Tech means Business

A short announcement

The last 12 weeks or so have seen some trying times for Tech Means Business's guests, and for us too. But we're happy to announce that Series Two is now in production, so watch this space.

In the meantime, come back in a few days' time for a bonus "Best Of" podcast, that's being 'cut' as you're reading this. All the best bits, hand-picked, remastered, and delivered via your favorite RSS feed-gobbling podcast app. Available here too!

What's the view from the top of a digital-first company? In this episode of the Tech Means Business podcast, we're joined by Kirsten Wolberg, the CTO of DocuSign, whose stellar career included spells at PayPal and Salesforce.

Having lived and worked through the first dot-com bubble, Kirsten gives us her unique insights into how the technology services that businesses rely on have transitioned over the years, with a customer-first approach now dominant.

And speaking of transitioning, we ask about the steering of DocuSign from its initial position of "the digital signature people" to its current agreement cloud offerings. "Agreement management" sounds very niche, but in fact, businesses' activities are dominated by agreements & contracts, numbering in their thousands.

Collaborating on agreements in a single space pulls in every business function, from HR to Finance, Operations and back again, and yes, there's even an eSignature or two involved!

Here's the DocuSign take:

https://www.docusign.com/products/agreement-cloud

And just for completion's sake, the eSignature info:

https://www.docusign.com/products/electronic-signature

Connect with Joe on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/josephedwardgreen/

In this podcast, Joe Green is joined by two representatives working at Ubuntu (or Canonical, if you like) on that organization's Ubuntu Core and Ubuntu Mobile Embedded projects. With IoT and its much older sibling, IIoT, ever-present as buzzphrases at the moment alongside 5G, self-driving cars and AI, we get the lowdown on what IoT really means.

From early days of hobbyists knocking together mobile devices and needing an OS to run on them, the Ubuntu flavor of Linux now runs on IoT devices that are found  in installations of every type, all over the world. Modular construction of the software in a series of discrete "snaps" means that the days of having to flash EPROMs to update devices are now a thing of history.

Ubuntu runs a decent wedge of the cloud, why not let it run connected, intelligent devices? If IT is going to embedded in everything over the next few years, better the "FOSS  way" (that's a Roman road joke, btw) than closed systems, for both security's and privacy's sakes, for starters.

In conversation with Nick Mailer, founder of The Positive Internet Company, a company that's been in the free and open-source camp ever since its start. We discuss why every desktop's a Linux desktop, how the "potting shed" mentality of the British psyche led to ARM's world domination, and the fact that Positive's green credentials are usually an afterthought for many of its clients, but a central tenet of the company.

When it was founded, Positive Internet decided that open source software was the way to go. More than 20 years later, they seem to have been right about that particular choice (although Nick's love of Perl and Vim may be more debatable). The company was founded in the same year a certain American startup opened shop, though Google has, it has to be mentioned, taken a rather different trajectory.

With land dedicated to rewilding projects and a data center in the fenlands of Cambridgeshire (where wind power is pretty much unlimited), Positive Internet now has a global reach, with international offices and clients (including a one R. Stallman Esq.) all over the world. We spent an hour with Nick chewing the fat; this podcast is just some of the conversation's many highlights. Enjoy!

The Positive Internet Company's site (contains giraffe imagery):

https://positive-internet.com/

Connect with Joe on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/josephedwardgreen/

Mapping business processes and then developing software to suit those processes: that's the ethos behind the open-source Camunda platform, which can be extended further by paid-for proprietary functionality.

Low-code, loadsa code and no-code development, robotic process automation, the cloud and the ways that companies are connecting and automating their legacy and new systems are just some of the subjects we touch on, as Jakob talks us through definitions and ways of approaching so-called "digital" transformation.

From the enviable position of always being profitable since start-up, Camunda's platform is found in many of the world's most well-known organizations.

Berliner Jakob on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakob-freund-a3a7a33/

Camunda's web presence right here:

https://camunda.com/

Connect with Joe on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/josephedwardgreen/

The application programming interface (that's API, acronym fans) is what's allowing breaking down of monolithic programmed structures, and making DevOps a nicer place for microservices.

But what happens if we extend the API concept out further? In time, Uri tells us, we'll see customer- or user-focused technology interactions, not ones that are dictated by app vendors, private companies or large organizations.

From meeting Tim Berners-Lee, via the first dot com bubble, to the future of integration, the CTO of MuleSoft talks about his vision for the future and the overall philosophy of APIs and interconnectivity.

Here's Uri on The Socials

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarid/

All things on MuleSoft:

https://www.mulesoft.com/

Connect with Joe on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/josephedwardgreen/

The database that's making waves in enterprise settings is PostgreSQL (often called Postgres), which would be romping up the database popularity index, if such a thing existed. Why is that the case?

An open-source system that runs on Alibaba Cloud, AWS, Azure and ARM alike, you can download it, run it on your virtual or real tech, from 60-core x86s to Raspberry Pi, and it'll happily mince your data, just how you want it!

But what happens when your business relies on Postgres, or you need a helping hand? Or an extra feature you can't/won't develop yourself? That's where EnterpriseDB comes in. We speak to Marc Linster, Senior Vice President of Product Development at the company, about paying for "open-souce-PLUS", upstreaming, development communities and the unique capabilities of PostgreSQL.

The EnterpriseDB homepage:

https://www.enterprisedb.com/

The elephant-centric PostgreSQL pages are here:

https://www.postgresql.org/

Connect with Joe on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/josephedwardgreen/

The term "AI" is all too readily applied to just about everything today, including phone cameras, washing machines and voice-activated assistants. Can we confidently describe cyber-defences as "leveraging" AI?

Because artificial minds can't predict the future (so can't spot zero-day attacks per se), it's in the specifics of cyber protection that self-learning algorithms are proving their value.

Darktrace's Antigena platform learns patterns of normality in network traffic and entity behaviour, and highlights whatever it thinks is "a bit weird." Another red flag raising traffic monitor (among all the other ones)? Darktrace offers a month-long trial to try and convince you. We investigate!

The Antigena home page:

https://www.darktrace.com/en/products/antigena/

Interested in learning more, or perhaps putting the code through its real-world paces?

https://customers.darktrace.com/en/trial/

Connect with Joe on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/josephedwardgreen/

What are those challenges specific to the education sector for technology to work, or even to find a decent use-case? Is the ed-tech market so very different from the business market for software, hardware, the cloud and all things technological?

With distinct "sectors" in an averagely-sized college or university, and discrete business units acting as independent entities, how can technology vendors approach this market most effectively?

From his position as an academic, university administrator, lecturer, professor and most of all, a technologist, Dr. DeVries (that's Henry to you & I) shares his experience.

Henry DeVries's LinkedIn page:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/henryedevries2/

Henry's current gig:
https://higher.digital/

…and his previous role, for good measure:
https://www.ellucian.com/

Connect with Joe on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/josephedwardgreen/

Definitions of big data vary, but for the sake of argument, let's just say it means "lots and lots and lots of information," data that's produced in ever-increasing amounts by every online interaction we undertake.

Can big data be put to use, or is it just a stream of zeros and ones that move so quickly our minds are overwhelmed? The answer is that there are, without doubt, nuggets of amazing insight in amongst all the cat pictures and 'Grammed shots of what people are about to eat.

But how best to get to the good stuff? Splunk thinks it has the answers. As the company transitions its position as providers of a platform most IT professionals think of as a piece in the cybersecurity arsenal, James tells us how and why we need to start thinking differently when it comes to our tech lives.

James Hodge's LinkedIn page:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jameshodge

Splunk's approach to Big Data:

https://www.splunk.com/en_us/big-data.html

And with the temporary cessation of live events (including Splunk Live!), here's Splunk's latest webinar, "The Future of AI Ops":

http://explore.splunk.com/gartneraiops

Connect with Joe on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/josephedwardgreen/