Foley on Data
The Big Themes:Fundamental and important to the model: Data lakes, data hubs, data warehouses, data marketplaces – that’s a lot of data.Snowflake has popularized the concept: Other vendors are latching onto it – you could argue it is kind of revolutionizing that whole model.Google announced Dataplex: A data fabric for integration, and they also announced an analytics hub for data sharing and analytics, and sharing insights into the data stream.A definition of cloud computing: Still holds up to the light of day after 13 years – including databases and data sources across an enterprise. The Big Quotes:“So my working headline here is, ‘What is a data cloud?’ I've been hearing the term ‘data cloud’ a lot recently.” “I think that plumbing is involved, but it's less about plumbing and more about business strategy.” This episode is brought to you by BMC Software.
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Jun 16, 2021 • 23min
Next Gen HCM: Lohit Sarma, Lifion VP
The Big Themes:Where these two circles intersect: You could offer a core set of applications, and the ability for you to pick and choose some of these other applications that are available.We set up Lifion to build our Next Gen HCM: We had to build it not for just the up-market U.S. space, but we were also targeting U.S. HQ at MNCs and international companies.The numbers may vary: I’m just going to use that standard rule of thumb we follow is the 80/20 rule. Enterprise software is about 80% of the use cases.How do you operationalize that mission: I think the way we’re coming into the market is we are saying, “We all want to be there, and we truly believe that this is a tool that can help you get there.” The Big Quotes:“Now, the best part of working within the ADP ecosystem, is we can truly leverage some of these third-party applications via our marketplace.”“We probably do not give enough credit to some of the products that have come before us. They have been the ones who have done it for a while.”
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Jun 15, 2021 • 28min
The Unicorn Explosion: Ammirati on Innovation
The Big Themes:Plotted on a bell curve: Some are amazing, and some are terrible – and some are in the middle.Stability is not the issue: There’s capital behind these companies that give you the same amount of runway you could expect from any of the other kinds of companies.The term unicorn was coined: You needed to raise money at least a billion dollar valuation from one company in your portfolio to make that portfolio be a top performing venture portfolio.Microsoft and Nuance: You have the sales, the partnership, and the marketing muscle that a company like Microsoft can provide. The Big Quotes:“But the more interesting thing to me was that in the first five months of 2021, there were 187 companies that for the first time raised money at over a billion-dollar valuation.” “The thing that's more concerning to me is I think there's a lot of reflection we, as an industry, need to do on the right way to create healthy corporate governance among these companies.” “And I think it's time for CFOs to stop worrying about just doing the logistics.” This episode is brought to you by BMC Software.
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Jun 10, 2021 • 31min
Making Good Decisions? Tinder on Customers
The Big Themes:Abe Lincoln: Give me six hours to chop down a tree, and I will spend the first four hours sharpening the ax.No analysis paralysis: As you prepare to lock down your decision, you must be sure that the core problem you’re trying to solve is clearly outlined in your statement of work.Don’t boil the ocean: Our magic number is around three alternatives that you’re shortlisting before making a final decision.These trusted partners: When you find a partner that can challenge your ideas and make you think outside the box, that’s definitely a sign of somebody that could really be beneficial for your project. The Big Quotes:“Certainly Raven Intel is a great place where you can get peer review information written by other customers.” “Celebrate your success in the end – and then do a look back and see what worked what didn’t.” This episode is brought to you by BMC Software.
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Jun 9, 2021 • 15min
IBM + SAP: Experience = Speed | Howard Boville, SVP of IBM Hybrid Cloud
Just over a year ago, Howard Boville left his job as CTO at Bank of America to join IBM as senior VP of hybrid cloud. Boville joined Cloud Wars Live to discuss the big changes he’s been driving at IBM Cloud, the booming market for industry clouds that he’s been aggressively championing within IBM, and the colossal market for industry-specific solutions. A recurring theme for Boville throughout our conversation is the opening of Chapter 2 in the cloud story, where large enterprises that have been caught up in purely technology conversations have flipped the topic to the one that will drive real and meaningful transformation: business outcomes. Boville has not only some great insights to share, but he’s also a gifted speaker who employs colorful language and humor to drive home essential points.In this conversation, Boville shares his thoughts on the ongoing power of the IBM-SAP relationship, which is almost 50 years old, and on the essential need for deep industry knowledge.The Big Themes:We’ve done 6,500 projects: We’ve got 38,000 SAP practitioners. But we've actually got now the regulated cloud capabilities that allow customers to move forward with their projects.They will run on different types of silicon: We have x86, we have Power, we have Z, and we also have Quantum, and that will become fully onboarded beyond research institutions onto our cloud at the end of this year.You can start your digital transformation immediately: There are a lot of cases where we’ve taken two, three, four year projects down to two, three, four months. The Big Quotes:“But one other point I would make, which is again very important, is we don't see ourselves as competing head-to-head against the other cloud service providers.” “The case of cybersecurity is that threat factor never stops, so you always need to be thinking through different ways to actually protect through breadth and in depth.” This episode is brought to you by BMC Software.
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Jun 8, 2021 • 30min
Citizen-Developer Boom: Courneya on Acceleration
The Big Themes:The citizen developer: Those low-code, no-code tools are giving the power back to their employees, and that’s creating a new environment that’s having a reorganization in that area.Some of the innovations from Microsoft Teams: It was just like a basic tool that I use with Teams. Some of the innovations that they developed so rapidly in the times of COVID to adapt to a new remote workforce.There’s always new things to soak in there: We also have a number of events that take place, and live on demand – one of them is our binge programs.Industry solutions: Trying to compare their challenges with other challenges – and try to see what matches and what’s worth their time and investment. The Big Quotes:“Most of my day job is reading, reviewing, producing content that's relevant in the business tech world, and helping others have a voice in that conversation as well.” “A huge feature about mydacfeed.com is the ability to personalize your feed and get connected with relevant topics and find like-minded voices.” “I think we saw something similar when Microsoft acquired Nuance, which was their second-largest acquisition behind LinkedIn.” This episode is brought to you by BMC Software.
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Jun 3, 2021 • 39min
99 Problems and Tech Ain’t One: Anschuetz on Leadership
The Big Themes:I’ve got 99 problems and tech ain’t one of them: It’s almost never a technology issue. It’s usually a people problem.The technologists out there: Many technologists can be overly focused on technology, which limits their ability to see the bigger business issues. What are you really going to be focused on?This is a journey: We need to embrace one another and lock arms and move forward together in a secular fashion. The Big Quotes:“But the only thing that surprises me by that is that most companies are going to go, oh, that's not me. That's somebody else. That's that other 40%.” “Motivate your workforce to aspire to be different, aspire to be better, and understand that they're a part of that future that is different and better.” “And so we're all going to be on board to do this, and we're not going to do a hundred things.” This episode is brought to you by BMC Software.
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May 26, 2021 • 53min
The Death of “Work-Life Balance” | Lochhead on Different
The Big Themes:Declare dominion over your work: Agency is working for something greater than a paycheck. When you love what you do, you have nothing to “balance.”Who is your Archimedes: “If you give me a lever and a place to stand, I can move the world.”YOLO, “You Only Live Once”: Originally made popular by the Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart. For many, a good job, a nice car, and a steady paycheck are no longer enough.Sometimes you need an auctioneer: Your auctioneer is probably a friend, a mentor, a family member, or former coworker who pushes you to do things you don’t think you can do. The Big Quotes:“So we're now seeing reasonably credible research being done by major organizations saying a huge percentage of people are considering changing jobs.” “And so what the vast majority of people fail to understand about personal freedom and career agency is that you don't need everybody to agree with what you're doing.” “I think we're at a time where it behooves all of us to care about our lives and our work and the intertwining of the two.” This episode is brought to you by BMC Software.
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