A study that took place last year predicted the managed services provider (MSP) market to nearly double over the next five years.  The study, by research and consulting firm MarketsandMarkets, forecast a jump in the market from $142.75 billion in 2013 to $256.05 billion in 2018. The study includes managed data centers, networks, mobility, infrastructure, communications, security and other areas in the managed services market.

This study seems to fly in the face of many who predict negative effects on MSPs from the growth of cloud computing.  However, there are signs of an emerging symbiotic relationship where both MSPs and cloud-based services are growing in lockstep.

The core problem that MSPs solve is the ability to outsource some or all of an enterprise’s IT operations to service providers that allow more direct control over the infrastructure and application services.  While all MSPs differ in how they provide …

A US judge has ruled that US-based providers must hand over customer emails even if they are stored in a location overseas.

The decision comes amidst a challenge from Microsoft with regard to an Ireland-based customer, claiming that as the US government does not have jurisdiction overseas the company should not be forced to disclose user data.

Yet Judge James C. Francis has dismissed this claim, further jeopardising the data security of US cloud providers.

Judge Francis explained the issue at stake. “Federal courts are without authority to issue warrants for the search and seizure of property outside the territorial limits of the United States,” he noted. “Therefore, Microsoft concludes, to the extent that the warrant here requires acquisition of information from Dublin, it is unauthorised and must be quashed.

He continued: “That analysis, while not inconsistent with the statutory language, is undermined by the structure of the SCA (Stored …

IBM has announced the launch of the IBM Cloud Marketplace, with Big Blue putting all its cloudy apps and software in one place in what the company calls “the next major step in IBM’s cloud leadership.”

The usual suspects are all there, from 100 SaaS apps, to the newly-launched PaaS developer offering BlueMix, to IaaS package SoftLayer. IBM has categorised each part of the marketplace appropriately – Biz, described as “enterprise-grade business apps to accelerate innovation” (SaaS), to Dev (PaaS) and Ops (IaaS).

Some might argue IBM is a little late to the party here, with Salesforce.com already established in the app store front, and other hyper-vendors such as HP more recently getting on board.

Yet this offering is an enterprise app store, but with a little extra on top. As Dominique Vernier, global IT architect for IBM cloud, explains in a blog post: “It is a real, single …

SAP’s first quarter 2014 figures, released last week, revealed that while the tech giant’s cloud subscription numbers were going up, its software revenues continue to stall.

This will come as no surprise to those who have been following events with the German firm, who indirectly prophesised this outcome back in January with the Q413 numbers sheet.

At the time, SAP said in a statement that the ‘fast-growing cloud business along with growth in support revenue will drive a higher proportion of more predictable, recurring revenue in the future.’

As CloudTech reported, SAP VP cloud strategy Sven Denecken noted that the goal was to provide customers with “the right mix” between mobile, cloud and on-premise.

The numbers published last week reflect this. Revenue for cloud subscriptions and support went up to €219m, up 60% from Q113’s €137m (£112.8m). On-prem software revenues went down 5% to €623m (£513 …

The Internet of Things (IoT) is not some future concept, nor is it just around the corner; it has been here for some time, and it’s growing. Fueled by the expansion of wireless and cloud computing technology, more things are now connected to the internet than people. That’s all people, not just people on the internet.

What are these “things” which make up the Internet of Things? The IoT is not limited to smartphones and tablets, laptops and desktops. Every year, more and more devices are released capable of internet access, exponentially expanding the universe of internet of things devices.

Heart monitors and insulin pumps generate real-time data available to healthcare professionals caring for patients. Cattle ranchers can monitor cows in the field, not only pinpointing their location, but also identifying those who are pregnant. Power stations, remote pumps feeding oil and gas lines, and even entire assembly …

SAP’s recent user event in Orlando, Florida, organized and co-hosted by WIS Pubs, drew 1,800 attendees, all keen to learn new developments surrounding SAP’s BI and HANA in-memory analytics offerings. The key theme revolved around HANA as a platform for driving business innovation through technology and process disruption – clearly, HANA continues to sit front and center in SAP’s product strategy.

SAP’s challenge is to accelerate adoption by encouraging, not forcing, undecided customers towards HANA without clear and safe migration paths, but it should remember that its IT buyers are relatively conservative and will consider new technology options and changes at their own pace, not SAP’s.

HANA both creates and solves business disruption

SAP continues to reinvent itself as an innovative software-maker. At this event it emphasized business innovation through technological disruption. SAP’s efforts to position HANA as both technological disruptor and a solution …

The first part of this infographic supplies information about how much the cloud computing industry was worth in 2008 and how much it is worth today.

In the second bit there is data from Forbes Magazine about the number of people using some form of cloud computing platform and the most used platforms.

In the next section there are statistics about the future of cloud computing like; in the next 5 years, hybrid clouds are expected to represent 43% of the market.

Finally there is a chart that shows which types of data are most often stored on the cloud including notes & research, music, calendars and more.

Here is the infographic, feel free to share it with your friends on FB or Twitter.

Infographic by Eclipse Internet

A survey report published on the ExpertIP blog late last year showed that enterprise CIOs see big data as the technology that will cause the biggest organizational impact over the next few years. However, given the complexity of the systems involved, only 40% of the CIOs are expected to rise up to the big data challenge by 2017.

One area where big data is expected to be a game changer is in cloud adoption.

A recent Technology Business Review study showed that big data analytics has helped in significantly driving the revenues of the top cloud service providers over the past few years. Their study found the cloud market to be a $15.1 billion market during the fourth quarter of 2013. This growth has been primarily through the adoption of big data analytics.

Take the example of Salesforce.com. According to the TBR report, companies like Salesforce and enterprise …

The latest Red Hat Summit taking place in San Francisco from April 14 to 17 has resulted in several product launches, partnerships and collaborations. CloudTech has gobbled up the releases and put together a summary of the essential material.

Day one saw the launch of the OpenShift Marketplace, a software store which allows Red Hat customers to access complementary third party solutions from partners for the open source provider’s PaaS offering, OpenShift.

With this unveiling Red Hat joins an ever-growing list of companies with their own app store solution, in this case providing enterprise-grade PaaS to customers of all sizes.

Anything which helps developers is usually a good sign, particularly important for Red Hat given the company’s open source heritage. Several partners have already been signed up, with ClearDB, MongoLab and SendGrid among the more recognisable names.

“As the OpenShift partner ecosystem continues to expand, we expect the …

It seems that the days of fear, uncertainty and doubt surrounding cloud adoption will soon be well and truly behind us.

The majority of industry sectors have either already implemented, or have begun investigating, cloud services. Even the most security-conscious sectors are beginning to take their first steps into cloud computing as we have seen with central government and banking.

Cloud adoption in the UK is continuing to rise, with end user satisfaction soaring due to the flexibility and cost-savings cloud services offer. But despite adoption levels growing rapidly over the past few years, it is only recently that the legal sector has begun to give cloud services serious consideration.  

Due to the very nature of law firms, the storage of sensitive information in an external environment has naturally been met with some caution. While early-movers have been experimenting with cloud services for some time now, the majority of the …