Managed IT services wasn’t even a phrase until the early 2000s and, today, there are over 75,000 IT service providers in North America alone. By 2020, there are going to be 50 billion connected devices, and managed IT services might cease to be a phrase again. Unless the MPSs adapt to the new, connected world, we are going to see diminishing returns in that space.
In his session at @ThingsExpo, Kirill Bensonoff, CEO of Unigma, will discuss the different opportunities IoT will create for MSPs and IT service providers – from on-site services, to monitoring, managing and consulting.
Monthly Archives: April 2016
Salesforce and Dropbox launch on Facebook’s messenger platform
Salesforce and Dropbox are two of the first to launch service offerings on Facebook’s new messenger platform.
According to Facebook, Messenger is one of the industry’s fastest growing apps, increasing user rates from 500 million in 2014 to 900 million today. The company have now introduced a number of bot services on the app, allowing businesses to communicate with their customers providing anything from automated subscription content like weather and traffic updates, to customized communications like receipts, shipping notifications, and live automated messages.
“Using Salesforce, businesses are now able to engage with their customers on Facebook Messenger in a whole new way – in fact, Salesforce enables each Messenger interaction to be specifically tailored, based on the context of the entire customer relationship,” said Paul Smith, GM of Salesforce Marketing Cloud in EMEA. “When you remember that most companies are now competing primarily on the customer experience they can deliver, you can begin to see the massive impact of opening up this new channel to businesses: brands will be able to create deeper, more personal 1-to-1 customer journeys within chat. It’s another way in which we’re helping companies to succeed in the Age of the Customer.”
Powered by Salesforce Lightning, the platform will enable customers to deliver personalized engagement at scale with CRM data. The company claims that each message can be linked directly to a customer’s history in the Salesforce CRM platform, enabling brands to deliver personalized messages to customers. The news builds on trends within the industry as vendors aim to create increasingly personalized experiences for customers as a means of meeting the expectations of increasing demanding consumers.
“Now with Messenger, Facebook is inviting companies to engage their customers in new ways on its platform at scale,” said Alex Dayon, Chief Product Officer at Salesforce. “With Salesforce for Messenger companies will be able to easily connect their businesses to Messenger, creating deeper, more personalized and 1-to-1 customer journeys within the chat experience.”
Dropbox has also taken advantage of Facebook’s new platform to increase its own offering. As part of the proposition, users can share files stored on Dropbox’s cloud-storage service directly through Facebook’s messenger app.
“We want people to communicate just the way they want to on Messenger, with everyone they care about,” said Stan Chudnovsky, Head of Product for Messenger at Dropbox on the company’s blog. “Giving our users the ability to share their Dropbox videos and images in Messenger threads with just a few taps will help them bring more style and personality to those conversations.”
While the news has grabbed headlines in a very effective manner, it remains to be seen whether Facebook can police the platform in a way that satisfies consumers. The platform could essentially be seen as an upgrade on SMS advertising which was received coldly by consumers after the initial enthusiasm declined.
[session] What Is a No Code/Low Code Platform? By @ProgressSW | @CloudExpo #Cloud
Low-code platforms are an important strategy to create all sorts of applications extremely quickly and at a drastically reduced cost.
Additionally, they enable building applications that would never have been created in the first place due to cost, time constraints, or lack of expertise.
In his session at 18th Cloud Expo, Thierry Ciot, Software Architect at Progress, will talk about why low code platforms are emerging, what opportunities they create and why they help build responsive and adaptive applications that users really want.
6 Benefits of a Cloud-Based Intranet
As cloud technology continues to enter business operations, services and platforms that were formerly strictly on-site solutions are developing new opportunities for businesses looking to expand into internet-based computing. Intranets are the perfect example: rather than having to install and maintain a comprehensive platform on your servers, businesses looking to enhance their employee communication can now take advantage of cloud solutions instead.
Especially for larger enterprises looking for internal marketing and employee collaboration tools, intranets continue to gain popularity. If your business can is looking to establish an internal presence, here are 6 benefits of a cloud-based intranet you should consider.
1) Intranet Benefits For Your Business
First, let’s examine the general benefits of intranet platforms as they relate to your business. Cloud-based or on-premise, these platforms help businesses of all sizes improve their internal communication and collaboration.
Increasingly, organizations are realizing just how important internal marketing is to succeed in a competitive market place. By treating employees as a valuable marketing audience, organizations can grow workers into brand advocates that will spread positive messages about the business to their family and friends.
In addition, intranets help to engage employees and create a connection between workers and their daily tasks through enhancing collaboration and providing productivity tools. Studies show that employees who are happy at their jobs are significantly more productive than their counterparts, ultimately driving business growth.
2) Accessibility of Cloud-Based Intranets
Many of the general benefits of intranets are amplified in cloud-based platforms. For example, a platform that is not hosted on your internal servers is accessible from anywhere in the world. Particularly if your employees travel frequently or work from a variety of locations, they may require access to collaboration tools or the internal company blog regardless of location. Cloud-based intranet enables that access, increasing both use of the platform and the resulting collaboration.
As millennials are beginning to enter the workforce, global accessibility will continue to rise in importance. Recent research has shown that younger generations are more likely to believe that working remotely increases their productivity and motivation, increasing the need for collaboration software that is accessible in locations other than company headquarters.
Experienced users in cloud technology will be familiar with this argument. Global accessibility remains one of the core benefits of cloud computing as a whole, and naturally extends to cloud intranets. Accessibility regardless of location means increased flexibility and convenience, which are both crucial parts in helping your employees conduct their work and collaborate successfully and efficiently.
3) Scalability of Operations
No business is stagnant. Ideally, your goal in establishing an intranet system within your company is to increase employee productivity, which will in turn result in business growth. But can your intranet handle larger operations?
The answer to that question, of course, depends. An on-premise solution may only be configured for a certain number of users and storage capacity. Increasing each variable is most likely possible, but will require additional resources, time commitment, or both.
A cloud-based solution, on the other hand, is more easily scalable. Designed to grow with the company for which it runs, a cloud-based intranet generally offers unlimited users and storage that could not be supported by limited on-site servers. If and when your business grows, its intranet will grow alongside it.
4) Existing IT Constraints
Anyone who has experienced a major software implementation knows just how time and resource-intensive the process is. That is no different for on-premise intranet software, which will require both expertise and extensive work hours to install, secure, and maintain. Many companies simply do not have an IT department ready and willing to take on that work.
Unless your IT division is willing to take on and take lead for your intranet, both during implementation and for continuous maintenance, your options are limited. Many companies hire an intranet specialist specifically for this task, which will both lengthen the implementation phase and put a further strain on your resources. A cloud-based solution, on the other hand, eliminates the need for dedicated IT resources and frees your technical department up for other aspects of your business.
5) Low Set Up Costs
Any potential intranet buyer or influencer should understand the differences in pricing models between the two alternatives. Cloud-based intranet relies on an SaaS model, meaning that it will cost a contracted monthly fee to maintain and update. On-premise software, on the other hand, usually comes with a high upfront cost to buy the software license, train employees, and any overhead caused by the implementation process.
Which of the two alternatives can your business afford? Especially if only limited resources are available, the answer is most likely to be the SaaS model. Our clients tend to think of it as a payment plan: no one has the money to buy their house up front, so a mortgage is a natural solution. Similarly, cloud-based intranet will enable you to implement the software without coming up with a large chunk of budget immediately.
6) Streamlined Training Opportunities
With on-premise software, ownership and responsibility lies with you. Either marketing or IT will need to train employees, ensuring software adoption and maximum functionality as early as possible. That can be especially difficult given that the leads in charge of training are only learning the software themselves.
A cloud-based intranet, on the other hand, offers more streamlined training opportunities. Because the software is used by many other businesses, your provider likely has an established library or knowledge base of tutorials and training modules available for your use. That, in turn, enables you to streamline your training, ensuring that your employees will learn the software comprehensively and successfully.
Understanding the Drawbacks of Cloud-Based Intranets
At the same time, businesses looking to establish an intranet powered by cloud computing should understand that while the benefits are undeniable, certain disadvantages do exist. When compared to on-site solutions, it’s important to keep the following drawbacks in mind:
- Continuous Costs. While the initial set up costs are much lower than for on-premise intranet solutions, you will need to plan in costs after the initial deployment. Cloud-based intranet is an SaaS solution, meaning that you will be paying a monthly fee for storage, maintenance, and upkeep.
- Less Control. You will rely on software used by other companies, rather than a custom solution for your business. That means you rely on external service, rather than internal professionals for any maintenance and trouble shooting. Software updates will be initiated by the provider, rather than your IT department.
Is a Cloud-Based Intranet Right For Your Business?
Ultimately, that question depends on your individual business situation. You may have a robust IT team that is happy and eager to take on management and maintenance of your on-premise solution. Or you may prefer paying a large sum up front for more flexibility later. But in reality, most businesses with tight budgets, limited IT capabilities, and a mobile workforce should at least consider the thought of a cloud-based intranet solution. The benefits are undeniable, and can help you improve your employee productivity significantly.
Through partnering with MyHub, your business can take advantage of the many opportunities provided by intranets without the requirements necessary to install and maintain an on-premise solution.
Written by Frederik Schrader Search Engine Marketer at MyHub Intranet
HPE targets SMB hybrid cloud market
HPE has launched ProLiant Easy Connect Managed Hybrid, a new offering designed for small and mid-sized businesses, educational institutions and branch offices.
As part of the offering, customers will receive an on premise server, as well as public cloud computing capabilities through HPE. The proposition is the first from the company’s Easy Connect portfolio, which will eventually be a collection of product offerings with the aim of making cloud adoption easier for smaller organizations.
“Small businesses want to focus on growing their core businesses, not spending their limited resources on deploying and managing IT,” said McLeod Glass, GM for SMB solutions at HPE. “This new solution is part of a broad HPE initiative, inspired by the unique needs of small and mid-sized businesses, to deliver innovative solutions that are easy for our channel partners to sell and easy for our customers to use.”
While the cloud market has to date focused on implementation in enterprise size organizations, there have been a number of plays for the SMB market in recent weeks, including from Go Daddy and Microsoft. Although the SMB market does not offer the same level of contracts as those in enterprise scale organizations, it could turn into a potentially lucrative segment. Research from BCSG highlighted that adoption levels are rising healthily.
The finding stated 64% of SMB’s are currently using at least one cloud solution to help them run their business, though the average number of cloud services was in fact three. 78% of the market is considering increasing the number of services they currently consume and by 2017, BCSG estimate that 88% will be using at least one service, and the average number of services consumed per company will be seven.
The ProLiant Easy Connect Managed Hybrid is marketed on the idea of simplicity of use for the customers, through it is not clear how large or significant the Easy Connect portfolio will be on the whole.
“Organizations of all sizes are transforming their IT to a hybrid mix of private and cloud technology,” said Nick East, co-founder and CEO of Zynstra, who’s virtualisation and cloud management software will be used in the offering.
“Together with HPE, we’ve done the heavy lifting for SMBs and their IT partners. This small form factor solution delivers the right business value without compromise or complexity, and is integrated with and managed centrally from the cloud. It’s how IT should be.”
Has SaaS Become Mission Critical for You? By @Catchpoint | @CloudExpo #Cloud
Software as a Service has been around for a while. In its early years—late 1990s-early 2000s—it was mostly aimed at individual and departmental use, but in more recent years SaaS has been deployed at the enterprise level. There are companies that don’t use anything else.
In the beginning, SaaS was used by companies more for productivity applications like web conferencing, managing travel expenses and sales contacts, or time-tracking than for core business applications.
Two in three OpenStack deployments are in production, argues new research
(c)iStock.com/samxmeg
Almost two thirds (65%) of OpenStack deployments are now in production, up 33% from this time last year, according to the latest user survey by the OpenStack Foundation.
The report, the seventh of its kind and featuring responses from more than 1,600 users, finds organisations are moving towards OpenStack as the default open source infrastructure as a service (IaaS) API.
Not surprisingly, IT (68%) is where the largest number of OpenStack bods are based, followed by telecoms (14%) and academia (9%), yet interestingly the figures also found OpenStack was used among organisations of all sizes. 17% of the community polled had between 10 and 99 employees, while 16% had a behemoth 100,000 workers or more. Despite this wide range of responses, only half (52%) said they would recommend the open source platform to a friend, in classic Net Promoter Score style. 37% were ‘passive’ and 11% were ‘detractors’, although it is worth noting scores of 80% or higher were considered as a pass.
Among the reasons to recommend OpenStack, according to the report, were good community support – including the speed and agility of which changes are pushed through – and avoiding vendor lock in, while fragmented governance, difficulty in deployment and project complexity were among the detracting features. Peculiarly, both an increase in stability and a lack of stability were cited.
In terms of technologies deployed, the report saw little change, but containerisation continues to ride high. The use of platform as a service (PaaS) and container orchestration in particular saw significant changes, with Kubernetes moving ahead of CloudFoundry to become the top PaaS tool.
Overall however, the prognosis remains good. “Being a flexible framework to build on is the most important aspect of the OpenStack platform,” said one unnamed user. “Also, being able to support both traditional and cloud-native workloads is very important because large enterprises don’t have the luxury of dropping their legacy applications and forklifting them into the microservices-type designs from day one.
“The benefits of the cloud are too great to only allow new workloads onto the platform.”
The figures from the OpenStack Foundation correlate with recent survey data from cloud software provider Talligent, which found OpenStack adoption was going up and being increasingly seen as a cost effective alternative to public clouds.
Are decision makers thinking too short-term for cloud benefits?
While cloud adoption maybe hitting the mainstream, the majority of projects are focused primarily around increasing productivity of employees through automation as opposed to the greater benefits of cloud computing.
Speaking at Cloud World Expo, Rashik Parmar, IBM’s Lead Cloud Advisor, highlighted that the benefits of cloud maybe currently underplayed by some organizations, as projects are initially too focused on productivity advantages. While automation could build an effective business case for cloud implementation, benefits such as performance and business predictability are often overlooked until projects are more mature.
“With performance we talk about speed. It’s the timing in which it takes to change, drive innovation in the market place and accelerate the way you deliver value to you customers,” said Parmar. “Predictability is one we often don’t think about. With the cloud you start to be able to understand the kind of outcomes you can achieve well before you put them out there. It’s that ability to be able to predict those outcomes and be confident that this particular journey is going to deliver value that gives people the inspiration and the ability to invest in cloud projects.”
Parmar highlighted that cloud is more than simply a tool for automation of software, but also the access to data, which has been healthily increased by the wider adoption of IoT technologies. Advances in cognitive computing are now enabling businesses to drive decision making through automation, taking time consuming tasks away from employees to ensure they can concentrate on core tasks.
“What we’re now starting to get into is a stage of machine learning, a stage of cognitive computing which allows us to see some of the broader patterns and automate further,” said Parmar. “Tasks which were being handed to humans are being replaced by automation. Radiography is a good example. A radiographer looks at an x-ray and decides whether there is a crack or a hairline fracture, and these are quite hard to automate without human skills. With the new cognitive capabilities and picture recognition analytics, we can use machine learning to pick out these anomalies and automate these tasks.”
While the initial benefits of cloud will always be automation and therefore and increase in productivity, as organizations mature through their cloud journey’s the long-term potential of cloud becomes more apparent.
IBM’s position would appear to be on the advanced side of cloud computing, seemingly wanted to accelerate customers through the adoption process and through to the performance and predictability benefits sooner rather than later. Though this does leave the question of how many organizations would be in a position digitally to capitalize on such concepts currently. Can organizations be fast-tracked to the advanced stages of cloud computing or does there have to be an internal learning curve? Could this be a case of IBM trying to encourage customers to walk before they can crawl?
Taking Back IT – DevOps | @DevOpsSummit #IoT #DevOps #Microservices
We have been indoctrinated in the last 3 decades of IT to believe that a system slowdown, outage, failure, change, or anything that has material potential impact is intrinsically bad. Yet, on the software side we have been told to “fail fast, fail cheap” to “develop in production” to release and iterate and build as fast as possible without fear of the potential failure. And why? Because its the only way to keep pace with the demands that the business, the market, the consumer, and our customers place on us.
UK businesses at threat of losing IT talent
EMC has released a new study highlighting UK businesses are at risk of losing IT talent due to underappreciation of technology in the business on the whole.
The Great Skills Exodus report claims decision makers are failing to prioritise IT as a business enabler, while 88% of IT workers believe the growth and success of their organisation is fundamentally reliant on technology. Frustrations from the IT department can be linked to a lack of transformation in the company they work for as 26% has witnessed an unwillingness to change the way ‘things have always been done’ from the management team.
“IT has got to become a key aspect of the business strategy, not merely a function of the overall business,” said Ross Fraser, UK&I Country Manager at EMC. “Technology is potentially the definitive aspect of any business but it can be seen as a supportive function by a substantial amount of organizations at the moment. Decision makers now have to rethink what they are doing as the process of IT and move with the times.”
While there has been encouraging progress in the adoption of cloud technologies in recent months, it would appear board level decision makers are not realizing the full potential of the technology itself. Cloud as a technology could be perceived as now penetrating the mass market, though the digitally enabled business model, required to activate cloud for its greatest potential, could be seen as lagging.
“If you want to modernize, automate and transform your infrastructure, whether than means on premise or off premise, you have to embrace the idea of new IT,” said Fraser. “There are a few companies where their future probably depends on how well they embrace future IT and I think that there is also a lack of understanding that if they don’t embrace it they will come under huge amounts of pressure and competitive threats because they are not competitive enough as a business.”
Among the concerns put forward by respondents in the survey, 20% feel held back by their organisation’s restrictions on implementing new technologies, 30% feel they have few opportunities to demonstrate their ability, and less than 20% believe their organization has a significant focus on IT as a means of driving innovation.
“The worst case scenario could be that they won’t exist, think about Kodak or Blockbuster,” said Fraser. “Now this is on an extreme level but it does demonstrate how disruptive the digital business model is. It could mean death by a thousand cuts, but if you don’t get the technology question right it could mean major problems in the long run. Every business has the digital challenge, but if they get it right from a technology perspective it creates a workforce which sees where they are working is an important aspect of the business, they start to see career progression and new opportunities.”
EMC believe a stronger and more consistent message throughout the organization on technology, would not only provide the organization with a more competitive position in the market, but also highlight the importance of IT as a function to the on-going success, ensuring employee retention would be increased.
“Technology is at the heart of business transformation and the IT team is ideally placed to help any organisation navigate new opportunities and threats in the market,” said Fraser. “With employment of IT professionals forecast to grow at 1.62 percent per year by 2020, businesses must ensure that they offer the most compelling career opportunities in order to retain the best staff, or risk losing as many as three quarters of their IT team in the coming months – something which would have a hugely detrimental impact on any organisation.”