Thought Leaders in Cloud Computing: Interview with Jason Blessing, CEO of Plex Systems (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: I have heard of them.

Jason Blessing: Francisco Partners is slightly different in terms of private equity firms. They have classic leverage buyouts in their investment portfolio, but they also like to selectively look for growth equity opportunities – companies like Plex that look a bit more like a late-stage venture company and just need additional funding, boost, and leadership to go to the next level. >>>

Thought Leaders in Cloud Computing: Interview with Jason Blessing, CEO of Plex Systems (Part 1)

Jason Blessing is the chief executive officer of Plex Systems, a company offering America’s first and so far only ERP cloud service solution exclusively for manufacturers. Jason graduated from the University of Michigan and he has more than 20 years of experience in the IT industry. In this interview he talks about the unique offering of Plex Systems, and for what purpose mostly small and medium sized companies use it. He also shares insights into the future of the sector and how big data plays a big role in the manufacturing process. >>>

Thought Leaders in Cloud Computing: Interview with John Michelsen, CTO of CA Technologies (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: Talent acquisition seems to be very active at the moment. Part of the reason is that there has been a lot of seed financing, but very few of those seed deals are getting to the point they state. A lot of those seed-financed companies have done some work, but their talented teams are leaving to find a home in some of the big companies. >>>

1M/1M And Rackspace Announce Startup Challenge To Give Cloud Ventures A Lift

One Million by One Million (1M/1M) and Rackspace, the Open Cloud Company, today announced the Rackspace Cloud – 1M/1M Startup Challenge. This competition is designed to give a boost to entrepreneurs growing, developing, and launching cloud-based startups. Through an application process, five cloud startups will be judged finalists and they will present their businesses during an online pitch competition on Thursday, May 30th. Four of the finalists will be awarded $1000 per month worth of cloud hosting for one year from Rackspace. The winner will be awarded $2000 per month worth of cloud hosting for one year PLUS a one-year scholarship to the 1M/1M program. Founded by Silicon Valley entrepreneur Sramana Mitra, 1M/1M will provide extensive incubation support to help the winning startup rise to its potential.

One Million by One Million (1M/1M) is a global virtual incubator that provides budding entrepreneurs methodologies, video lectures, strategy consulting through public and private online roundtables, and introductions to media, customers, channel partners and investors, including pre-seed, seed, angel, VC, bank and alternative financing. The 1M/1M program is all about coaching entrepreneurs on funding, business strategy and execution. The program’s mission is to help a million entrepreneurs reach a million dollars and beyond in annual revenue, thereby creating a trillion dollars in global GDP and 10 million jobs.
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Thought Leaders in Cloud Computing: Interview with John Michelsen, CTO of CA Technologies (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: I talked to some of the Thought Leaders in Big Data interviewees who think that the problem is not so much the data part. The real challenge is designing algorithms, especially the machine learning algorithms that can take the data and do interesting things with it. The data itself is really not as complicated to deal with; it is more about what you do with it.

John Michelsen: At the same time, though, the analytics layer is dependent on capabilities of the underlying big data platform. Therefore, those have to become much more robust and better at being fussy. It is a difficult trade-off between analytics on what you know and unstructured data that you have to apply structure to. There is this very interesting marriage between big data platform and analytics platforms. I would say we are doing more interesting stuff in analytics right now. >>>

Thought Leaders in Cloud Computing: Interview with John Michelsen, CTO of CA Technologies (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: I know there is a lot of startup activity going on in that space. What are some interesting startups that you have seen, and what problems are they solving?

John Michelsen: I will start with the security space. You almost can’t talk somebody out of doing interesting innovation in security. My first prescription for going forward is you cannot do anything that is a risk to your security. >>>

Thought Leaders in Cloud Computing: Interview with John Michelsen, CTO of CA Technologies (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: We are actually also running a Thought Leaders in Big Data series, which is a very successful series. The big data and cloud stories are interlaced stories.

John Michelsen: Exactly. You just said better what I was trying to say. You aren’t going to think about big data as “OK, let’s go chop down a huge forest and build a huge data center of our own and start thinking about how to store our big data.” In fact, our customers are thinking, “OK, I need access to computing utility models so that I can accomplish my big data activity.” Those are just two simple examples. >>>

Thought Leaders in Cloud Computing: Interview with John Michelsen, CTO of CA Technologies (Part 1)

John Michelsen is the chief technology officer of CA Technologies. John studied at Trinity University and is considered one of the great innovators in business IT, with over 12 patents awarded to him. In this interview John talks about trends in the business IT world and how it has developed over the years. Furthermore, he discusses possibilities and opportunities for entrepreneurs and gives us his views on innovators in this space.

Sramana Mitra: John, let’s give our readers a bit of context about what is happening at CA these days. We had your predecessor, Don Ferguson, on one of our series a couple of years ago. When we started doing these series, there was still ambiguity on where the cloud movement was going and how much adoption there was in enterprises. Today there is no such ambiguity. >>>