Dec 22, 2010
During the iteration in spring 2010 that has lead Lokad to release its Forecasting API v3, I have been thinking a lot about how to design proper Web APIs in this age of cloud computing.
Designing a good Web API is very surprisingly hard. Because Remote Procedure Call has been around forever, one might think that designing API is a well-known established practice, and yet, suffering the defects of Forecasting API v1 and v2, we learned the hard way it wasn’t really the case.
Nov 5, 2010
At Lokad, we have been working with Windows Azure for more than 2 years, received the 1st Windows Azure Award and serving large and small companies through a 100% powered by Windows Azure technology since the commercial availability in Q1 2010.
In my previous Big Wish List for Windows Azure, I was stating that Microsoft was a late entrant in the cloud computing arena. Considering the tremendous efforts that Microsoft has pushed around cloud technologies in 2010, I believe this aspect is no more relevant.
Nov 2, 2010
I just started my first LinkedIn DirectAds campaign a few days ago. I had significant previous experience with Google Adwords, and I was interested to see how DirectAds could perform compared to Adwords.
From an outsider perspective, LinkedIn looks the perfect marketplace for a niche B2B software technology such as Lokad which specializes in demand forecasting. Indeed:
I know exactly the profile of the people I am trying to reach: vertical, job description, company size, location, etc.
Aug 11, 2010
Cloud computing now offers near perfectly reliable storage. Amazon D3 is announcing a 99.999999999% durability and the Windows Azure storage is in the same league.
Yet, perfectly reliable data storage does not prevent data loss - by a long range. It only prevents data loss caused by hardware failure, which nowadays are no more the most frequent cause for losing data.
The primary danger threatening your data is just plain accidental deletion.
Jul 27, 2010
At Lokad, we have using the Relenta CRM for nearly two years. It’s an excellent lean CRM that comes with a core focus on emails which happen to represent about 90% of our interactions with clients and prospects.If you happen to be an ISV, Relenta is worth having a closer look.
Although, I have been missing a few key features in Relenta for a long time. Hence, I taking the time here to post my wish list for Relenta.
Jul 10, 2010
The Microsoft World Partner Conference 2010 is due to begin next Monday, and it’s clear that Windows Azure is going to be one of the product that will get the most attention this year.
Over the last 2 years, I have attended and even took part to many cloud computing talks, and I am hearing tons of very confused opinions on cloud computing, and even more concerning the future of cloud computing.
Jun 23, 2010
Lokad just won the Windows Azure Partner award of 2010. That’s an extremely big award for an exceptionally small company. The last French company to get such as an award was no less than Dassault Systèmes, the largest software company in France. I am proud of the work done by the Lokad team.
Jun 15, 2010
I have been giving a talk at the Strategies Logistique event in Paris last week about cloud computing, supply chain and Lokad. Beyond forecasting, I believe that supply chain will be one of the entreprise area that will benefit the most in the next decade of the migration toward the cloud.
More pictures. Special thanks to Gilles Solard for the smooth organization of this great event.
May 26, 2010
Yesterday, I had the chance to meet Eric Rudder, Senior Vice President at Microsoft for nearly 1h30, along with three of my students who actively contributed to the Sqwarea project, an open source C# game designed for Windows Azure.
Eric proposed internships at MS Research after about 45min of discussion (really nice since CS students are expected to make a research internship in the US in their 2nd year at the ENS).
May 15, 2010
Moving toward cloud computing relieves from (most) hardware downtime worries, yet, cloud computing is no magic pill that garanties that every single of our apps is ready to serve users as expected.
You need a monitoring system to achieve this. In particular, OS uptime and simple HTTP responsiveness is only scratching the surface as far monitoring is concerned.
In order to go beyond plain uptime monitoring, Lokad has started a new Windows Azure open source project named Lokad.
