Breaking the Code

Introducing Cloudsoft Corporation

For once some good news. At least that's my unbiased opinion!

Enigmatec Corporation ... today announced that Founder and CTO Duncan Johnston-Watt will be leaving the company at the end of the year to establish and lead Cloudsoft Corporation, an Enigmatec spin out which will be based in Edinburgh. Duncan will continue to serve on the Enigmatec Board as a non-executive Director and Enigmatec will take a stake in his new company.

So ran a press release that Enigmatec released earlier today annoucing my latest venture Cloudsoft Corporation.  (If you couldn't resist and just clicked on the Cloudsoft link you'll have found yourself back here since we are in stealth mode at present!)

Personally this is the logical next step for me given everything I've been working on over the last few months even though I am the first to admit I started out as a cloud computing sceptic as anyone who was at Tier1 Research's HST Europe will testify.  I have no less a person than Martin McCarthy to thank since, in the words of Flower of Scotland, he "Sent [me] homeward/Tae think again" after hearing me speak on a panel.

Clearly since then my thinking has evolved quite dramatically with Cloud Cover being the latest iteration.  I know this may sound strange but my timing couldn't be better as, according to Gartner, Cloud Computing is straight in the charts at #2 in its Top 10 Strategic Technologies for 2009.  ("Not 'arf!" as the immortal Alan Freeman would say if he was still alive!)

The great thing about the blogosphere is that I have this on good authority from a friend of mine who pointed me at a Virtualization Review blog by Tom Valovic which in turn references a ComputerWorld post direct from last week's Gartner Symposium ITxpo in Orlando.

The events leading up to the formation of Cloudsoft were what prompted my previous post And it was nearly done over the weekend.  To my mind this is what is meant by being "ready to be loosed with all the power/That being changed can give".

So look out for further posts on Cloudsoft in the coming weeks and months.  Also feel free to follow my progress on twitter if you are into that sort of thing!

And it was nearly done

Towards the end of one of Philip Larkin's most famous poems "The Whitsun Weddings" are a few lines that have always resonated for me at key moments in my life.

... and it was nearly done, this frail
Traveling coincidence; and what it held
Stood ready to be loosed with all the power
That being changed can give. ...

In the context of the poem itself, Philip Larkin is travelling from Hull to London on a train on one of the most popular weekends for weddings, in England at least, and observing the excitement of newly weds as they board the train.  Of course he is invisible to these couples which adds a certain pathos to the whole affair.

However the thing about great poetry is that it transcends the specifics of a train journey or whatever and touches us at a very personal level - teaching us something about ourselves in the process.  So what Philip Larkin scribbled in his notebook as he travelled by train in an austere post war Britain reaches out to us across 50 or more years and we see how it applies to our life, our work, and our relationships today.

"And it was nearly done" can be the most liberating experience of all because without an end there can be no new beginnings; no change just stagnation; no dialectic; no thesis or antithesis and hence no synthesis.  I could go on but hopefully you get the point.

Of course you shouldn't take my word for it.  You should read the poem or better still buy The Whitsun Weddings - Larkin's third collection of poems first published by Faber & Faber in 1964.  Besides the title poem there are some real gems in there like the quirky, wrly observed "Days" which I've blogged on before - in The Problem with Blogs oddly enough!

Meanwhile Back in Austin

A few weeks ago I blogged enthusiastically about the Texas Triangle and raved about the music scene.  Well I'm back again.  Unfortunately I missed Austin City Limits by a whisker although I heard nothing but good things about it from Pete Harris (he of Harris Radio fame and all round good guy).

When he heard I was heading this way Pete put me in touch with Ihor Gowda.  Ihor manages Suzanna Choffel who as it happened was gigging at Boticelli's on South Congress last night.  Not knowing Austin all that well I decided to walk there from my hotel up on 11th & Red River which turned out to be quite a trek although not without its compensations as I walked pretty much the length of 6th Street en route.

Anway to cut a long story short I was blown away even though - as Ihor explained - it wasn't the full line up.  Hanging out with Pete I hear a lot of bands and there are some spirited voices out there but what stood out for me - and reminded me of Joni Mitchell who is probably my #1 choice if God forbid I ever had to chose one record to listen to on my desert island (Blue of course) - was the combination of voice, lyrics and musicality.

It is one thing to have a great voice - superb smokey quality - but to have the intelligence and musicality to use it wisely and combine this with thoughtful poetic lyrics and creative arrangements that constantly surprise and delight is pretty rare I'd say.

Anyway look out for Suzanna and her band.  They are playing the Living Room in New York Oct 24.

Battista's Hole in the Wall

I am not saying sales cycles are getting longer or that the credit crunch is impacting ISVs but a couple of weeks ago I bumped into a former colleague of mine Tony de Vito who, having recently turned 40, has traded his rolodex for an accordion and can be found busking at Battista's Hole in the Wall in Las Vegas.

Evidently Tony couldn't face vmworld 2008 and when we caught up at Battista's he told me technology was "a young man's game".  His words not mine.

Joking aside, this is a brilliant picture of Tony taken by Yan Pritzker at the speaker dinner we hosted to toast our guest speaker Lawrence Clark, Program Director at Carphone Warehouse after a very successful Hosting Transformation Summit in September.  Details of all the speakers can be found here.

If you are looking for somewhere off the strip and don't mind eating family style this is a great experience.  Check out their website.

This is definitely old school Vegas and was evidently a favourite with the Brat Pack in their hey day.

Who knows by the time you get there Yan's photo may already be on the wall.  Being black & white it is timeless and will blend perfectly with what's already there.

Cloudcover Demo Recording

As promised here is a video recording of the Cloudcover Demo we recently gave at the Tier1 Hosting Transformation Summit and also at High Performance on Wall Street.  The audio is a little quiet so we will be re-recording this shortly.