Data storage company EMC is transforming its offerings to meet new technological challenges that emanate from a shift to cloud computing and mobile content consumption, the next wave in ICT.
Rick Devenuti, president of EMC's Information Intelligence Group, says business is transforming, and technology also needs to change to meet its needs. “We're all on a journey.”
Devenuti was speaking at the company's Momentum conference, in Berlin. The conference, EMC's 18th Momentum event, has attracted about 1 200 delegates from 61 countries around the world.
During his keynote address, Devenuti said the company has expanded its offerings as part of its transformation journey and has more products in the pipeline.
The New York Stock Exchange-listed company said it has made EMC OnDemand available for its Captiva, Document Sciences and Documentum offerings. EMC also announced an exclusive licensing agreement with C6, a French enterprise content management (ECM) software provider and long-time partner.
Changing needs
Devenuti said the globe is at the “dawn of a new technology age”. He explained that applications today need to be more intuitive, more flexible, move off premise and have collaboration built in.
Companies need to be thinking about public, private and hybrid clouds and how to extend content types to include audio, for example, said Devenuti. PCs will still be used to create content, but there will increasingly be a shift to mobile for consumption, he added.
EMC is focussing on four areas that are changing the way technology is used, said Devenuti. These are new user types, cloud, governance, and business transformation.
Devenuti said new technology users are different as they “reach out and obtain information in a whole different way”. He said they think about sharing information and collaboration in a different way.
To support the new user, mobile applications need to embrace a different type of collaboration, said Devenuti. He added that information gets used outside of the traditional environment, which requires companies to think differently about governance.
EMC introduced Documentum Mobile, a mobile EMC offering, about four months ago to aid companies in dealing with this environment, said Devenuti. So far, the company has an iPad application, with an iPhone one to debut soon, and will continue working on applications for different devices.
Devenuti is not sure where the end-user will take technology companies, but EMC needs to make sure they can consume information. He said the C6 deal allows the company to provide more innovative solutions.
“Available now, the solution enables business analysts to rapidly match ECM application functionality to their business needs, without the need for coding,” it said in a statement.
Cloud shift
Devenuti noted that while everyone is moving to the cloud, this is easier said than done, because in addition to obvious benefits there are also real challenges.
In a bid to overcome some of these issues, EMC has introduced OnDemand, which is a new hybrid cloud deployment model for enterprise-class applications, “designed to help customers accelerate their journey to the cloud,” the company said in a statement released at the event.
Devenuti said EMC manages the environment behind the service and it will aid companies in trimming costs and improving performance. He added that partners with certified products can add their offering to the stack.
EMC is also bolstering its governance offerings and aiding companies in transforming through offerings that enable big data to be mined to open up new revenue streams, said Devenuti.
Mawson is hosted in Berlin courtesy of EMC.
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