Strategic Alliance Magazine Q3 2017 - 34

TECH FORUM:NVIDIA

and IBM alliance executive, and past president of the
ASAP Silicon Valley Chapter. "They described how [the
CUDA] software programming model has affected
NVIDIA's approach to its partner ecosystem-anytime
you bring in software development, it changes the way you
partner," Burge said.

What does SPEED OF LIGHT
mean at NVIDIA?

* Agile, nimble, quick pivots
* Responsive to market dynamics
* No org charts, no bureaucracy
Alliance management can be
* in
any functional/geographical
*

group
Put the function close to the
customer

Ecosystem Strategies, Industry Platforms,
and the Internet of Things
Arnesen moderated a discussion on "Strategies You Need
to Partner Everywhere" among Intel's Steen Graham, general manager, IoT ecosystem/channels, Internet of Things
Group, Maria Olson, CSAP, VP of global and strategic alliances at NetApp, and Andres Sintes, Cisco's global senior
director, partner GTM, digital transformation & IoT. Panelists emphasized that "multi-partner engagement is key
because of the complexity and size of digital transformation solutions," commented Norma Watenpaugh, CSAP,
principal of Phoenix Consulting Group. This raises many
strategic questions. "To do these at scale, you're going to
market as an ecosystem of partners. The verticalization
discussion was interesting-are companies really verticalizing? The operational technology companies have specific
industry expertise but often lack the IT expertise. So are we
going back to the future with verticalization-for example,
with vertically oriented VARs [value-added resellers]? Are
horizontal partners going away or rendered less relevant
because we are leading with vertical applications?"

34

Building on previous speakers' themes, Karen Dougherty,
vice president of channel and alliances at GE Digital, described the evolution of a company that predates the 20th
STRATEGIC ALLIANCE MAGAZINE | Q3 * 2017

century in "Building a Thriving Ecosystem: GE Digital's
Partner Journey." "I thought her presentation was super
strong-really effective," noted Ana Brown, CA-AM,
global business development manager, strategic alliances
and partnerships at Citrix and current president of the
ASAP Silicon Valley Chapter. "We learned from Karen
Dougherty how they've taken a 125-year-old company and
pivoted to the conceptual era of software-defined business
intelligence and big data analytics with Predix, a cloudbased PaaS [Platform-as-a-Service] that enables
industrial-scale analytics-asset performance management [APM]-and has been a key component in building
and managing the company's ecosystem partnerships [by]
providing a way to connect machines, data, and people,"
Brown continued. "She shared a real-world renewable energy example involving wind turbines, using the capabilities
of the software to predict that something's going to go
wrong-an example using an industrial asset that will be
more and more relevant in the next few years because of
the worldwide efforts to combat climate change."

An Intimate Gathering of Tech Leaders-
from Silicon Valley and Beyond
Arnesen observed that most of the leading companies
from Silicon Valley were in attendance, including many
startups. About 75 executives attended-a notable crowd
for a first-time conference. Leading tech companies represented included Cisco, NetApp, Intel, SAP, GE Digital,
VMWare, Citrix, Splunk, Oracle, ServiceNow, Cognizant,
Microsoft, and Xerox. "It was a pretty good cross-section
of ASAP members and nonmembers," she added.
"The highly engaged audience asked good questions,"
remarked Watenpaugh.
"Right up there with the quality of ASAP Global Alliance Summit presentations, but in a more intimate
environment allowing you more access to those speakers. I was blown away by the program," commented Ann
Trampas, CSAP, a lecturer in marketing and management at the University of Illinois, Chicago. "From the
perspective of an attendee, the quality of the program
was exceptional." n
For more on the 2017 ASAP Tech Partner Forum, visit the
ASAP Blog at http://strategic-alliances.org and read Norma
Watenpaugh's lead article, "Managing Digital Experience," in
the June edition of eSAM Plus.
http://strategic-alliances.org
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Strategic Alliance Magazine Q3 2017
