Classic IT careers (operating on-premises IT) are disappearing faster than you can say “cloud”. IT professionals with established industry profiles are increasingly absorbed into (often comparably “faceless”) ranks of large public cloud providers. IT Vendors accustomed to launching new products in collaboration with a wide range of potential IT providers see their ‘routes to market’ narrow dramatically. IT consumers are faced with (often unfamiliar) technology stacks and new capabilities provided by public cloud vendors, requiring them to re-evaluate providers and technologies.
Yes – we can hear you – there is “hybrid” … and “niche” … and “stuff” that isn’t suited for public cloud … but reality is that IT vendors will (have to) align their product strategy with the dominant public cloud providers sooner or later. If not compatible with at least one of these platforms / not complementary to the providers “cloud stack” (added value) or even worse – directly competes with the providers’ default technologies in the HW or SW stack they are off to a bad start with investors and clients. Suddenly all (lucrative) routes seem to lead through the market place of one of these public IT providers – making them the new “Technology Adoption Gatekeepers”.
Organisations – often stripped of core IT resources – increasingly face “self-managed” public cloud platforms with less familiar technology stacks – forcing them to employ external help to implement them securely or even operate them. Can consumers be sure that those default components are always “best of breed” for their ‘use case’? No, not automatically, and even the public cloud vendors won’t claim this (typically aiming for effective coverage of an 80/20 rule). Best or not, the advantages of flexible acquisition, the pure ease of consumption combined with the potential reduction in cost and overall increase in efficiency will continue to drive public cloud adoption.
This IS the new world – like it or not (depending where you sit).
What does it mean for WhatMatrix? We will continue to analyse these trends, align with them and do our bit to help all involved get the best value out of the changed market place. How … ?
New Comparisons & Framework 
Will it just be “another public cloud comparison”? No! We will adjust our overall framework and design to provide much more:
No problem – a simplified “Add-On” framework will allow you to browse & add available 3rd party products to the “native” cloud stack. Vendors will be able to highlight the value their product provides over the “native” option. (think e.g. “Zerto Virtual Replication” vs Azure’s native DR capability)
“Not relevant” we hear you say? Others would disagree …
Again, we want to provide an OPEN technology evaluation platform and – if anything – will increase our focus on promoting strategic emerging technologies.Platform Enhancements: “Have it your way”!
I’m not interested in THIS feature but I MUST have THAT one!
Are unimportant features skewing your comparison result? Then you will LOVE this key enhancement – the ability to exclude or prioritise features – all according to YOUR specific use case. You will be able to save and even publish the use case for re-use. Custom evaluations without expensive consultancy engagements? Yeah!
Ease of consumption – so you don’t want to sift through a long, detailed technical comparison – maybe just to quickly see a “leaderboard” or understand high-level pros and cons of a solutions? The new design will allow you to do that – quickly gather context and summary information, then drill down to category based scoring and individual features with the same transparency and level of detail that differentiates us from anyone else today!
We have listened to your feedback and invested heavily in our next generation platform. There are over 170 improvements in development for the upcoming release – too much to even attempt to cover it here.
Preview of Next Generation WhatMatrix Design (all subject to change)
Empower the community
Making a ‘name for yourself’ and raising your professional profile above the “rest” is becoming increasingly difficult in today’s crowded online world but is arguably one of the most effective ways to quickly open up new professional or business opportunities!
Our declared mission is to provide a community platform for individuals and companies publishing expert content on WhatMatrix – and empower that community in return: Publish your expertise on WhatMatrix and we will make sure you are known for it!
Is promoting you as “The Expert”, providing traffic to your website, improving your social media profile or directing clients and services opportunities to your business not enough? We have successfully trialled a disruptive revenue sharing model for interested consultants, talk to us if you want to know more!
We know how precious “time” is these days but we have proven that working with us is a worthwhile undertaking – we can scale rewards with your efforts and you will always have our genuine commitment to promote our community members first!
(1) WhatMatrix platform update including “use case”, “Public Cloud Framework” and other listed improvements is targeted for a Q4/17 release (2) New comparisons should only be submitted by vendor-independent specialists or companies, matching our requirements for comparison owners. New Products can be submitted to existing comparisons according to the process described here (not enough time to read it – just get in touch and we’ll explain! 😉 (3) Note: evaluation and ratings are ALWAYS performed by an independent consultant, peer review and open community curation – never the vendor or a vendor affiliate!
Community Editor
Latest posts by Community Editor (see all)
- “Smackdown” of workspace products with WhatMatrix.com - January 17, 2018
- And the Community Award for Best CMP goes to … - November 8, 2017
- Amazon, Google & Microsoft Clouds – How to evaluate the new “Technology Gatekeepers” - September 4, 2017
