... its bettter for me if they talk in German.

I am sitting here in the audience of a Handelsblatt Conference in Munich, Germany. I am third up to talk today and that means I have to listen to the two speakers ahead of me. I don’t like this - not that they are bad but they are going to be in English. Strangely, I don’t like that.

If the speakers were talking in German I would have no idea what they were saying. I would also not be listening to them saying exactly the things I was going to say. With them using many of ideas I want to talk about. I am left feeling like Elizabeth Taylor’s last husband on their wedding night. I know what I need to do but the challenge is to make it different.

If I tell you I am going to talk about eco, virtualization and clouds and how they intersect with X86 you will see my issue unfold...

First up is Lindsey Armstrong VP of International from Saleforce.com (and Brit, so she has a partial pass from me). She’s standing in for Benioff who couldn’t make it (I can’t complain about that, I am a stand in here after all). Her message is around cloud computing more specifically their cloud computing. Looking at the audience I wonder if she is talking to the right people. Always tough to talk about IT out-sourcing to the IT Department. While many modern CIOs and CTOs are business people rather than IT managers - you have to believe this is a struggle for them. Reminds me of the old joke - if you wanted to get there, you shouldn’t start here.

If I may be so bold, her message should be more around how salesforce.com can extend their capabilities not replace them. Still clouds are coming but people will need to talk about intra-clouds the same way we talked about intra-nets.

Next up is Padmasree Warrior the CTO from Cisco. She is starting with the way people work - I was expecting X86 server entry - maybe this will come later. I can’t help but think she is also talking about how to survive the next five years. Maybe I should talk about how to five months!

Having said that, she is making some interesting points about flow between enterprise and consumer. I think I can build on this point in my second section - given that I am typing on consumer laptop which I would rather use than my work machine. Enterprise laptops do have a huge amount of security and manageability in them but now with the cloud that will change. Devices are becoming disposable - no point spending more to manage than replace. It’s the data that needs backing up - not the device. More clouds.

Now Padmasree is moving onto the Next Internet (just heard an eco point). Her definition of the Next Internet sounds like something I was saying 5 years ago. As they say in the House of Commons, “I refer the Right Honorable Gentlemen to answer I gave 5 years ago.” See the Stages Of e-business Adoption - if you can still find this on the web.

So to virtualization and this completes all the points I am about to make. Not much about their new servers. Surprising - it's the perfect audience for them.

OK now me … “X86 at a crossroads“.

Actually, first coffee. There is a theory that states people will come back.


Two points to note:
1. I can’t do this on-line as the room has no free internet access and access on t-mobile is very expensive
2. As I look around the audience of around 300 people - not one PC open (other than this HP dv2) and I am willing to bet no-one will be twittering on their Blackberrys.