Fred Luddy, ServiceNow (Day 2) | ServiceNow Knowledge13
Channel: SiliconANGLE theCUBE
Date: 2013-05-15

https://siliconangle.com/2013/05/17/servicenow-founder-shares-his-journey-to-the-ultimate-itsm-platform/

Fred Luddy (day 2) at ServiceNow Knowledge13 with Dave Vellante and Jeff Frick

ServiceNow Founder Shares His Journey to the Ultimate ITSM Platform

Fred Luddy, founder of IT service management (ITSM) giant ServiceNow, addressed the latest news from his company and told the story behind its foundation in a two-part interview series that featured Wikibon chief analyst Dave Vellante and SiliconAngle's Jeff Frick.

In the first episode Luddy focused on the highlights from Knowledge13, his company's sold-out customer conference in Las Vegas. That's where theCube caught up with him earlier this week to discuss his firm's decision to make its entire portfolio available on the iPhone and iPad. After asking him about his take on the event, Vellante mentions that there are five billion connected devices worldwide. This mega-trend is driving major disruption in the enterprise. Luddy agrees, and adds that the ability to manage anything from anywhere at any time is crucial for organizations.

The entrepreneur believes that mobile will become the main IT delivery model in the foreseeable future, a shift that will require complete rethinking of application design. He outlines the challenges of developing a mobile UI before bringing up the main feature of ServiceNow's platform: analytics. The software identifies usage patterns and creates customized shortcuts that "compress information and reduce interactions" to maximize user productivity.

Luddy spends the rest of the session talking about Steve Jobs, innovation, and the role of competition as a driver of innovation.

In the second interview, which he gave to Vellante and Frick on Day 2 of Knowledge13, Luddy talks about the Internet of Things. He mentions the prediction that the number of connected cameras, sensors and other data transmitting end-points will balloon to between 50 and 60 million in the next two years, and proceeds to provide the backstory behind ServiceNow.

Luddy has been programming for 40 years. Before founding ServiceNow he worked for an enterprise software company that he left in the early 2000s after companies like Yahoo demonstrated the internet has rendered traditional IT all but obsolete.

After leaving his job, Luddy set out to develop a platform that empowers "citizen developers:" regular users who leverage tools to create custom applications that address their specific needs. He spent the better part of a year working on this ambitious project before he made the decision to move back to familiar turf and apply his vision to ITSM.

Over the years, Luddy's proof-of-concept transformed into the multi-million dollar behemoth that is ServiceNow today. The vendor offers what Vellante calls a "single system of record:" a framework that provides enterprises with a unified view of their infrastructure down to the very last sensor and spreadsheet. The company sells apps that extend this system, and actively encourages customers to create their own custom solutions on top of its platform.


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