All posts tagged alan colmenares

  • Musings After My Conference on Cloud Computing

    Microsoft Cloud ConferenceIt’s been more than a month since my series of conferences on Cloud Computing at Microsoft’s Live events in Medellin, Cali and Bogota, Colombia.  During the past few weeks, I’ve been able to do more reconnoissance of the market’s readiness for these offerings. What I’ve found is that there are very few local ISVs with Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offerings, but quite a few players are offering open source and other third party software hosted on the cloud.

    Additionally, from my own clients (software companies) and others, I’ve seen keen interest in developing new offerings leveraging the cloud. Nevertheless, there are many options and much confusion as to how to proceed.  Developing a solid SaaS solution takes a lot more than simply hosting on the cloud and that is where the true opportunity to differentiate your software company lay.

    This is going to be quite an interesting year and I am going to have the opportunity to help my current clients and some new ones that should be hiring me soon.  My objective is to have each client understand the power of a SaaS offering and to set a clear objective for the same.

    Microsoft Cloud Conference

  • Juez en Competencia Microsoft de Innovacion Digital

    Alan ColmenaresHace una semana y media tuve la oportunidad de ser juez en la competencia de Microsoft llamado Imagine Cup. Fue excelente poder ver como de innovadores estaban los equipos de Colombia aplicando su dedicacion a ayduar a personas necesitadas.  Como es usual durante estos eventos no solo fue gratificante conocer a los participantes sino tambien el poder interactuar con mis colegas en el panel de juezes.

    Debatimos entre nosotros los meritos y debilidades de los diferentes grupos. Yo tenia un grupo favorito por su manera innovadora de aplicar una mejor distribucion de informacion confiable al problema de la pobreza.  Tristemente, este grupo tuvo problemas durante su demostracion y la presentacion no estuvo tan pulida como la de otros.  Al final, entregamos el premio a un grupo con una presentacion pulida y software bien ejecutado.  Me hubiera encantado si dicho grupo hubiera podido asesorar a mi grupo favorito y si hubieran podido ir a Polonia juntos pero estoy seguro que el grupo ganador representara excelentemente a Colombia!

  • Judging Microsoft Digital Innovation Contest

    Alan ColmenaresA week and a half ago, I had the pleasure of judging a number of entrepreneurial initiatives for Microsoft’s Imagine Cup competition.  It was great to see how innovative and dedicated Colombia’s youth can be to creating great technology while helping out the needy.  As usually happens during these events, it is a truly enjoyable experience not only to meet these youths, but also to meet and get to know my fellow judges.

    We debated the merits and weaknesses of the different competitors.  I had a favorite that tried to solve an important problem (poverty) by applying better information design.  Unfortunately, they had some snafus with their presentation and demo and I was unable to vote for them as the winner.  We ended up giving the final prize to a sharp group with an incredibly polished presentation and they will be traveling to Poland to represent Colombia.  I wish we could have had the winning team train the other team to be more polished and to finish off their software as I think it would have been an excellent presentation in Poland.  Nevertheless, I’m sure the winners will do a great job!