The cloud’s main story so far has been one of horizontal providers, such as salesforce.com, Microsoft and Amazon, offering one-size-fits-all solutions. While these providers had some success in the financial services sector, their products weren’t specialized enough to address the needs of asset managers or bankers.
The advent of vertical SaaS providers was the topic of my latest article, Will 2014 be the Year of Vertical Clouds, written for Wired. Even though they’re a young market today, expect to see a larger number of these vertical cloud providers getting scale and attention, in 2014.
“In the days before the cloud, on-premise software providers that focused on selling into a vertical market were considered second-class citizens to the ‘big guns’ selling into the broader horizontal marketplace. However, with the advent of the SaaS model, the tables have turned,” according to Gordon Ritter of Emergence Capital.
Monthly Archives: February 2014
Linux Containers – Next-Gen Virtualization for Cloud
Want VM agility with near bare metal performance? How about [milli]second provision/stop/start/restart times? Looking to achieve greater VM density on your hardware assets, or provision applications without worry of dependency hell? Look no further than next-gen virtualization with Linux Containers.
In his session at 14th Cloud Expo, Boden Russell, an Advisory Software Engineer at IBM Global Technology Services, will provide a Linux Container technology overview including underpinnings, throttling, monitoring, tooling/commoditization, images, security, use cases, pros/cons and why containers are poised as “the next VM” in our modern cloud era. By the end of this session you will have a firm understanding of the Linux Container landscape in today’s industry and an appreciation for their realization.
90 Second Tech News Recap for the Week of 2/3/2014
Get your weekly technology new recap for the week of 1/27 in 90 seconds!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXOIAD_gFik
Download our whitepaper to learn how corporate IT can manage its environment as if it is “deployed to the cloud.” So, if and when different parts of the environment are deployed to the cloud, day-to-day management of the environment remains unchanged—regardless of where it is running: on premises or at a service provider.
Reshaping IT Organizations To Fulfill a DevOps Strategy
DevOps is an exciting and far-reaching shift in IT delivery. The promises are tempting: radically higher productivity, lower cost and more reliable systems. So I guess it’s finally time for your IT organization to get on the development-operations (DevOps) bandwagon, right? Everybody’s doing it, so don’t delay. The big question isn’t whether, but how and where do you start? First, go out and hire some DevOps people. Wait, wait – DevOps isn’t a job.
Microsoft introduces Power BI in the cloud
Fredrik Tunvall, Analyst, Software – Information Management, Tony Baer, Principal Analyst, Software – Information Management
Microsoft is betting heavily on the cloud for delivering self-service BI capabilities. Power BI builds on existing Microsoft Excel building blocks, including Power Query and Power View, to provide a single self-service client based on the familiar Excel spreadsheet as the user interface. It is a welcome simplification of Microsoft’s often confusing BI product stack that includes overlapping capabilities. The Power BI for Office 365 is priced competitively versus Tableau Online, the closest comparable product.
Making BI native to Excel
With many millions of users, Microsoft Excel is arguably the world’s most popular BI tool. With Power BI Microsoft sharpens its focus on the BI end user by leveraging the ubiquity of Excel, allowing users to load data, manage queries, visualize the answers, and manage connections to a variety of back-end data sources inside the …
2nd WebRTC Summit Registration Now Open
Registration is now open for “2ndInternational WebRTC Summit” being held June 10-12, 2014, at the Javits Center in New York City, New York.
WebRTC (Web Real-Time Communication) is an open source project supported by Google, Mozilla and Opera that aims to enable browser-to-browser applications for voice calling, video chat, and P2P file sharing without plugins. Its mission is “To enable rich, high quality, RTC applications to be developed in the browser via simple Javascript APIs and HTML5.”
ATTENTION: Important Information About Microsoft Ending Extended Support!
By Rob O’Shaughnessy,Software Licensing Specialist, Pre-Sales Technical Support
There are only a few months left before Microsoft ends its Extended Support for Windows XP, Office 2003 and Exchange 2003. On April 8, 2014 Extended Support will cease to exist. At this point you should be making arrangements to upgrade to the latest editions of Microsoft products so you can continue to receive the necessary support that Microsoft provides. If you’re looking to upgrade, here are some paths for you to take.
Windows XP Professional: Microsoft offers an upgrade price through volume licensing that allows Window XP Professional to upgrade to Windows 7/8 Professional. It’s worth noting that if you are running an older PC, you may want to test to see if it is compatible with the newer versions of Windows.
Exchange 2003: Microsoft doesn’t offer an upgrade price for Exchange; however, they do offer two options to get the latest edition of Exchange in your environment. The first is on-premise licensing of Exchange 2013. This would be loaded and managed locally and MSRP for Exchange Server is $708. In addition, each Device or User accessing Exchange would also require a Client Access License that starts at $68 for the Device Cal and $78 for the User Cal.
The other option to purchase Exchange is through Microsoft’s Cloud known as Office 365. Known as Exchange Online, this off-premise subscription license provides the same Exchange experience as on-prem but without having to have a lot of the local infrastructure in place. There are two options: Exchange Online Plan 1, which is $4 per User per Month and Exchange Online Plan 2, which adds enterprise features and is $8 per User per Month.
Office 2003: Similar to Exchange, Office doesn’t offer an upgrade price and also like Exchange, Office can be purchased as a volume license or through Office 365. The MSRP for Office Standard through volume licensing is $380 a license and for Professional Plus it’s $508. If you prefer the subscription-based model, Office Professional Plus can be purchased through Office 365 for $15 per User per Month. Office 365 requires a minimum of a year for the subscription. If you need to upgrade both Exchange and Office, Microsoft provides an Office 365 Plan that includes Office Professional Plus, Exchange Plan-2, SharePoint Plan-2 and Lync Plan-2 for $20 per User per Month. There are several volume licensing agreements and Office 365 Plans to choose from.
Last, although still a ways away, Windows Server 2003 R2 extended support will be ending on July 14, 2014.
If you are looking for assistance, here is how GreenPages can help:
Licensing: Our top notch licensing desk can assist you in understanding all the nuances of Microsoft volume licensing as well as Office 365. We can work with you to find what program fits best for your organization, help mitigate costs, and ensure your compliancy. We can run license history reports to make sure you’re appropriately licensed and review all the various licensing changes in products such as Windows, System Center and SQL.
Migrations & Professional Services: As a dual gold-competency Microsoft Service provider, GreenPages can assist you with the migration to a new client platform. This can include services to perform the following:
• Upgrading client computers from Windows XP to Windows 7/8
• Upgrading Office from 2003 to 2013
• Installing and configuring System Center technologies to incorporate upgrades to the latest technologies and implementing automated patching, remote control, software deployment, and Operating System Deployment (OSD)
Upgrading client operating systems and office packages can be the tip of the IT Iceberg. Let GreenPages help implement a lasting lifecycle management infrastructure for your environment.
When it comes to messaging, there are a number of scenarios to evaluate including
• Upgrade Exchange 2003/2007/2010 to Exchange 2013
• Migrate from Exchange to Office 365
Whether an on-premises upgrade is in your forecast, or you are ready to seize the opportunity to move toward a hybrid cloud environment and migrate to Office 365, GreenPages can help with these and other Microsoft projects.
Windows XP Countdown Foreshadows End of Support for Windows Server 2003
“Meanwhile, in Windows XP land, the countdown continues with the April deadline looming” said Jessica Davis in a recent article in MSPmentor. “Reports say that the XP installed base has dipped below 30 percent for the first time, while comments on this same story speculate that the numbers are much higher still. Meanwhile, if you have customers with XP machines still in place, you need to be worrying how you will secure those after the deadline. Microsoft Security Essentials for Windows XP is sharing the same dead date with the OS it supports, according to this report.”
IoT Service Revenues to Reach $20 Billion
A new report from Juniper Research has forecast that Machine to Machine (M2M)) service revenues will reach $20 billion globally in 2015, as players across the M2M industry focus on simplifying the process of rolling out M2M for the end-user. However, the report — M2M & Embedded Strategies: Telematics, POS, mHealth, Metering & Buildings 2013-2018 — observed that the monetisation opportunities offered by M2M services differ significantly according to the industry to which it is being applied. Thus, while telematics is particularly positive, smart metering, despite high forecast numbers and regulatory drivers, is still struggling to find an avenue for revenue generation. However, in all sectors, service revenues will substantially exceed revenues from managing connectivity throughout the forecast period.
The Internet of Things Have Transformed How We Think
I spent last week working with four brilliant technology analysts in Chicago. It was -40 degrees Fahrenheit with the windchill. Who would schedule a meeting in Chicago mid-winter? Even in the conference room it was cold, and we were all wearing coats and scarves! It made for a great adventure and after a brief 36 hour delay in my flight, I am back in the home office. What did I learn last week? For starters, more words to add to my vocabulary. I learned how to use words like gravitas and nascent. Two words rarely used in Boise, Idaho. “That potato farmer has both expertise and gravitas, and he is always looking for nascent varieties of spuds.” Sorry, can’t say I have ever heard that said. I did, however, learn a great deal about how real analysts work and organize their research projects. They taught me much about where technology is today, and where it is rapidly going over the next two years.