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Stories by John Gallant

  • CDW CEO: On growing services, cloud applications and reshaping IT

    In this installment of the IDG Enterprise CEO Interview Series, CDW CEO Thomas Richards spoke with Chief Content Officer John Gallant about how CDW is expanding its strategic services offering, and how mobility and consumerization are expanding growth opportunities for the company. He also talked about the rollout of Windows 8 and the Surface tablet, and why CDW is in an ideal position to capitalize on the big changes reshaping IT.

  • Egenera CEO stresses openness in competing with 'Cisco, Cisco, Cisco'

    Egenera CEO Pete Manca says the company was 10 years ahead of its time in targeting the converged data center infrastructure, but its smooth transition from a hardware-focused company to a software-oriented one in recent years has enabled it to stay in the thick of what's now a booming market pursued aggressively by Cisco, HP and others. As part of our ongoing IDG Enterprise CEO Interview Series, IDGE Chief Content Officer John Gallant spoke recently with Manca about Egenera's strategic shift, its partners and competitors, and a big new product announcement. 

  • HCL CEO Vineet Nayar: Outsourcing is dead, and there's nothing innovative in cloud technology

    The customer always comes first. Except when it comes to HCL, the $6 billion Indian outsourcing -- make that co-sourcing -- giant led by CEO Vineet Nayar, who literally wrote the book on a philosophy known as 'employees first, customer second.' In this latest installment of our CEO Interview Series, Nayar spoke with IDG Enterprise Chief Content Officer John Gallant about how that philosophy is fueling HCL's rapid growth and why more CIOs ought to consider adopting it. Nayar also discussed how HCL has set its sights beyond competing with other Indian outsourcers like Infosys and Wipro and is squarely targeting what he believes are the many unhappy customers of services giants like IBM, Accenture and CSC. The outspoken Nayar took shots at the 'fear psychosis' created by services firms in trying to peddle their offerings and used a barnyard epithet to describe public cloud computing, which he claims isn't ready for prime time. He also outlined HCL's aggressive plans for hiring locally in the U.S. and Europe, and defended the company's use of the controversial H-1B visa program. In addition, Nayar talked about the new goals for IT departments in 2012 and beyond, and explained why treating mobile as a technology 'misses the point.'

  • NetApp's Tom Georgens: How we got big, stayed nimble, and view storage today

    Those of us with a bit of institutional memory recall a brash upstart named Network Appliance that burst onto the storage scene to challenge EMC -- itself once a brash newcomer -- and other storage royalty like IBM. But that was 20 years ago, as difficult as that seems to believe, and the company, now named NetApp, is $5 billion-plus storage leader in its own right.

  • Andrew Miller: Polycom will drive the next era of collaboration

    When you think about Polycom, the first image that might pop into your mind is the company's 'iconic, triangular speakerphone.' But CEO Andrew Miller wants you to know that Polycom is much, much more than that. In this installment of the IDG Enterprise CEO Interview Series, Miller spoke via Polycom's high-definition telepresence system with IDGE Chief Content Officer John Gallant about why Polycom should really be known as a software company and about Polycom's move to the cloud. Miller also discussed the impact of mobility on the visual communications market and why -- despite all the talk about video from Cisco Systems CEO John Chambers -- Polycom is in a better position to help companies drive the next era of collaboration. He also talked about the powerful partnerships Polycom has built with top-tier service providers and enterprise stalwarts like Hewlett Packard, Microsoft, IBM, and others.

  • CA Technologies CEO: Doing what the customer needs

    William McCracken took over as chief executive officer of CA Technologies close to two years ago and in that time has engineered a series of organizational changes and acquisitions aimed at improving the company's perception among buyers and broadening its reach into new areas of technology and new customer segments.

  • Q&A: Nimsoft CEO Chris O'Malley touts new 'supply chain of IT'

    Corporate functions from human resources to customer relationship management (CRM) have already been migrated to the cloud. But are you ready for systems monitoring and management in the cloud? More important, is management-as-a-service (MaaS) ready for your company?

  • Oracle's best-of-breed strategy, as described by president Mark Hurd

    It used to be easy journalistic shorthand to write 'database-giant Oracle Corp.', but that labeling no longer fits a company that's now a key player in applications, appliances, servers, development tools, operating systems and, yes, even cloud computing. How do all these components gel into a coherent plan for IT customers? What makes Oracle better than the other big integrated systems players like HP and IBM? In this latest installment of the IDG Enterprise CEO Interview Series, Oracle President Mark Hurd spoke with IDGE Chief Content Officer John Gallant about Oracle's strategy and why the company is uniquely positioned to help IT leaders deal with the difficult challenges they're facing today. Hurd also clarified Oracle's stance on cloud -- a position clouded -- sorry -- by some earlier comments from CEO Larry Ellison -- and what makes Oracle's approach better than 'very old' cloud solutions like salesforce.com. He explained more about customer migrations to Oracle's new Fusion applications and discussed how Oracle plans to win in the evolving server market.

  • SUSE Linux top exec: Interoperability is key

    Since April, Nils Brauckmann has had the future of enterprise <a href="http://www.networkworld.com/topics/linux.html">Linux</a> in his hands. That's when the <a href="http://www.infoworld.com/d/cloud-computing/attachmates-eyes-cloud-customers-suse-259">Attachmate Group completed its acquisition of Novell and split the company into two operating units</a>: Novell and SUSE. As president and GM of SUSE, long-time Attachmate executive Brauckmann is responsible for bringing Suse Linux Enterprise <a href="http://www.networkworld.com/topics/server.html">Server</a> and other <a href="http://www.networkworld.com/subnets/opensource/">open source</a> products to market. In this latest installment of the IDG Enterprise CEO Interview Series, Brauckmann shared with IDGE Chief Content Officer John Gallant his views on the future of open source, his strategy for competing against Red Hat, and SUSE's plans for helping customers build private and hybrid clouds. He also outlined his philosophy for working successfully with the open source community, talked about the role desktop Linux will and won't play in the enterprise, and explained where <a href="http://www.infoworld.com/d/open-source-software/microsoft-extends-suse-linux-partnership-168003">SUSE's partnership</a> will <a href="http://www.networkworld.com/subnets/microsoft/">Microsoft</a> is headed.

  • Enterasys CEO: Total cost of ownership sets us apart

    How's this for a challenge? The CEO dies suddenly and you're tabbed to take his place -- on the heels of your network infrastructure company entering into a major new strategic partnership and in the midst of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Oh, did I mention your competition includes some companies named <a href="http://www.networkworld.com/subnets/cisco/">Cisco</a> Systems, Hewlett-Packard and Juniper Networks, among others? That's life for Chris Crowell, CEO of Enterasys Networks, who took over in 2009 shortly after predecessor <a href="http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/092408-fabiaschi-dies.html">Mike Fabiaschi's untimely death</a>. Since then, Crowell has refreshed Enterasys' product line, pushed for the development of innovative new <a href="http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/060811-enterasys-isaac.html">social media-based</a> <a href="http://www.networkworld.com/topics/network-management.html">network management</a> capabilities that promise to make life easier for network admins, and achieved record sales in the last financial quarter. In this latest installment of the <a href="http://www.networkworld.com/keywords/ceo-interviews.html">IDG Enterprise CEO Interview Series</a>, Crowell spoke with IDGE Chief Content Officer John Gallant about how Enterasys is competing against networking's big dogs, explored an upcoming fabric launch expected in October and talked about the company's <a href="http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/072908-siemens-enterasys.html?hpg1=bn%25252520">partnership with Siemens Enterprise Communications</a>. He also explained why "Isaac" is so important and where Enterasys plans to take the technology.

  • Attachmate boss on Novell buyout: Great brands, little overlap

    The Attachmate Group this week finalized its $2.2 billion buyout of network industry pioneer Novell, which begins the next phase of its evolution. Attachmate will operate Novell as two separate business units, one focused on the Novell brand and the other on the SUSE Linux brand. In addition, the privately held Attachmate Group has business units focused on the Attachmate and NetIQ brands. IDG Enterprise's Chief Content Officer John Gallant spoke with Attachmate Chairman and CEO Jeff Hawn shortly after the Novell deal was sealed to get his thoughts on what the acquisition means for Attachmate and its new and old customers.

  • Avaya CEO: How video will change business world

    Last Wednesday, Avaya, Inc. made a splash in New York City with a portfolio of new collaboration products, including the Flare Experience multimedia conferencing system, a new tablet designed to support the Flare software and the web.alive (stet) virtual reality meeting service, among other offerings. In the latest installment of the IDG Enterprise CEO Interview Series, IDGE Chief Content Officer John Gallant talked with Avaya leader Kevin Kennedy about the company's collaboration strategy, how the new products change the competitive battle with Microsoft Corp. and Cisco Systems, Inc., and what it's going to take to make video a part of everyday life for business users.

  • Chambers part 3: Proprietary and the cloud

    In the third and final part of an in-depth interview with John Gallant, Scot Finnie, and Editor-in-Chief Eric Knorr, Cisco’s John Chambers discusses the proprietary issue and cloud computing opportunities.