Note: This blog contains excerpts from Amalgam’s Due Diligence Dossier on Calero. To get the full report, click here.

In January 2018, Calero announced two acquisitions, Comview and A&B Groep. These acquisitions have increased Calero’s headcount by over 70 employees, added geographic footprint, demonstrated a specific profile for acquisition, and demonstrates the willingness for new owners, Riverside Partners, to quickly take action within 120 days of acquiring Calero. This combination of acquisition, execution, and stated focus result in the need to re-evaluate Calero in context of these significant changes. Continue reading Calero Purchases European TEM Leader A&B Groep: What to Expect?

Companies Mentioned: Deloitte, Salesforce, SAP, Cornerstone, Saba, Skillsoft, Fivel, PageUp, PeopleFluent, Talentsoft, Oracle, SilkRoad, IBM, Lumesse, Litmos, D2L, LearnCore, and Lessonly

Soft skills are “people skills”, and they are extremely important in the commercial sector. They involve showing and feeling empathy, embracing diversity, and understanding that we all have biases that we need to be aware of and keep in check. They involve effective interpersonal interactions and real-time communication skills and are relevant at all corporate levels. Whether office staff who interface with clients, office managers who interface with employees and their superiors, or the C-suite who provide the leadership and vision for the company, effective soft skills matter. An individual with strong soft skills can be an effective collaborator, leader, and “good” citizen. They not only know “what” behaviors are appropriate and inappropriate, but they know “how” to generate those behaviors and do so in a highly effective manner.
Continue reading The Brain Science of Effective Corporate Soft Skills Training

At Amalgam Insights, we have been focused on the key 2018 trends that will change our ability to manage technology at scale. In Part 1 of this series, Tom Petrocelli provided his key Developer Operations and enterprise collaboration predictions for 2018 in mid-December. In part two, , Todd Maddox provided 5 key predictions that will shape enterprise learning in 2018. In the third and final set of predictions, I’m taking on key themes of cloud, mobility, telecom, and data management that will challenge IT in terms of management at scale.

1. Cloud IaaS and SaaS Spend under formal management will double in 2018, but the total spend under formalized management still be under 25% of total business spend.
2. The number of cellular-connected IoT devices will double to over one billion between now and 2020.
3. Technology Lifecycle Management will start to emerge as a complex spend management strategy for medium and large enterprises.
4. Ethical AI will emerge as a key practice for AI Governance.

Continue reading 4 Predictions on the Future of IT Consumption

Key takeaway: Todd Maddox, Ph.D. uses his background in the psychological and brain science of learning to show how sleep deprivation affects employees’ working memory and executive attention. Both work and training environments should take sleep into consideration in developing high-performance and high-retention environments. Otherwise, sleep deprivation can ruin even the best-designed training environments.
Continue reading Differential Effects of Sleep Deprivation on Hard and Soft Skills Training

At Amalgam Insights, we have been focused on the key 2018 trends that will change our ability to manage technology at scale. Tom Petrocelli provided his key Developer Operations and enterprise collaboration predictions for 2018 in mid-December. To continue that trend, Todd Maddox provides 5 key predictions that will shape enterprise learning in 2018 as markets reach new heights, corporate training embraces new scientific principles, and retention replaces compliance as a key training driver.

1. VR/AR Enterprise Application Budget to Surpass $1 Billion in 2018
2. eLearning (Computer-Based Training) Market to Approach $180 billion in 2018
3. Commercial Training Sector to Embrace Neuroscience of Optimized Learning
4. Continued Exponential Growth of Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a Driving Force Behind the User Interface (UI)
5. Training for Retention: The Rule, Not the Exception in 2018

Continue reading 5 Predictions That Will Transform Corporate Training in 2018

On December 29th, 2017, Calero Software acquired Comview, an experienced telecom expense management and call accounting software and services provider. Financial terms were not disclosed. From Amalgam’s perspective, this acquisition is important in demonstrating the plans of Calero under its new ownership, Riverside Partners, and in establishing Comview’s role in the Technology Expense Management market. With this acquisition, all Comview personnel other than Founder John Perri are expected to move to Calero. Calero has committed to supporting Comview’s solution for the immediate future. Comview is expected to run as “a Calero company” with independent development and operations in the short term.

Overall, Amalgam is bullish on this acquisition as it combines the strengths of a veteran TEM provider, Comview, with strong customer service and an integrated platform with the scale and breadth of Calero’s capabilities.

Continue reading Calero Flexes PE Muscle in Acquiring TEM Stalwart Comview

Effective training is critical in all business sectors. In 2017, over $360 billion was spent on training worldwide, with over $160 billion spent in the U.S. alone. Given the ever-changing nature of the corporate landscape, as new technologies are introduced (e.g., AI) or upgraded (e.g., constant software upgrades), and as new challenges arise (e.g., sexual harassment in the workplace) corporate training must evolve to meet the growing need.
Continue reading Dual Learning Systems in the Brain: Implications for Corporate Training

API management is a necessary but boring practice. As developers make use of a mix of public cloud, purchased or open source libraries, and homegrown services, the number of APIs used by developers quickly renders pouring through documentation impractical.

Microservices, usually accessed via RESTFul APIs, cause API calls to rapidly proliferate. Even modest-sized microservices-based systems experience API overload quickly. Agile development can exacerbate the problem of understanding and using APIs. The rapid pace of Agile, especially Scrum, leaves little time for proper documentation of APIs. Documentation often takes a back seat to continuous deployment.
Continue reading As API Management Problem Grows, Informatica Jumps into the Market

On December 28th, Apple released a statement regarding the fact that it was planning to lower the battery replacement costs for Apple 6s and 7s from $79 to $29 as a followup to a December 20th statement made to Techcrunch in which Apple described how it was slowing down iPhone 6s and 7s. This piece provides guidance to enterprise IT, mobility, and procurement managers on what this issue is and how to take full advantage of this situation to improve your enterprise mobility environment.

Recommended Audience: CIO, Chief Procurement Officer, IT Procurement Directors and Managers, Mobility Directors and Managers, Telecom Directors and Managers, IT Service Desk Directors and Managers

Vendors Mentioned: Apple, Samsung, Huawei, Calero, DMI, DXC, Ezwim, G Squared Wireless, Honeywell, IBM, Intratem, MDSL, MOBI, Mobichord, MobilSense, Mobile Solutions, NetPlus, Network Control, One Source Communications, Peak-Ryzex, RadiusPoint, Stratix, Tangoe, vCom Solutions, Visage, Vox Mobile, Wireless Analytics
Continue reading The Enterprise Opportunity in Apple’s Slowdown

On CIO.com, analyst Hyoun Park discusses recent cloud pricing changes by Oracle, Amazon, and Google in context of understanding who is actually providing the cheapest cloud. In this blog, Park posits that Oracle’s new Universal Credits for IaaS and PaaS usage are fundamentally different from the traditional pricing models for cloud and shows that the enterprise cloud is coming of age.

One of Park’s assertions is that the most granular pricing may not be the cheapest because the complexity of detailed pricing prevents companies from optimizing their costs. Will this trend affect your cloud costs?

To learn more, click through to CIO.com and read this article: “Is the cheapest cloud pricing flexible or granular?”

Also, join Hyoun’s webinar to learn more about managing cloud costs on BrightTALK: Cloud Service Management: Managing Cost, Resources, and Security