“For organizations just getting started the move to cloud is about rapidly turning on IT infrastructure,” said Nicos Vekiarides, CEO & Co-Founder of TwinStrata, in this exclusive Q&A with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan. “For mature organizations where IT has started to become unwieldy,” Vekiarides continued, “it is about cost and administrative savings.”
Cloud Computing Journal: The move to cloud isn’t about saving money, it is about saving time – agree or disagree?
Nicos Vekiarides: I would say that it is a combination of both.
Ramp-up time is a very important consideration for organizations deciding whether to deploy IT infrastructure locally or in the cloud. Saving time is particularly compelling for organizations in the midst of new “green field” deployments, where data center space needs to be built out. Without the need to purchase and deploy any infrastructure, cloud reduces the ramp-up cycle dramatically.
Monthly Archives: May 2013
Mobile Payment Future Is Tied to Services
Guest Post by Nick Nayfack, Director of Payment Solutions, Mercury Payment Systems
Consumers are already using their smartphones when they shop. They just need the incentive to take the next step to making a purchase with their phone. According to Google, some 79 percent of consumers today can be considered “mobile shoppers” because they use their smartphones for browsing for product information, searching for product reviews or looking for offers and promotions. Today’s merchants see their customers browsing their store with smartphones and know that mobile marketing is no longer an option, it’s an imperative.
There is a clear opportunity to target avid smartphone users, as well as provide merchants with the ability to turn their point of sale system into a marketing engine simply by capturing their customers’ phone numbers. By creating a point of sale environment where processing becomes prospecting, mobile and alternative payments become a natural extension of the convenience and value that merchants and consumers are looking for. Not only can consumer use their phones in store to gain product information or exclusive offers, they can skip the checkout line by paying with their phone. In this environment, mobile payments gain adoption because of the valuable service it provides to both the merchant and the consumer.
What is it that is driving merchants to adopt mobile point of sale systems (POS) – doubling their implementation in the past year – and consumer rapid adoption of smartphones – while mobile payments has yet to experience the same growth curve? The slow speed of adoption can be tied to two gaps in the current payment landscape: convenience and value. Merchants are adopting mobile POS systems because of their affordable pricing, the ease of use, and the ability to tie value-added services like loyalty programs and gift options to their customer’s checkout experience. Consumers are looking for more value for their money and more likely to sign up for opt-in marketing at the cash register or loyalty programs if they feel like they are getting something in return.
Where is the value in Mobile Payments today?
1. Information is Still Key
Consumers are using their phones now mostly to find product information, restaurant reviews, and discount offers. 90 percent of smartphone shoppers use their phone today for “pre-shopping” activities. The most common are price comparisons (53 percent), finding offers and promotions (39 percent), finding locations of other stores (36 percent) and finding hours (35 percent). In contrast, consumer in-store purchases from a mobile device are still in the minority (~16 percent), but show promise for fast and exponential grow. As such, if you want consumers to use your mobile payment application, there must be a tight alignment with other frequently used mobile applications (i.e. mobile search.)
2. Remember Your Basics
Key players in the mobile payments space need to make better UX by applying principles learned from the web many years ago: mobile-specific design, clear calls to action and one shopping experience across all platforms. Beyond the UX, there needs to be clear and repeatable value to the consumer. Special offers or incentives could be paired with your current purchase history to make one-click purchases attractive from mobile devices. From a historical perspective, Amazon introduced this concept several years ago in the e-commerce world with links that provided suggestive purchases based on the buyer’s current purchase (e.g. others that bought this book, also bought the following). While m-commerce has different considerations such as limited time and high distraction of users, there can be some lessons learned from the past.
3. Find Today’s Value
POS developers will succeed today, and in the future by helping merchants to obtain and analyze information about their business and customers. This requires coordinating with an acquirer or processor that has rich historical data to help analyze transaction history, and other data. In this way, merchants can then personalize the consumer experience for new cost benefits or improve operations for cost savings.
Lastly, as mobile evolves, new data points will provide richer context (e.g. location, social context, sku data) and merchants will have even more reference points to deliver a personal consumer experience. In this way, personalization is the key value that is coupled with convenience.
Nick Nayfack is the director of product for Mercury Payment Systems. He is responsible for developing best practices in mobile commerce with industry peers in order to help enable merchants and consumers to navigate technological “ease-of-use.” Nick is also a member of the Electronic Transaction Associations (ETA) Mobile payments committee.
Nimble Flashes New Private Cloud Reference Architecture Around
Nimble Storage, one of the darlings of the new storage breed – darling if for no other reason than it’s managed to collect $98 million from the VC crowd since it started in 2008 – that’s pretty darling – has been waving around the plans for a new Microsoft private cloud that’s pre-configured, turnkey and certified as a scalable on-premise infrastructure platform.
The Microsoft reference architecture involves a Nimble SmartStack for Windows Server and System Center running on Cisco’s UCS servers. It’s supposed to be good for 75 virtual machines created by Microsoft’s Hyper-V in a highly available environment.
Harnessing the Risks of Cloud | Lunchtime Discussion Panel at Cloud Expo
A 2013 McKinsey survey reported that 75% of CEOs find value for their company in cloud computing. Given the well-documented perception of risk, are these established brands now coming to cloud to leverage “brand momentum” and create a “fresh start”? What are the pitfalls as these established companies enter the cloud environment, as CEOs start to discover the power of cloud computing beyond efficiency and cost savings?
In this Lunchtime Discussion Panel at the 12th International Cloud Expo panelists will discuss the risks involved with doing business in the cloud, the competitive landscape, the impact of regulation, compliance and what our experts see as the opportunity for reward.
The Trouble with Clouds Is the Darn Hypervisor
Parallels’ CTO of server virtualization James Bottomley claims there’s an inherent tenancy problem with PaaS and SaaS clouds because most applications are designed for single occupancy.
And they’re designed for single occupancy mostly because it’s easier to write them that way, ignoring the fact that their data can leak or they can hog resources – or maybe not get enough resources – if they’re deployed in a multitenant cloud.
He figures the software industry will pretty much treat the problem the way it did the need for high availability some years back and stick its head in the sand. Single-occupancy applications won’t get rewritten to oblige multitenant clouds. ISVs are unwilling to make the investment.
Is Jive Ready to Sell Out?
Since Bloomberg blew the whistle the other day after finding out that SAP had been in talks to buy cloud-based Jive Software, but dropped the idea after deciding there was too much overlap between their product lines and Jive wouldn’t add enough market share, there’s been speculation that somebody else big will come along and scoop it up.
The names that come to mind are Oracle and IBM, even Salesforce.com, whose own social networking business software isn’t as comprehensive as Jive’s.
Jive is run by CEO Tony Zingale, who sold Mercury Interactive to HP for $4.5 billion in 2006 and Clarify to Nortel Networks for about $2.1 billion in 1999.
Jive’s market cap is currently $1.14 billion so it would take a few bucks to buy.
Forrester Research projects the market for social enterprise software will be worth $6.4 billion by 2016, up 60%.
Cloud Expo New York Speaker Profile: Nicos Vekiarides – TwinStrata
With Cloud Expo New York | 12th Cloud Expo [June 10-13, 2013] hurtling rapidly towards us, let’s start to take a look at the distinguished individuals in our incredible Speaker Faculty for the technical and strategy sessions at the conference coming up June 10-13 at the Jacob Javits Center in New York City.
We have technical and strategy sessions for you all four days dealing with every nook and cranny of Cloud Computing and Big Data, but what of those who are presenting? Who are they, where do they work, what else have they written and/or said about the Cloud that is transforming the world of Enterprise IT, side by side with the exploding use of enterprise Big Data – processed in the Cloud – to drive value for businesses…?
Cloud Expo New York: Security for Cloud Computing
Enterprises should have a clear understanding of potential security benefits and risks associated with cloud computing to set realistic expectations with their cloud provider. With this baseline knowledge, enterprises can effect changes in security and privacy that are in the best interest of the organization.
In his session at the 12th International Cloud Expo, Todd M. Moore, IBM Director – Interoperability and Partnerships, Director – OpenStack Foundation, share his experience on how to analyze and respond to the security implications for cloud computing.
Learn about the “Security for Cloud Computing: 10 Steps to Ensure Success” white paper from the Cloud Standards Customer Council and understand the strategies designed to help decision makers evaluate and compare security offerings.
Australia launches national cloud computing strategy
Steve Hodgkinson, Research Director, Public Sector Technology
The Australian government has finally embraced cloud services as a critical element of the digital economy by releasing a National Cloud Computing Strategy. While not quite “cloud first”, the strategy creates an explicit requirement for agencies to consider cloud services for new ICT procurements, test and development activity, and to migrate existing websites to cloud services at natural refresh points.
When combined with a range of other measures, this represents a significant step forward in the modernization of the government’s thinking and approach to ICT industry development and to its own procurement and use of ICT.
Cloud services – for the good of government, business, and the economy
We discussed the policy context that is driving demand for an Australian cloud computing strategy in our comment “Amazon heralds a warming of Australia’s digital economy”. The release of the National Cloud Computing Strategy …
Verio takes advantage of Parallels Plesk Panel market demand, grows 102% in cloud business
Parallels Plesk Panel 11 has gained strong adoption since its launch 12 months ago. Superior user experience, best in class performance further enhanced with NGINX integration and cloud friendly cloning features make it the preferred choice for service providers looking for a professional grade cloud panel solution. Parallels Plesk Panel 11 is the fastest growing panel product in the company’s history.
Recently Verio, a subsidiary of NTT Communications and a leading provider of innovative online business solutions to SMBs worldwide, became a Parallels Platinum partner. As part of the partnership, Verio gained access to the broad portfolio of Parallels products, research, training and support which allowed the company to deliver greater value to partners and customers.
Verio took advantage of the cloud features of Parallels Plesk Panel 11 and added Parallels Plesk Panel to its cloud offering.
Yesterday Verio announced an impressive 102 percent growth quarter over quarter for Verio Cloud. This service takes full advantage of both the exceptional user experience of the Parallels Plesk Panel as well its cloud features.
Parallels Plesk Panel 11 cloud support includes a panel cloning features that allows Verio to copy the same Parallels Plesk Panel instance to different virtual machines without compromising panel operability due to changing IP addresses and other unique entities. To support Virtual Private Server (VPS) cloning, Parallels Plesk Panel 11 includes tools for preparing images, automatic reconfiguration to new environments (including KVM, XEN, VMware, Hyper-V), and optional automated delivery of a license into a new environment.
The upcoming release of Parallels Plesk Panel 11.5 is now available in feature complete preview and will further improve customer experience. Parallels Plesk Panel 11.5 will be more secure, easier to adopt, easier to upsell, and will provide full control and industry-best usability for website owners, helping service providers like Verio to deliver new value to the cloud users.