SYS-CON Events announced today that Chris Matthieu, Director of IoT Engineering at Citrix and co-founder and CTO of Octoblu, will keynote at the 17th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on November 3-5, 2015, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA. His keynote “How We Built and Scaled an IoT Platform and Business” will focus on building an IoT platform and company. He will provide a behind-the-scenes look at Octoblu’s platform, business, and pivots along the way (including the Citrix acquisition of Octoblu).
Monthly Archives: November 2015
Huawei launches new cloud hosting services for Europe
Networking giant Huawei has launched a series of cloud hosting services for the European mobile service provider market. It unveiled details of the Digital inCloud programme at the MVNO Networking Congress in London, where Huawei signed a memorandum of understanding with participating partners.
Digital inCloud is to be a service aggregator and distributor which allows global carriers and partners to connect. By doing so they can build a digital ecosystem comprised of different payment, message notification, voice/cloud call centres and business operations analyses from all the carriers. Digital inCloud will be a bridge between partners and telcos in digital product distribution and trading.
The European Hosting Centre will be based in the UK and run on Huawei’s MVNX platform, which can hosts more than 1 million mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) subscribers across Europe. The European hosting centre will also include a series of off-the-shelf cloud hosting services available to all European operators.
Both content and applications will be delivered ‘as-a-service’ by bridging the gap between partners and telcos in digital product distribution and trading. Currently, Huawei has aggregated 200,000 digital content items from 2100 content partners worldwide, including digital music, 2700 mobile games, 20,000 hours of premium video, live channels, open API and traffic monetization.
The Video ‘as-a-Service’ offering aggregates film from Huawei global partners, mobile network operators and virtual mobile network operators. It will support multiple definitions including SD, HD and 4K(UHD) on devices including home TVs, smartphones and tablets.
Meanwhile telcos will be able to get business support system as a service, an offering aimed particularly at MVNOs who are less likely to have the resources to afford their own systems. Similarly, Huawei’s Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) will be a more affordable and accessible way to help operators to capture customer behaviour data.
The Huawei Digital channel will create a simpler way of delivering content and improving the user experience, it said, while the Mobile Payment service will help telcos to exploit more financial applications.
Druva’s data protection service now available on Azure
Converged data protection firm Druva has allied itself with Microsoft Azure in a bid to expand its cloud presence to a wider public cloud and infrastructure market.
The new relationship gives Druva customers more global options for their data storage, privacy and security needs and a more impressive infrastructure vendor for companies with sensitive compliance and legal issues. Partnering with Azure helps Druva settle any regional data privacy issues that might otherwise dissuade them from using Druva as more companies realise that on-premise storage is becoming unsustainable, according to Druva.
Druva’s new Azure relationship, it says, gives customers have a wider set of choices as they try to decide how to keep up with data growth, security and regionally specific regulation requirements.
Azure will help Druva meet international and industry-specific compliance standards, such as ISO 27001, HIPAA, FedRAMP, SOC 1 and SOC 2. Among the country standards it meets are the Australia IRAP, UK G-Cloud and Singapore MTCS. Microsoft was also the first to adopt the uniform international code of practice for cloud privacy, ISO/IEC 27018, which governs the processing of personal information by cloud service providers. Microsoft’s data centre locations will give Druva 21 storage regions around the globe, including Canada and China which will help Druva meet data residency needs increasingly specified by clients, it claims.
Customers need stronger data protection and security in the cloud now they’re running sensitive workloads, according to Druva CEO Jaspreet Singh. Microsoft will broaden Druva’s cloud-related options and give customers additional choice for deploying in the cloud securely and conveniently. “Druva has quickly grown to become the de facto standard for data protection workloads in the public cloud,” said Singh.
Azure will extend the data storage footprint of Druva inSync, the analyst endpoint and cloud service data protection system. Druva inSync plans will begin at $6/user per month. Azure support will be generally available in 45 days.
OVH promises undeniable public cloud service in the UK
European hosting giant OVH has launched a public cloud service in the UK with customisable security as protection against cyber attacks becomes a major selling point alongside open systems mobility.
The service is aimed at developers, system administrators and DevOps, and promises triple data replication, hosting in European data centres and a ‘five nines’ service level agreement (SLA). The OVH Public Cloud is based on OpenStack which, says OVH, will make integrating applications, migrating to the Cloud and moving between cloud providers easier for system builders who want to keep their options open. For this reason, it will also monthly and hourly payment mechanisms so clients aren’t forced to over commit resources. Those that can make monthly payments will get a 50% discount however.
The two main offerings will be Public Cloud Instances and Public Cloud Storage.
Public Cloud Instances provides a choice between two types of virtual machines. RAM instances (starting at £25 a month) are designed for memory-hungry apps such as software as a service (SaaS), multimedia creation and managing large databases. Cloud CPU instances, at £21/month, are designed for managing processing-heavy tasks such as data analytics, computer simulations and managing peak server loads.
The Public Cloud Storage service offers high-availability object storage, to save software developers from the complications involved in setting up network file system or file transfer protocols. Classic and high-speed storage options are also available.
All the Public Cloud packages have automatic, unlimited distributed denial of service (DDoS) protection against all types and lengths of attacks, with detection and auto-mitigation and a back up service of triple data replication. All services will have access to OVH’s global fibre optic network OVH Net.
“We want UK businesses to adopt the cloud with confidence,” said Hiren Parekh, director of sales and marketing at OVH UK. “Our aim is to give users the freedom and flexibility they need as their businesses evolve.”
40% of SaaS companies use AWS to deliver their apps, according to Pacific Quest
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- 40% of SaaS companies are using Amazon Web Services (AWS) to deliver their apps today.
- Median subscription gross margins for SaaS companies in 2015 are 78%.
- Overall, SaaS companies are projecting median revenue growth of 46% in 2015.
- Channel sales and inside sales strategies delivered the highest revenue growth rates in 2014.
- Companies in the $5M – $7.5M range achieved 70% revenue growth in 2014, surpassing the median 36% growth rate last year.
These and many other insights are from the 2015 Pacific Crest SaaS Survey published by David Skok of Matrix Partners in collaboration with Pacific Crest Securities. You can download a free copy of Part I of the study here (PDF, opt-in, 72 pp).
305 SaaS companies were interviewed, 31% from international locations and 69% from North America. David Skok and Pacific Crest Securities will publish Part 2 of the results in the near future. SaaS Metrics 2.0 – Detailed Definitions provides a useful reference for many of the SaaS metrics mentioned in the study.
This year’s survey attracted an eclectic base of respondents, with median revenues of $4M a year, with 133 companies reporting less than $5M, and 57 over $25M. Annual Contract Value (ACV) across all respondents is $21K, with 17% of respondents reporting ACVs over $100K. Please see pages 3 & 4 of the study for a description of the methodology. Key takeaways from the study include the following:
- SaaS GAAP revenue growth is accelerating in 2014 and is projected to increase further in 2015 from 44% to 46%. Median revenue growth in 2014 for all survey respondents was 44%, with the aggregate projected growth for 2015 reaching 46%. When SaaS companies with less than $2.5M in revenues are excluded, median GAAP growth was 35% in 2014 and is expected to reach that same level in 2015.
- SaaS companies with mixed customer strategies are growing at 57% a year. Excluding respondent companies with less than $2.5M in revenues, a mixed customer strategy dominates all others. Concentrating on enterprises and small & medium businesses (SMBs) both drove 33% revenue growth of respondent companies this year.
- 40% of SaaS companies are using Amazon Web Services (AWS) to deliver their apps today. AWS is projected to increase to 44% three years from now, with Microsoft Azure increasing from 3% today to 6% in 3 years.
- 41% of all SaaS companies surveyed rely primarily on field sales. Factoring out the companies with less than $2.5M in revenue, field sales accounts for 32%.
- Field sales dominates as the most effective sales strategy when median deal sizes are $50K or more. In contrast, inside sales dominates $5K to $15K deal sizes, and the Internet dominates deal sizes less than $1K. The following graphic provides insights into the primary mode of sales by median initial contract size.
- 16% of new Average Contract Value (ACV) sales is from upsells, with the largest companies being the most effective at this selling strategy. One of the strongest catalysts of a SaaS companies’ growth is the ability to upsell customers to a higher ACV, generating significantly greater gross margin in the process. SaaS companies with revenues between $40M to $75M increase their ACV by 32% using upsells. Larger SaaS companies with over $75M in sales generate 28% additional ACV with upsell strategies.
- The highest growth SaaS companies are relying on upsells to fuel higher ACV. There is a significant difference between the highest and lowest growth SaaS companies when it comes to upsell expertise and execution. The following graphic provides an overview by 2014 GAAP revenue category of percent of ACV attributable to upsells.
- 60% are driving revenues with “Try Before You Buy” strategies, with 30% generating the majority of their revenues using this approach. On contrast, only 30% of companies generate revenues and ACV from freemium.
Microsoft turns off unlimited OneDrive for Office 365, blames greedy users
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It turns out unlimited does not mean unlimited after all: Microsoft has reneged on its plans to give Office 365 subscribers unlimited OneDrive cloud storage, capping each account at 1 TB.
This is perhaps being a little harsh, and isn’t a particularly egregious rewriting of the English language. Microsoft’s reason for cutting back on OneDrive and its unlimited access, available for just over a year, is that some people are just too greedy for their own good.
“Since we started to roll out unlimited cloud storage to Office 365 consumer subscribers, a small number of users backed up numerous PCs and stored entire movie collections and DVR recordings,” a OneDrive company blog post reads. “In some instances, this exceeded 75 TB per user, or 14,000 times the average.
“Instead of focusing on extreme backup scenarios, we want to remain focused on delivering high-value productivity and collaboration experiences that benefit the majority of OneDrive users,” it adds.
Suffice it to say the news has not gone down well on all sides, with many commenters , notably in the video production and photography industries, raging against the decision. It also makes an interesting comparison with a piece CloudTech published this time last year, criticising Bitcasa for binning its $10 unlimited cloud storage option and praising Microsoft for the opposite. At the time, Bitcasa blamed the shuttering on “abusers”, or in other words businesses using individual storage accounts. Now the tables have turned.
“OneDrive has always been designed to be more than basic file storage and backup,” the company post continues. “These changes are needed to ensure that we can continue to deliver a collaborative, connected, and intelligent service.”
The service is not going away immediately however; users will have a year to move their data over the 1 TB limit elsewhere, while consumers who ‘find that Office 365 no longer meets [their] needs’ will be given a pro-rated refund.
You can find out more here.
How to Turn Your Phone into a Security Camera (Infographic)
You’ve patiently waited for your contract to renew (or you not-so-patiently paid out of pocket) and got yourself a new smartphone! We all know that new phone feeling is pretty intoxicating, but what do you do with your old phone? You can’t just ditch it in the recycling bin—think of how many hours of Star Wars: […]
The post How to Turn Your Phone into a Security Camera (Infographic) appeared first on Parallels Blog.
How to Install Windows 10 in Parallels Desktop 11
Guest blog by Manoj Kumar Suresh, Parallels Support Team Windows 10 is here! It’s officially been released and it’s already much better than Windows 8, period. (Right?!) Even better, Windows 10 is a free upgrade for most Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 users, so it’s not surprising that many Windows users are upgrading—including users on […]
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Keep Your Data Active | @CloudExpo @HGSTStorage #IoT #Microservices
We all know that data growth is exploding and storage budgets are shrinking.
Instead of showing you charts on about how much data there is, in her session at 17th Cloud Expo, Barbara Murphy, Vice President of Marketing at HGST, will show you how to capture all of your data in one place. After you have your data under control, you can then analyze it in one place, saving time and resources.
See how HGST has used these solutions to gain more value out of the information we have – and capitalize on that value by delivering better products.
Building a Global IoT Community | @ThingsExpo #IoT #M2M #Microservices
The promise of IoT is to have all things connected, feeding data and pushing content and solutions. This connectivity and the data from it has the potential to provide richer customer experiences, better business results, and much more informed consumers. So what happens when we take what is personal and enhance it with technology?
Tile enables people to choose the things that matter most to them, and make those things connected. No other mass market IoT device does that at scale. In his session at @ThingsExpo, Guilherme Chapiewski, VP of Engineering at Tile, will speak about his vision for developing an IoT platform that will create opt-in communities and build networks intelligibly. Through his successful creation of Tile, Guilherme can illustrate key customer stories that demonstrate how building a strong community is essential to developing an IoT network for end users.