Chuck's Blog

From Databases To Dataclouds

I was fortunate to sit through a wonderful, thought-provoking session given by Charles Fan, who is now the SVP of storage, data and applications at VMware. 

I've known Charles through many roles over the years (he has a most fascinating career story) and I can always count on him for a fresh, insightful perspective.

The event itself was pretty interesting as well: it was one of EMC's TAP (technology advisory program) sessions. 

Various groups at EMC routinely run small, informal forums where customers and partners are invited to come in around a specific topic, listen to what we have to say, and -- most importantly -- share their unique perspectives. 

There's about 20% EMC talking and 80% listening, which is one of the reasons I enjoy them so much.

This one did not disappoint -- we were discussing the shifting database landscape, and wanted to really understand what our customers were seeing and experiencing.   

Charles was kind enough to lead a discussion on the future state of databases and data management.

After the session, I asked Charles if I could share the essence of his presentation with a wider audience.  Graciously, he agreed. 

I hope you find this as thought-provoking as I did.

Behold The New User

No surprise, I spend a majority of my time talking with people about IT stuff: technologies, products, services, strategies, outcomes, etc. 

But, every so often, we get into a very tantalizing discussion: where should we be pointing all that wonderful IT stuff to create the most value?  And how is that target changing over time? 

More often than not, I can create a case that the single most attractive strategic target is enabling "the new user".  And, once again, doing so will require a fundamental shift in much of our traditional IT thinking.