VMware Cloud is now available on Amazon Web Services (AWS) in Europe, meaning businesses can take advantage of locally-hosted services to migrate their cloud services and hybrid cloud deployments.

The two companies explained this will speed up the process of migrating and deploying workloads, as well as having obvious benefits for industries requiring locally-hosted infrastructure.

The first European zone to launch will be the AWS EU (London) region, with Frankfurt due to launch later this year, alongside Asia Pacific.

“Since launching VMware Cloud on AWS just six months ago, we’ve seen tremendous interest from our global customer base and multi-national enterprises,” Mark Lohmeyer, vice president and general manager of VMware’s cloud platform business unit, said.

“Today marks an essential starting point for our global expansion to deliver unparalleled hybrid cloud services in major geographies around the world.”

AWS said the launch was a result of customer demand, with businesses in the healthcare, transportation, financial services, manufacturing, oil & gas, government, education, professional services, and technology sectors already using the cloud service to store their VMware tools.

“Working together, VMware and AWS are delivering deeper AWS integration so that customers won’t have to manage their own storage and database services,” said Matt Garman, vice president of AWS Compute Services.

As well as announcing VMware Cloud on AWS launching in Europe, VMware also revealed new services in its cloud portfolio, including VMware Hybrid Cloud Extension Service for Private Cloud to help businesses migrate and deploy their apps across different vSphere versions, on-premises and in the cloud.

Expanded Wavefront is VMware’s effort to provide a metrics monitoring and analytics platform that supports a range of public and private cloud infrastructure, including VMware Cloud on AWS, with 45 new integrations that can be monitored by Wavefront.

VMware’s Log Intelligence Service offers operational insights into VMware-based data centres and VMware Cloud on AWS, helping businesses troubleshoot and log activity on cloud platforms using machine learning and dashboards, while Expanded VMware Cost Insight Service calculates the cost and capacity demands of running VMware Cloud on AWS workloads in private or public clouds.

“The need to support a complex set of new and existing applications is driving cloud adoption, and the needs of the applications are driving cloud decisions,” said Raghu Raghuram, chief operating officer of products and cloud services at VMware.

“VMware Cloud gives customers unprecedented flexibility to develop any type of application, deploy these apps to any cloud, and deliver them to any device while leveraging a consistent infrastructure across clouds and a consistent set of operations across any cloud.”

The UK ranks fourth out of the 24 top-performing countries for cloud readiness, a report by BSA | The Software Alliance has revealed, rising five places compared to 2016.

The company’s annual Global Cloud Computing Scorecard study explained that the UK’s legal and regulatory environment meant it was one of the major players in the worldwide cloud marketplace, which means it’s a leader in cloud innovation alongside Germany, Japan and the US.

The Scorecard determines a country’s ranking according to a range of different factors, with privacy and cybersecurity and broadband infrastructure three of the major considerations.

“The Scorecard is a tool that can help countries constructively self-evaluate their policies and determine next steps to increase adoption of cloud computing,” Victoria Espinel, president and CEO of BSA | The Software Alliance said. “Cloud computing allows anyone to access technology previously available only to large organizations, paving the way for increased connectivity and innovation.”

The UK was able to rank so high up the chain compared to previous years not only because it’s updating its laws and regulations to comply with GDPR, but has also introduced other safeguards such as the National Cyber Security Strategy in 2016, making it the highest performing country for the security ranking. The UK is also a signatory of the Convention on Cybercrime and has up-to-date laws for protecting e-commerce and electronic signatures.

IT Readiness and Broadband Deployment accounted for 25% of the overall score, as it’s the basis of a solid IT strategy. The UK ranked highly thanks to its national broadband strategy to roll out superfast broadband to 95% of the population by 2018, although its scores for fibre-to-the-home were lower than the average, with just 1% of households (compared to the average of 18%) having a subscription.

“Countries that embrace the free flow of data, implement cutting-edge cybersecurity solutions, protect intellectual property, and establish IT infrastructure will continue to reap the benefits of cloud computing for businesses and citizens alike,” Espinel added.

Microsoft has announced plans to integrate its Azure Stack with Azure Government later this year, allowing US agencies to run Microsoft’s cloud services on their own private infrastructure.

At present, Microsoft has a huge array of central government clients, including the Small Business Administration (SBA), US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), the US Air Force and many of the USA’s city and state governments.

“Azure Stack is an extension of Azure, and government customers can leverage these powerful hybrid capabilities to bring core and advanced cloud services to the edge, whether it’s field office, tank or aircraft,” Natalia Mackevicius, director of Azure Stack, said.

“With Azure Stack, it becomes possible to process data in the field without worrying about latency or internet connectivity, and then run aggregated analytics in Azure Government to get the most precise predictions and anomaly detections. In each of the scenarios, a hybrid cloud extends from enterprise to the tactical edge, which can be connected or offline or disconnected environments.”

Adding the capability to run its entire stack on private servers means the public sector can benefit from all of Microsoft’s cloud-based services, with the peace of mind their data will remain on-site, in a government-secure datacentre.

Everything can be managed from one place, including identity, subscription, billing, backup and disaster recovery and the Azure Marketplace for access to even more apps and services. Enabling Azure Stack on Azure Government also means government IT departments can easily switch between public, government-only, and on-premise cloud environments depending on their specific needs at any time (for example, if there’s a specific cyber threat or geopolitical changes).

“Microsoft is already unique in providing consistent, comprehensive hybrid cloud capabilities to government, and we’re advancing those capabilities by bringing Microsoft Azure Stack to Azure Government,” Julia White, corporate vice president of Azure, said in a blog post, explaining Microsoft’s decision.

‘This is a game-changing hybrid solution that delivers consistency across public, government-only, and on-premises cloud environments to enable advanced services to power government’s tactical missions and make the intelligent edge a reality.”

Azure Stack’s integration with Azure Government will be completed by the middle of this year.

Main image credit: Bigstock

Hershey’s has chosen Accenture to implement its SAP S/4 HANA software, enabling the confectionery company to build a more streamlined manufacturing and supply chain process.

Another major aspect of the collaboration is to help the candy company gain better insights into customer behaviour to power its wider business strategy, whether that’s boosting customer interaction, experience or engagement. Using SAP S/4 HANA,  Hershey’s hopes to boost innovation and drive revenue growth as it sets out to increase margins from its confectionery.

“Our collaboration with Accenture will enable us to increase competitive advantage and support our growth ambition through greater collaboration and innovation, as well as service delivery built around the needs of our customers,” said Terry O’Day, chief product supply and technology officer for The Hershey Company.

“We selected Accenture for its understanding of our industry, technology credentials and proven track record in delivering enterprise transformation at scale.”

Implementing S/4 HANA, SAP’s ERP successor to Business Suite that runs on the vendor’s fast data-processing platform, is a major part of Hershey’s digital transformation strategy, which it explained will help the business be more competitive by using S/4 to find key insights to inform its wider strategy.

“Accenture has always been at the forefront of helping consumer packaged goods companies accelerate their adoption of new ways of working and new operating models,” Keith Barringer, who leads Accenture’s Consumer Goods & Services practice in North America, said. “This opportunity enables us to bring our vast experience to Hershey’s as it navigates its journey to a more agile organisation.”

Picture: Shutterstock

Salesforce has announced Conversational Queries, part of its Einstein Analytics platform that is designed to make it easier to query data.

The new feature recognises what you’re typing as you tap your question out, making the process of firing off queries more automated. For example, a user can start typing a common phrase they may use to find the information they need – like “show me top accounts by annual revenue” – and the information they’re looking for will appear. As the user types, the suggested question will pop up, like Google’s automated search query suggestions.

Previously, finding such information would mean waiting for the results to appear after querying the database, but this way, it means Salesforce knows what you’re going to type and so has the content prepped, ready to appear in a graph.

“Traditionally, the process of creating charts has taken an average of 12 clicks and required a deeper understanding of chart building — how to create filters and what measures should go on each axis,” Amruta Moktali, VP of product for Einstein Analytics, wrote in a blog post. “Conversational Queries offers a new way to explore data and get answers to questions faster, eliminating clicks and the training required to create and drill down into charts.”

It also keeps a tab on all of the questions you’ve asked, meaning you can browse back through them without having to put a new query to the database.

“Conversational Queries is going to be a huge game-changer in the AI and BI space,” Rick Nania, director of CRM operations at Active International, said. “Having the ability to ask questions and gain key insights into our data just by typing or speaking a few words is amazing. I was impressed with the ability to get suggestions just by typing in a few letters and seeing other possible questions to ask- no data scientists required.” 

Microsoft has unveiled a range of initiatives to boost its presence in the healthcare and science verticals, with their foundations in AI and the cloud.

As an extension of the company’s Healthcare NExT scheme, which aims to boost innovation in the healthcare sector, this latest announcement will see the company’s groundwork come into fruition.

“The explosion of data, incredible advances in computational biology, genomics and medical imaging have created vast amounts of data well beyond the ability of humans to comprehend,” Peter Lee, corporate vice president of Microsoft’s AI and Research division said.  

“Clinicians and care teams are yearning to swivel their chairs from the computer and pay more attention to the patient, yet still they spend two-thirds of their time interacting with burdensome IT systems. And healthcare organizations everywhere still struggle with the lack of operational and regulatory clarity in managing and analyzing the datasets that they are generating every day.”

Microsoft Genomics is the first launch. It offers researchers and data scientists a cloud platform on which they can process genomics using their data-rich workloads. The company has partnered with St. Jude Childrens Hospital to pilot the technology for research into childhood diseases.

Microsoft Azure Security and Compliance Blueprint: HIPAA/HITRUST – Health Data & AI is an end-to-end app development engine built to help healthcare organisations move to the cloud, with security and compliance at the centre. The company has also launched Microsoft 365 Huddle Solution Templates to help health teams collaborate more effectively as part of Microsoft Teams.

AI Network for Eyecare has been expanded and become AI Network for Healthcare, growing to include cardiology thanks to a partnership with Apollo Hospitals in India, while Microsoft’s Project Empower MD is being developed in partnership with UPMC to create an AI-powered system to help with patient diagnosis via learning from physician/patient conversations.

“Our mission at Microsoft is to empower every person and organization to achieve more, and with that in mind, our ambition is that innovators will be able to use AI and the cloud to unlock biological insight and break data from silos for a truly personal understanding of human health and in turn, enable better access to care, lower costs and improved outcomes,” Lee added. 

SAP is targeting its innovation hub, Leonardo, at telcos, promising to help them make the most of their data and use it to drive business inisights.

SAP Leonardo for Telecommunications promises to highlight margin risk, customer opportunities, product matching and asset profitability, seeking out likely outcomes using historical data from the company itself, making it more accurate than using generic predictions, SAP claimed.

“Telecommunications companies face increasing pressure on profitability, while regulation, commoditisation and market share gains by over-the-top players continue to present challenges to traditional lines of business,” said Mala Anand, president of SAP Leonardo.

“As a result, telecom companies adapt or reinvent their business processes using innovative technologies to gain a competitive advantage. Drawing on SAP’s industry expertise, this SAP Leonardo accelerator prepackages software specifically to help carriers quickly define the blueprint for the next generation of their business processes.”

SAP is marketing its Leonardo portfolio of analytics, blockchain, the Internet of Things (IoT) and machine learning in fixed-price bundles to make them more affordable to telcos hoping to innovate. 

The company’s telecoms bundle, SAP Big Data Margin Assurance, offers analytics and machine learning to help businesses leverage the data they already hold to find insights into their business to help increase margins.

“SAP Big Data Margin Assurance enables the integration of profitability insights into all business decisions along the value chain, which will become a must-do for telcos over the next five years,” said Andreas Gentner, global telecommunications consulting leader at Deloitte. “As part of the industry accelerator, the solution comes at low risk and with short time to value for clients.”

Picture: Bigstock 

Dropbox filed for an IPO last week, and while it’s the natural next step for a company dominating the cloud storage space, the filing also revealed a number of risks that could put a whole lot of pressure on the organisation if things go wrong.

By law, IPO filings must detail the risks to a company’s success so investors are able to make a considered investment, knowing all the facts. Dropbox’s filing is no different, and it has highlighted areas the company may struggle with when it goes public.

We’ve rounded up the main risks to Dropbox’s IPO filing and how it could affect the company’s potential to raise the investment it expects to achieve.

Number of Dropbox users and upgrading customers

At the moment, Dropbox has 500 million registered users around the world, but many of these are using the company’s free storage option rather than taking advantage of the extra storage offered in its premium options. In fact, only 11 million customers (2.2%) pay for a Dropbox subscription.

To ensure it can be profitable, Dropbox needs to convince as many of its free-tier customers – or those on a free trial of Dropbox for Business for example – to start paying for the use of its service.

The company must also focus on attracting new users. It explained in the filing that the number of unique users (those that have only registered one account) is a lot lower than its total active users and so its figures may be even more skewed than the initial numbers suggest. This also means there’s likely to be fewer customers it can convert to paying users, because each will only pay for one account.

Revenue vs profit

As a result of its failure to persuade customers on free trials and those making use of the free service to commit to a paid subscription, Dropbox’s revenue growth is slowing. The company explained in the filing that the major reasons its revenues aren’t growing as fast as previous periods include that there’s more competition now than there was previously, less demand for the platform, an overall decline in the content collaboration market and the company’s inability to maxmise growth opportunities. It also noted the business has matured and so saturation is higher than it previously was. 

Profits are also on course to decline as Dropbox invests more to scale its business, including supporting the infrastructure to support its customers and research and development. The company notes that these investments may not directly result in increased revenues or profit, making it likey both will slow, or start to fall.

No outbound salesforce

Dropbox also revealed that it doesn’t have a specific outbound salesforce on the ground hard-selling to businesses or other volume users. It has instead relied upon organic adoption and viral growth rather than actively selling its services to new prospects.

The company does believe it will be able to scale to reach new markets without a large outbound salesforce, but it also accepts that its current word-of-mouth and user referral marketing model may not continue to work as effectively as it has over the last few years.

However, there’s a significant cost and time investment attached to recruiting a specialised sales team, which could adversely affect the company’s profitability in the future.

“Further, adding more sales personnel would change our cost structure and results of operations, and we may have to reduce other expenses in order to accommodate a corresponding increase in sales and marketing expenses,” the company noted.

The filing can be read in full here.

Main image credit: Shutterstock

GTT has announced it will buy cloud networking provider Interoute for €1.9 billion (£1.7 billion) in cash, adding an additional 72,000km of fibre network coverage to its European operation. 

The acquisition will also mean GTT is able to reach a much larger area, making use of Interoute’s 126 cities across 29 countries, plus its extensive resources, including 15 data centres, 17 virtual data centres and 51 colocation facilities.

GTT will also take onboard Interoute’s 1,000 strategic enterprise and carrier clients, the majority of which reside in Europe, offering an enhanced selection of infrastructure, edge and hosted services.

“The acquisition of Interoute represents a major milestone in delivering on our purpose of connecting people, across organisations and around the world,” said Rick Calder, GTT president and CEO.

“This combination creates a disruptive market leader with substantial scale, unique network assets and award-winning product capabilities to fulfill our clients’ growing demand for distributed cloud networking in Europe, the U.S. and across the globe.”

Calder added the deal is estimated to close in three to six months and the businesses merged fully within three to four quarters. Many of Interoute’s employees, including its sales, operations and customer service teams will transfer to GTT, enhancing its existing resources on a global scale.

“This is an exciting next chapter for Interoute, GTT, our customers and our team,” added Gareth Williams, Interoute CEO. “The combined assets and strengths of our two companies create a powerful portfolio of high-capacity, low-latency connectivity, and innovative cloud and edge infrastructure services to support our customers in the global digital economy.”