Excitement | Today was an exciting day! You received your shiny new Converged Infrastructure package from your leading technology partner. There was a buzz surrounding the delivery, everything was magical –  the unboxing of the huge crate, the wheeling of these beautiful package into your datacenter, the plugging in and having all the servers, storage arrays and network switches instantly blink at you. It was a sight to remember.

You know, your CI package is leading edge technology that will bring unprecedented agility and efficiency to your users. Authorized users will be able to request and receive IT resources in minutes, not days and the business leaders will be thrilled by your ability to push out exciting new applications quickly. It was only 4 weeks ago that you had approved the quote and here it was facing you.

And yet no champagne corks are hitting the ceiling.

Reality | As an IT professional …

Admit it, we all thought the CD was on its way out, and it probably is. Yet if any company wishes to hold on to sales a little bit longer, it’s Amazon.

Today the firm has announced ‘AutoRip’ which offers any physical media you’ve (ever) bought to stream for free from the Cloud.

Whilst many music-lovers have already subscribed to one of the extensive-list of new generation streaming services; such as Spotify, Google Play Music, Rdio, Pandora, Xbox Music, or Deezer. Many still prefer the reliability of a good ol’ fashion disc.

This new service could be the “gateway” for the physical format generation to move online.

Picture the scene – You’ve bought a new CD on Amazon for a camping trip; maybe it’s not been delivered yet, or maybe you’ve left it at home in your hurry to get the kids in the car.

Arriving …

Earlier this week we got to speak with Sanjay Mehta, VP of Product Marketing, and Clint Sharp, Senior Product Manager, Big Data; concerning the (beta) launch of a new product, “Hunk”, making exploring data stored in Hadoop easy.

In fact, one of the taglines randomly generated on the company’s website is “taking the ‘sh’ out of IT”, solutions which work for clients in the real-world is a clear priority.

Sanjay gives an interview of the company’s background: “What we are all about is making machine-generated data accessible using a valuable to different kinds of users in an organisation.”

To re-affirm their current products are a trusted solution used by many businesses already, Sanjay states: “We have a flagship product called Splunk Enterprise, which is deployed to around 5,600 customers around the world.”

So how is Splunk’s current, industry-leading platform being used today? He explains: “It’s …

It is often said that Europeans are more conservative in their outlook with regard to change.

There are occasions when this is a useful cultural trait, like limiting the rampant commercialisation of fine heritage sites or taking care to uphold a traditional method for creating a really good cheese. But when it comes to technology resistance to change it only brings disaster.

Nowhere is this clearer than in relation to cloud computing. The “readiness for the cloud’ debate is so bound up in what we think it is today NOT what it actually delivers and the clear and unambiguous direction it is heading towards – That if they keep debating instead of doing, swathes of business will still be pontificating in empty boardrooms as the bailiffs come to take their chairs away.

For many the ‘cloud’ means re-writing their apps, putting their data somewhere outside, and in some cases it will …

Online accounts technology is putting real-time financial controls and visibility within reach of small and microbusinesses, says Xero UK managing director Gary Turner

Just like web mail or consumer-oriented sites, online accounting software is fast, simple and user-oriented, especially when compared with traditional, desktop accounts software.

Whether a small business is just starting out or enjoying rapid growth, the easy-to-use, affordable technology brings a welcome opportunity to cut down on time-consuming bookkeeping processes, as well as gain greater visibility of incomings, outgoings and cash flow forecasting.

The cloud aspect of the technology is particularly crucial: by moving to online accounts software, small business users no longer need to spend hours adding transaction data manually to benefit from a real-time view of their accounts. Instead, it is possible for them to automatically download bank statement data via automatic bank feeds.

As well as taking back financial control and keeping up-to-date with …

People, Process, Technology for Cloud Service Providers

There’s been a lot written in cloud circles about the preparations enterprises need to make to prepare for the move to cloud – but what about service providers? A lot of service providers are coming from a managed hosting, managed services or even a telco background and are now building a cloud business. The planning, provisioning, marketing & selling of cloud services can be vastly different from these more traditional IT services. Potential cloud service providers need to prepare for their transformation to cloud from a people, process and technology perspective.

People: The Who

The people part is all about understanding the diverse cloud needs that different users within your customers’ organizations will have. For example, consider the control, visibility and cost transparency requirements that IT leaders may have compared to the day to day governance and performance concerns of IT line managers. Also …

The now almost household name, Kim Dotcom, has been in consistent battle against the U.S government over his Megaupload business – in case you’ve been under a rock for over a year.

Now the case has taken a new turn as his old Dutch hosting provider LeaseWeb has wiped 600 servers containing “petabytes” of his company’s data; including legal evidence.

Kim has expressed his outrage via social networking site Twitter, including suspicions of the U.S government putting pressure on LeaseWeb to wipe the servers. The first notification he had about the deletion was Wednesday morning; yet servers had been wiped without notice on February 1.

In one of his tweets he’s quoted as saying “This is the largest data massacre in the history of the Internet caused by the US government, the Department of Justice & LeaseWeb.”

Whilst directly taking aim at the three mentioned, he compares …

Fredrik Tunvall, Analyst, Information Managment

The overriding themes of Microsoft’s latest server platform announcements delivered last week at the company’s annual TechEd conference were about design for the cloud. Announcements for Microsoft Windows Server and Systems Center 2012 R2 focused heavily on harmonizing management and deployment tools for cloud and on-premise use.

For the newly announced SQL Server 2014, it was about optimized backup and “always-on” integration with the Windows Azure cloud. With System Center, Microsoft has also taken steps toward managing mobile devices as “first-class citizens”. For the end user, Excel is promoted as a single end-user tool for query, analysis, data exploration, and data-visualization, and it is here that we also find the most BI innovation and integration efforts.

Cloud-first design

With the latest wave of releases, Microsoft has publicly committed to a new “cloud-first” policy for the design of new features for its server platforms …

The latest enterprise software forecast from Gartner shows Customer Relationship Management (CRM) increasing to a $36.5B worldwide market by 2017, a significant increase from the $20.6B forecasted in Q1 of this year.  CRM also leads all enterprise software categories in projected growth, showing a 15.1% CAGR from 2012 to 2017, also revised up from 9.7% in the Q1 forecast.

The latest round of forecasts published in the report,  Gartner Forecast: Enterprise Software Markets, Worldwide, 2012-2017, 2Q13 Update shows CRM eclipsing ERP in worldwide market size in 2017. 

The following graph compares the relative growth of CRM, ERP, Business Intelligence (BI), Supply Chain Management and Web Conferencing, Collaboration/Social Software Suites.  Source: Gartner Forecast: Enterprise Software Markets, Worldwide, 2012-2017, 2Q13 Update.  Please click on the image to increase its size for easier reading.

Key Take-Aways

• Comparing Gartner’s Q1 and Q2 CRM forecasts shows just how fast …

Aphrodite Brinsmead, Senior Analyst, Customer Experience and Interaction

Genesys is making bold moves to strengthen its position in the cloud customer service market. Following its acquisitions of Angel.com in February 2013 and, more recently, SoundBite Communications, Genesys will also offer its own suite of contact center applications in the cloud.

The new solution, Platform On-Demand, will be offered in addition to Genesys’ existing partner-led cloud solutions. It is targeted at contact centers with over 100 seats that are looking for an entire Genesys suite, as well as customers that want to add select applications in the cloud.

As the uptake of cloud contact center solutions rapidly increases, it is a logical move for Genesys to offer its own suite of contact center applications in the cloud. Although the vendor is behind its competitors in launching its own cloud offering, there is a significant opportunity in the market as customers …