Friday 03 September 2010
Cloud computing and virtualization will be the top technology trends 2010 and priorities for CIOs tin 2010 as businesses shift from traditional on-premise software and hardware to hosted solutions, according to a report released Monday.
When asked to list their top technology priorities for 2010, CIOs ranked virtualization as their top area of focus, followed by cloud computing and web 2.0, Gartner found. Researchers predicted that companies will invest less in hardware in the coming year and more in hosted solutions as they continue to deal with recessionary budget constraints.
“They have aspired to this shift for years, but economic, strategic and technological changes have only recently made it feasible,” said Gartner group vice president and head Gartner Executive Programs researcher Michael McDonald.
The survey found that business process improvement topped a list of business concerns, followed by reducing IT costs. Cost-effectiveness will remain an overriding value in IT strategy as money remains tight, researchers predicted.
A number of firms have been able to save money in recent years by switching to cloud computing solutions and outsourcing the purchase and maintenance of hardware to a web-based service provider. These services leverage broadband internet connections that were not available to many firms until the past decade.
Industry tracker Gartner forecast on Monday that revenue from Internet-based “cloud computing” will top 14 billion dollars annually by the end of 2013.
Revenue from businesses using software programs hosted online as services in the Internet “cloud” should tally 7.5 billion dollars this year, a 17.7 percent leap from 2008, according to Gartner.
The trend toward cloud computing, or Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), has accelerated during the economic crisis.
Cloud computing lets firms essentially rent text, spreadsheet, calendar or other programs as needed and avoid the cost or buying, installing, updating and maintaining software on workplace machines.
“The adoption of SaaS continues to grow and evolve within the enterprise application markets,” Gartner research director Sharon Mertz said, referring to business computer networks.
Vendors are responding to the growing market by expanding the kinds of business computing services hosted online, according to Mertz.
Microsoft on Monday announced a pact with Taiwan’s Chunghwa Telecom Co. (CHT) to collaborate on cloud computing services.
The companies will work together to “deliver a new generation of seamless, connected experiences that bring the power of cloud computing to consumers and to business” in Taiwan, said Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer.
Joint efforts will include a datacenter optimized to host online services for businesses and new cloud offerings for users of personal computers, smartphones, and televisions, Ballmer said in a statement.
“We hope that our strategic alliance with Microsoft will result in a more convenient mobile experience for consumers,” said CHT chief executive Shyue-Ching Lu.
“The combination of Microsoft’s innovative technologies and CHT’s resources is intended to accelerate the application of cloud technologies on actual services, bringing consumers convenient services and fresh user experiences.”
Microsoft’s fortunes were built on selling packaged software such as Windows operating systems and Office work programs but the US technology colossus has been gradually adapting to an inexorable market shift to the cloud.
The Cloud Computing World Forum, scheduled to take place on October 22, has reported that it is nearly sold to capacity, with 200 senior professionals scheduled to participate at the 76 Portland Place, London location.
Mark Johnstone, MD of Point Zero Media remarked, ”We are close to selling out on this show which is testament to the level of interest in this subject, at a time when many shows are seeing their numbers fall. The networking opportunities available will contribute to what is already a great agenda, and make this into a first class forum with lots of opportunity.”
Speakers scheduled to participate include:
Evangelos Kotsovinos, VP of Hosting, Morgan Stanley
Kostas Tsatsaris, CTO and Director, Strategy and Architecture, HM Revenue and Customs
Keith Misson, Business Director, Group IT, Aviva
Andy McLoughlin, Co-founder and Strategy Director, Huddle
Euan Semple, Freelance Consultant/Former Director of Knowledge Management, BBC
Tony Ryan, CEO, Asite
Laurent Lachal, Senior Analyst, Ovum
David Terrar, CEO, D2C
Mike Spink, Research Director, Gartner
Matt Johns, EMEA Product Marketing, Rackspace
Robin Daniels, Sr Manager,Product Marketing, Salesforce.com
VMware, Cisco and EMC will also provide an overview and discussion of their ”private cloud” vision. In what promises to be a truly insightful presentation, the leading trio will discuss their joint vision for the cloud, outlining which immediate actions and sequential steps need to be taken by IT professionals, in order to ensure that their infrastructure are truly ready and enabled for the Journey to The Cloud. The supporting exhibition and networking area will play host to some of the industry’s leading companies including Netapp, Netsuite, SunGard, CRYPTOCard and Mimecast. The cost of attending the full conference is 200 pounds and includes both access to the conference and all of the presentations and to the networking area.
To learn more about the conference, please call +44 (0) 845 519 1230 or book online at: www.cloudwf.com.
Revel Consulting
Revel Consulting, a business and IT consulting firm, announced the launch of its Cloud Computing Practice, providing business solutions for both software companies transitioning to web-delivered services, as well as businesses incorporating web-based technologies into their operations.
Cloud computing, which encompasses software-as-a-service (SaaS), is any business or end-user service provided to customers via the Internet. Revel has been providing cloud consulting services since the industry’s inception. This experience allows the firm to service an industry which, according to Gartner, will see revenues reach $150 billion by 2013.
“Cloud computing is more than a short-term trend. There are legitimate benefits to companies adopting cloud services into their business such as reduced expenses and efficient scaling,” said Vikas Kamran, CEO and Co-Founder of Revel. “Our deep experience in the cloud, coupled with our agile business model provides clients an unmatched path to the cloud, moving them ahead of the competition.” Revel noted its services range from helping assess the cost and benefits of migrating to the cloud, to helping companies integrate SaaS applications such as customer relationship management (CRM) or financial management into their business and existing IT environment.
“Our Cloud Computing Practice is uniquely positioned to help both companies that offer cloud services as well as companies who will be the cloud’s end-users,” said Michael Tan, Senior Associate and Cloud Computing Practice lead for Revel. “These two sides of the industry have distinct business challenges and require specific solutions - we have a proven track record across the spectrum.” Revel Consulting is a business and IT consulting firm.
Gartner, cloud computing
Gartner described the level of hype within the IT industry surrounding cloud computing as “deafening”. Gartner believes that cloud computing could move beyond simple hype and excitement and be widely used in the near future.
The Gartner Hype Cycle 2009 Report, Cloud Computing is hottest trends, and is at the top of expectations but will require alteast two to five years for mainstream adoption.
Gartner adds that each vendor in the market is “expounding its cloud strategy and variations, such as private cloud computing and hybrid approaches, compounding the hype”.
Jackie Fenn, vice president Gartner, commented: “Looking at real benefit, rather than the hyped expectations, we see a number of potentially transformational technologies that will hit the mainstream in less than five years, including cloud computing.”
Revel Consulting Launches Cloud Computing Practice
Revel Consulting, a leading business and IT consulting firm, today announced the launch of its Cloud Computing Practice, providing business solutions for both software companies transitioning to web-delivered services, as well as businesses incorporating web-based technologies into their day-to-day operations. Cloud computing, which encompasses software-as-a-service (SaaS), is any business or end-user service that is scalable, elastic, and provided to customers via the Internet. An early pioneer in this space, Revel has been providing cloud consulting services since the industry’s inception. This experience allows the firm to service an industry which according to Gartner, Inc. will see revenues reach $150 billion by 2013.
“Cloud computing is more than a short-term trend. There are legitimate benefits to companies adopting cloud services into their business such as reduced expenses and efficient scaling,” said Vikas Kamran, CEO and Co-Founder of Revel. “Our deep experience in the cloud, coupled with our agile business model provides clients an unmatched path to the cloud, moving them ahead of the competition.”
For cloud service providers, Revel’s services help companies transform their infrastructure, operations, and sales and marketing processes to align with the cloud’s flexibility. This transition allows providers to achieve predictable and recurring revenue streams and ultimately develop a sustainable competitive advantage in an increasingly crowded marketplace.
For companies interested in utilizing cloud computing, Revel’s services range from helping assess the cost and benefits of migrating to the cloud, to helping companies integrate SaaS applications such as customer relationship management (CRM) or financial management into their business and existing IT environment.
“Our Cloud Computing Practice is uniquely positioned to help both companies that offer cloud services as well as companies who will be the cloud’s end-users,” said Michael Tan, Senior Associate and Cloud Computing Practice lead for Revel. “These two sides of the industry have distinct business challenges and require specific solutions – we have a proven track record across the spectrum.”
Revel’s Cloud Computing Practice will address the booming market demand of cloud computing by drawing on the firm’s past success working in IT, software, insurance, retail, telecom/wireless and engineering. Additionally, clients will benefit from Revel’s “Pure Consulting” model, which reduces layers of bureaucracy typical of large firms to provide clients with on-site senior industry experts to drive projects and achieve results.
About Revel Consulting
Revel Consulting is a leading business and IT consulting firm founded on the belief that client success is achieved through Pure Consulting - reduced barriers between great minds and great opportunities. Revel’s consultants are given the tools, authority, responsibility, and ownership to solve complex challenges with smart, efficient and proven processes. Based in Kirkland, Washington, Revel was founded by Joseph Sedmak, who soon added industry veterans Vikas Kamran and Brett Alston as co-founders. This innovative trio saw the market opportunity created by the fracturing of the large consulting firms and the need for nimble, mid-sized firms able to meet the needs of clients. Revel now provides business solutions across industries such as software, healthcare, insurance, retail, public sector and telecom/wireless. In 2009, Revel was recognized by Seattle Business Monthly as one of Washington State’s 100 Best Companies To Work For. In 2008, Revel was named the fastest growing private company in Washington State and the 48th fastest nationally on Inc. magazine’s Top 5000 list. For additional information on Revel and to view case studies, visit: www.revelconsulting.com.
Contacts
Scoville PR for Revel Consulting
Jaime Quick, 206-625-0075
james.quick@scovillepr.com
Provided below are two quotes, one from Larry Ellison of Oracle and one from Andy Isherwood of HP (both from 2008 so maybe their perspectives have changed). Not everyone, even those that would be serving this new Cloud Computing environment, are convinced that Cloud Computing is a new and improved way to do business. In fact, these two are claiming that they are already doing it. Luckily for us, not everyone is of the same mindset as these two but clients do have concerns and in some instances, rightly so.
The interesting thing about Cloud Computing is that we’ve redefined Cloud Computing to include everything that we already do. We don’t understand what we would do differently in the light of Cloud Computing other than change the wording of some of our ads. Gartner is also stressing to clients that they need to evaluate providers and service providers to ensure that their decisions to move to a Cloud Computing environment is the right one for them and their shareholders.
Organizations potentially can gain a competitive or cost advantage through selective adoption of cloud computing, but not without first taking a comprehensive look at the associated risks, ensuring that they are consistent with business goals, along with the expectations of regulators, auditors, shareholders and partners. Clients are not blind to these issues and you can see by this chart that their concerns map exactly to what we have been discussing as concerns with Cloud Computing.
As time progresses, analyst firms foresee the cloud becoming more prevalent, absorbing functions traditionally done by IT. IDC predicts that worldwide IT spending on cloud services will grow almost threefold by 2012 to $42 billion. Gartner has even predicted that, for IT, cloud computing will become as influential as e-business has been. Any large-scale shift to cloud computing is a decade or more away, says Gartner analyst Ben Pring. “For now I look at software as a service [Saas] and cloud computing as an extension of the company’s network, not a replacement,” says Kim Terry, president of Terrosa Technologies, which helps software vendors make their wares available through the cloud. “In most organization, it’s likely to be five years before anyone is ready to change out a company’s financial systems
The cloud will create a few jobs, at first In the short term, cloud computing today may actually create some IT jobs, says James Staten, a principal analyst at Forrester Research. The reason: Today, cloud computing is mostly used for new applications. Some percentage of the jobs actually performing infrastructure services, monitoring, and datacenter operations in-house will shift to cloud service providers like Google, Amazon, and the telcos,” says Mark McDonald, Gartner’s group vice president of executive programs. But if you’re able to get one of these jobs, in many cases it’s a skill set that is less technical and more managerial and administrative, with days full of conference calls and putting out fires.
When online business applications were first introduced, there was a dismissive air as to how much use accounting professionals would glean from them. Finally, ten years later, a white paper finds that it is set to become a £10bn industry, and acceptance from businesses is imminent. Using online applications, or cloud computing as it is more commonly known, has recently hit the headlines as traditional software providers toy with the idea of entering the market, while businesses appear firmly divided on whether or not it will prove to be an advantage or an unnecessary risk to their company. The latest white paper, The development of web-based acccounting by Aqilla, shows that online software is continuing to grow, highlighting IT analysts Gartner’s prediction that in the next 12 months we are likely to see a spike in the industry with the market expanding by two thirds to $16bn (£9.6bn) by 2013.
Around four-fifths of finance professionals use web-based applications at work, with a third using HMRC’s online tax return function. Benefits include simplified contracts, low cost of deployment and usually a more intuitive interface to work with. Although in every advancement of the software industry there are the pros and cons, such as those that questions its large scale use for big business, there is usually a step change in take-up when a big player emerges to give the much-debated technology its backing. As one of the biggest telecom brands in the world, BT might make the SME business market sit up and take notice. BT recently signed a deal with Xero, the online accountancy software providers, to supply its products to their SME customers. BT will offer all the support, maintenance and integration as part of the deal. ‘We’re serious about the cloud, and we don’t just attribute our brand to anything willy nilly,’ says Chris Lindsay, general manager for broadband and software for businesses at BT.
The topic even had the Economist gushing about cloud computing’s impact on business in their regular technology supplement in October. Analysts have wholeheartedly jumped on the bandwagon with Gartner spreading cloud computing all over its Top 10 strategic technologies list for the coming year, and Yankee group predicting a $20B marketplace for software as a service by 2011. Meanwhile marketeers keen to capitalise on all the attention are sticking a “Cloud Computing” banner over last months “Green Computing” badge in a desperate attempt to sell the same old junk to win a share of an increasingly fickle audiences shrinking IT budget.
