Microsoft's new organization puts "datacenter" four times and "supply chain" three times in Steve Ballmer's memo

Microsoft's Steve Ballmer sent out a memo to the company and rest of the world on a new organization for innovation, speed, and efficiency. Which may be kind of obvious.  Who wants to enable legacy, slow, and wasteful organizations. :-)

Being an a data center guy, Industrial Engineer, and ex-Microsoft I was curious where data centers showed up and saw "supply chain" show up three times.

Datacenter shows up 4 times.  The correct way to spell data centers is datacenter, but almost no one does.

The Microsoft data center group used to report to Qi Lu and will now report to Satya Nadella.  Qi Lu is focused on apps and services.

Applications and Services Engineering Group. Qi Lu will lead broad applications and services core technologies in productivity, communication, search and other information categories

Supply chain shows up three times.

With Microsoft showing up with so much interest in supply chain I wonder if they'll start recruiting amazon.com supply chain folks.  Wal-mart people have already joined Microsoft including COO Kevin Turner.

Top Three Talks for GigaOm Structure Data

Many of the hardcore data center folks don't go to GigaOm Structure Data.  This latest conference was dominated by Big Data presentations.  Chatting with a few of the old timers who have gone to many of the GigaOm conferences, there were three presentations that stood out.  Check these out to get a taste of what is presented.

 Paul Maritz makes a call for leadership for a Data Driven Future.  If you want to read the talk go here.

EMC’s Paul Maritz: it takes leadership to move companies toward a data-driven future

by Eliza Kern

MAR. 20, 2013 - 9:56 AM PDT

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photo: Albert Chau

SUMMARY:

What does it take to move companies toward a data-driven future? EMC chief strategist and Pivotal Initiative leader Paul Maritz spoke at Strucuture:Data in New York on how to move toward the future through human leadership and strategy.

 ...

OM MALIK 08:49

This injection of web-scale ideas and practices into various companies involves a whole different kind of thinking, not just at the IT infrastructure level. It affects thinking at the executive level, at the middle-management level, and all throughout the company. People insist on seeing data as this special thing. I feel that it’s more about the culture of the company. If the company doesn’t have a culture of innovative use of data, there doesn’t seem to be much they can do to adapt.

PAUL MARITZ 09:23

I think it’s tied to business models. These underlying structures allow you to rethink business models, and unfortunately I’ve learnt that it’s very hard for an organization to change its business model. All of us become very comfortable with a business model, it allows you to look into the future, it’s your compass” that allows you to make predictions, and it’s very difficult to let go of that. It’s not so much a matter of technology, it’s the fact of a company coming at you with a very different business model. Amazon for example doesn’t have the same focus on managing brands in the way that a traditional retailer does. They manage a customer relationship. Their whole business model is predicated on getting value out of the customer rather than squeezing value out of brands or products.

Sean Gourley's talk got people to think about solving problems.  Sean's transcript is here.

Data science is not enough. We need data intelligence too

by Stacey Higginbotham

MAR. 20, 2013 - 8:18 AM PDT

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photo: Albert Chau

SUMMARY:

In his talk at Structure: Data, Quid’s Sean Gourley talked about the meaningful differences between “data science” and “data intelligence.” While one is concerned with correlations, the other is concerned about solving problems.

And, our talk on Capacity Planning and Asset Management made the top mentions as one of the top talks.  Our transcript is here.

Want a better/greener/more agile data center? Use the data.

by Stacey Higginbotham

MAR. 21, 2013 - 8:23 AM PDT

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photo: Albert Chau

SUMMARY:

Want to see big data in action? When it comes to planning out data center capacity, data can influence everything from the power usage to planning for disasters.

Disclosure: I work for GigaOm Pro as a freelance analyst and the panel are some of the best people I have encountered in capacity planning and asset management.   

Three Modular Data Centers that pass the Supply Chain Test - Dell, HP, and Compass DC

Almost everyone in the data center build says they build modular/container data centers.  Uptime says there are 45 suppliers.  Gartner and IDC tell its subscribers that modular should be one of the options they evaluate.  There are no shortage of people who say they can build you a modular data center.

How do you make sense of the marketing hype vs. reality.?

My tip is to get nerdy on the topic of modularity.  The modular approach is a way to address the supply chain.

HP and Dell being experienced OEM Server vendors know supply chain.  Frank Frankovsky at Facebook is ex-Dell and he has taken the Supply Chain ideas into Facebook and passed them on to the Open Compute Project.

Open Compute Shakes Up Server Supply Chain
By: Rich Miller
May 8th, 2012

Jason Waxman of Intel (left) moderated a panel of suppliers who are meeting the Open Compute Project standards. Mike Yang of Quanta and Sohrab Modi of Huawei discussed meeting customers' needs while also addressing cap ex and op ex management.

SAN ANTONIO – There is meaningful change occurring in how servers are designed, built and sold. The disruptions in the server ecosystem were on display at last week’s Open Compute Summit in the rising profile of original design manufacturing (ODM) providers and other alternatives to working with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) like Dell, HP and IBM that have dominated server sales in the U.S.

HP and Dell are both vendors involved in Open Compute.

In discussions with Compass Data Centers's Chris Crosby we have gone into extensive discussions on his supply chain.  So, Compass Data Centers passes this test.

Many Big Brands have supply chain strategies.  Facebook shared some its supply chain practices at the Open Compute Summit.

There are others who may embrace the supply chain approach, but I feel comfortable finding three I can have conversations with - HP, Dell, and Compass Data Centers.

Oh, one problem though if you are looking to use the supply chain test is if you are not experienced at supply chains yourself it can be hard for you to evaluate the suppliers.

When I was getting my degree in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research at UC Berkeley, I spent a lot of time studying queueing theory, probability and statistics, markov chains.  I worked at HP in process engineering and distribution logistics.  At Apple I was in distribution logistics and OEM program management for computer peripherals.  So, all this supply chain in data centers is brushing up on things I did full time for years and years.  So, yes i am biased.  i think supply chain in a key to build modular data centers.

Or you believe in Cargo Cult Science and all data centers will be the same.  

Who cares if they are all the same (which they are not ) if you can't build them with a great supply chain your product will have problems with the issues listed below cost, speed, quality, consistency, innovation, global availability.  

The supply chain is what many of these below brands great.

Amazon acquires automated material handling vendor Kiva Systems

Amazon has a press release on the acquisition of Kiva Systems.

Amazon.com to Acquire Kiva Systems, Inc.

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Mar. 19, 2012-- Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) today announced that it has reached an agreement to acquireKiva Systems, Inc., a leading innovator of material handling technology. “Amazon has long used automation in its fulfillment centers, and Kiva’s technology is another way to improve productivity by bringing the products directly to employees to pick, pack and stow,” said Dave Clark, vice president, global customer fulfillment, Amazon.com. “Kiva shares our passion for invention, and we look forward to supporting their continued growth.” “For the past ten years, the Kiva team has been focused on creating innovative material handling technologies,” said Mick Mountz, CEO and founder of Kiva Systems. “I’m delighted that Amazon is supporting our growth so that we can provide even more valuable solutions in the coming years.”

Most of you have probably never heard of Kiva Systems.  I have.  Why?  Because, I used to be a distribution logistics geek.  I studied the subject in college. Worked in Distribution Logistics and packaging engineering at HP.  Apple actually hired me for my distribution logistics expertise away from HP and I worked on Apple's distribution system for years before moving to hardware product development and software product development.

One of the things that distribution logistics teaches you is supply chain management principles.  When I worked on hardware development the connection is obvious. Working on software, I would think of bits and information as a supply chain issue as the bits move.  The data center is a factory to support the movement of bits in a supply chain.  It is interesting when you start to think of things as abstractions that are simply bits of information.

So, who is Kiva Systems and why are they so interesting.  Kiva moves material to the person on robotic carts.  The software is quite intelligent to keep the fast moving items closest to the material handlers, and move the slow moving items further away.  This is no different than storage and caching issues in an operating system.

Read more about Kiva implementations in these markets.

• eCommerce
• Retail
• Medical Devices & Supplies
• Apparel & Footwear
• Health & Beauty
• Other

The WSJ does a pretty good job of giving background on Kiva Systems

Robots on the March

How Kiva's robots run a warehouse

• To complete an order, Kiva's squat orange robots fetch tall movable shelves, or pods, that have the items needed, bringing them to the human "picker."
• A laser pointer tells the human which item needs to be picked from each shelf. The worker, who stays in one place, scans a bar code to confirm it is the right item. It's placed in the order box, which sits on another one of the mobile pods.
• New pods arrive steadily with additional items as needed. Items are grouped together to fulfill the orders.
• Pods filled with completed orders are taken by the robots to the shipping door, where a human tapes them closed in preparation for final transport.

But, here is an easier way to understand what Kiva System is.

Here is a TED talk by the founder.

Here is a IEEE Spectrum video on YouTube.

This will make for fun conversations with some of friends who work on logistics.

Amazon.com most likely figured out how much more efficient it is to move material with robots.  The old way of thinking about robots is like this video.

CIO and Supply Chain Expertise = Dell's New CIO

Being a CIO is typically equated with managing information systems which typically has people who have technology backgrounds.  Another way to look at IT as a flow of information which can optimized like a supply chain logistics.  One guy who is supply chain expert is Frank Frankovsky at Facebook who is ex-Dell.

Speaking of Dell, Dell's new CIO has a supply chain expertise from GM.

Adriana Karaboutis, recruited in March 2010, is the new global CIO and reports directly to Brian Gladden, Dell's CFO. She was previously vice president of global operations and technology IT, which means she was responsible for Dell's supply chain, procurement, and product development systems.

Dell CIO Adriana Karaboutis

Prior to coming to Dell, Karaboutis was global manufacturing and labor information officer at General Motors, which means she was responsible for all of the systems that are used for car assembly and parts stamping. Before that, she was in charge of GM's purchasing and supply chain systems.

Karaboutis spent six years at GM, and before that,15 at the Ford Motor Company, starting out as a programmer/analyst and rising up through the ranks to run manufacturing, supply chain, purchasing and finance systems.

The official Dell press release is here.

Dell announced today that Adriana Karaboutis has assumed the role of Global Chief Information Officer, responsible for continuing to drive Dell’s IT organization evolution, from managing an efficient and innovative global information infrastructure, to creating innovative breakthroughs that provide technology advances for the company and its customers.

Ms. Karaboutis was previously vice president of IT at Dell supporting product groups, manufacturing, procurement and supply chain operations. In her experience at Dell, she has led a transformation of Dell’s manufacturing operations, rolling out a new manufacturing execution system globally. She also led the roll out of Dell’s consolidated product offering system, which simplified the supply chain by reducing the number of product configurations, a critical part of the company’s cost-reduction efforts. In addition, she has helped Dell’s newly acquired companies transition quickly and smoothly to Dell’s operations.