Welcome to ServicesAngle, the latest blog from SiliconAngle that explores the connection between services and hot topics such as big data, mobile and the influence of social technologies.

The angle: Help you better understand the services business by exploring the innovations, disruptions and legacy technologies that affect any enterprise or small business. Our goal is to provide perspective about the changing dynamics in software, systems and services and what that means for service professionals.

We’ll cover the service providers and how buyers in large, medium and small businesses are integrating innovative technologies to be faster and more agile. We’ll pay attention to how the new meets the old or as my friend Sam Ramji says, “where buzz meets cobwebs.” I like that analogy. Innovative technologies are great but they have to fit with the legacy infrastructure that has been developed over the past 20 years.

Why Services? Why Now?

In 2004, I started exploring podcasting. That’s how I met John Furrier, the founder of SiliconAngle. John and a host of others like us were exploring how this new form of media fit into the larger world. It was one of a few streams of data generated by people like us. It was like ice breaking. With the new influx of data from blogging and podcasting, you could hear the groans and snaps as media began to break apart, like monolithic ice dams fragmenting into billions of pieces.

That in turn lead to the modern short form, rivers of micro-updates by millions of people. The ice had melted. It had become an ocean of data. All that data meant big changes for us all. The independent developers were the first to really take advantage of it. They needed fast access to their infrastructure and the need to make constant updates. But it cost too much time and money to manage themselves. Enter Amazon Web Services, which changed the equation and helped turn the conversation from client/server technology to off-premise, multi-tenant infrastructures.

What we have now is an emerging distributed economy, driven by information that is shared across networked server clusters with incredible power to store and compute data.

Today, data is the mega force that is driving change in the services market. It is a wild mass, like an ocean with its own currents and creatures. But it is also can be as singular as a drop of water, in itself a complex yet simple representation of a growing ecosystem. How we make sense of that data is what matters. It’s about how we expose it through APIs. How we integrate it into the enterprise. How we act on it in real-time.

Our Coverage Plans

We’ll follow the hot topics. We’ll hunt for the data spikes that foretell emerging trends. Here are a few that give a sense if what you will see on the ServicesAngle blog.

Data:  How data is a metaphor for change. Software, systems and services are all affected by the massive influx of data. How does this affect people in the services business?

Cloud Services: A huge topic but the infrastructure question is a significant one. How will companies become service providers? What will be the value of service providers in a utility model.

Security: It is evident that the LulzSec crowd is just playing with the most powerful institutions in the world.  The more frequent and significant attacks means a shift in how security is perceived.  Where do services fit in?

Mobile: Call it the front office revolution. IT is not driving this one.

Collaboration: Services providers depend on collaboration technologies to get their work done. What tools are service providers using? How are these tools disrupting the services model itself?

Video: What can we do with video? Video messaging can be better than email. What’s the connection for video in the enterprise?

Who You’ll Learn About

We’ll cover the major technology companies and service providers to see how they are approaching services.

Interviews with people in the services business will explore how innovative technologies affect their business and the overall market.

How-to posts, lists and top trends will act as resources for service professionals.

The Cube: Our live streaming video network will be at several events. We’ll cover services as part of that overall coverage.

Going Forward

Furrier and  Wikibon’s co-founder David Vellante have been guiding their teams to create a new kind of network. ServicesAngle will continue with the group’s efforts to do extensive, quality coverage, deep on a vertical topic. That means a lot of writing and video production work but also getting out into the field to meet people, do interviews and find the stories that bring value to people in the services world. In that respect, I look forward to getting to know many of you who come to read this blog.

Please feel free to contact me any time.

Alex Williams
Editor
SiliconAngle
@alexwilliams
alexhwilliams@gmail.com
Skype: awpodcasthotel
503-473-6237