With the growing cloud computing market, there is potential for small businesses to take advantage of the technology in order to compete better with larger companies. Cloud computing is fantastic for SMBs because it allows you get to maintain complete control but without the expensive financial and staff costs and protects your business from downtime distress.

Silver Lining #1: Cloud Security

Reliable cloud service providers will have a dedicated security system in place, which allows a small business to focus on everything other than data protection.  

You will also be confident in the knowledge that your company has superior online security because your IT systems are hosted by the most up to date cloud infrastructure.

Silver Lining #2: Increased Productivity

Cloud computing is becoming more appealing to SMB’s because they will be able to utilize technical skills that would not usually be available to smaller companies. You will be …

Richard Absalom, Analyst, Consumer Impact Technology, Ovum

At this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the topic of enterprise mobility was everywhere – literally, the stands exhibiting all the vendors operating in the space were spread throughout the eight vast halls of Fira Gran Via. Everywhere you looked there were vendors showing off their approaches to enterprise mobility management (EMM), highlighting the importance of mobility for businesses right now: the size of the demand is so big, and there are so many different approaches to EMM, that you could not possibly fit them all under one single (no matter how huge) roof.

A few key themes emerged from the chaos. Significant announcements made by Samsung and AirWatch highlighted the seriousness with which investors and manufacturers are treating the presence of consumer devices in the enterprise. The general trend toward enterprise app provision and management continued to manifest, and most vendors …

The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) has released a new report designed to examine the most pervasive security threats still threatening cloud in 2013.

Called “The Notorious Nine” – presumably using the same nomenclature that Enid Blyton employed for the protagonists of her fabled children’s books – the CSA enlisted the help of industry experts, and is designed to be used in conjunction with other CSA best practice guides; “Security Guidance for Critical Areas in Cloud Computing V.3” and “Security as a Service Implementation Guidance”.

According to the CSA the nine security challenges cloud players face, ranked in order, are:

• Data breaches
• Data loss
• Account hijacking
• Insecure APIs
• Denial of service
• Malicious insiders
• Abuse and nefarious use
• Insufficient due diligence
• Shared technology issues

Most of these seem relatively self-explanatory, with the vast majority making headlines in the cloud computing space.

The dreaded data breach was, perhaps unsurprisingly, the top threat. Calling …

Peter Ryan, Lead Analyst, IT Services

Through 2012, many CRM outsourcers struggled to adjust to ongoing economic uncertainty, as well as shifting requirements from clients in terms of supporting mobility and social media solutions. However, there were encouraging signs from the standpoint of financial performance, with a number of the sector’s major players managing to moderately increase revenues and maintain profitability.

Going forward, we believe the challenge for many contact centre service players will be to grow their turnovers and margins beyond single digits, a feat that has been difficult for many since the global financial crisis.

CRM outsourcing results for 2012 were encouraging, but not breathtaking

The overall picture for the contact centre outsourcing space at the end of 2012 was relatively positive, but nothing to write home about, with some players posting negative results for the year.

Notwithstanding a solid Q4 performance, there is no question that …

In 2013, expect to see the pace of mergers and acquisitions for cloud computing, mobile and analytics technologies accelerate as software vendors look to fill gaps in their product and service strategies. This and other key insights of how cloud computing is reshaping the merger and acquisition landscape can be found in the latest Price Waterhouse Coopers (PwC) report published today.

The US Technology M&A insights: Analysis and Trends in US Technology M&A Activity 2013 provides an excellent overview of merger, acquisitions, private equity, divestures, cross-border transactions across the five key industry sectors. 

The report, free for download, covers the Internet, IT Services, hardware and networking, software, and semiconductor sectors.

Enterprise Software Players: In Search of Sticky Revenue and Higher Margins

The major catalysts driving cloud deals forward in 2013 are enterprise software companies’ need to redefine their business models and find sources of sticky revenue that can …

Guest blog by Patrick Fogarty
Faculty Advisor of Technology and Teacher at Xaverian High School

When I tell my students they need to be learning the skills for jobs that don’t even exist yet, I’m speaking from personal experience. As Xaverian High School’s Faculty Advisor of Instructional Technology, I find myself frequently defining an ever-evolving job I more or less made up for myself.

My responsibilities change with the needs of our students and institution, and that’s why cloud storage has proven to be one of the most invaluable weapons in our arsenal of tech tools.

I work at one of the first iPad one-to-one schools in the United States, which means each and every student and teacher is provided with an iPad and expected to utilize it in the everyday business of teaching and learning. It’s worked …

Hiring great people and creating a culture of achievement that is fun, focused and able to get challenging tasks done is not an easy task.

Keeping that culture strong and focused on the customer takes a unique leader that consistently earns trust and respect.  Those are the qualities I think of whenever I’m asked to recommend the best cloud computing companies to work for. 

Using the scores from Glassdoor.com I’ve put together the table below comparing cloud computing companies and when available, the percentage of employees who approve of their CEO.

If you’re not familiar with Glassdoor, it’s a website that gives employees the chance to rate their companies and CEOs anonymously, along with reporting salaries.  Friends in the Human Resources community tell me it’s an effective recruitment site as well.

Cloud computing companies are sorted based on the percentage of employees would recommend …

I watched with interest recently an interview with NetSuite CEO, Zach Nelson on Bloomberg TV. During the interview Nelson stated his belief that retail wasn’t dead and that Apple had shown the way to all retailers with regards customer experience. Nelson also stated that in his mind, retail would be the next industry to be “disrupted by the cloud”.

In this blog I will examine some of the reasons why retailers might look to the cloud for business management systems that help to grow their business.

Customer Experience

Retailers are faced with a battle on two fronts, being squeezed by the need to cut costs at the same time as customers are demanding an increasingly better experience. They expect an ‘omnichannel’ shopping experience where they can interact with a brand through any channel and receive a consistent experience across the board. They want to be able to shop anywhere …

The data boom is a very real mark on the industry landscape, with the potential and hype surrounding big data expected to increase dramatically. But what can this data practically do?

Speakers at a Mobile World Congress conference session on Monday gave various insights into the discussion, with the conclusion being that, in both developed and developing markets, big data has the potential to be a lifesaver.

One of the big players in this sphere is IBM, with CTO Paul Bloom examining what its supercomputer, Watson, is now doing after it won a million dollars – which IBM gave to charity – beating two former Jeopardy! multi-champions in 2011.

The concept Bloom pushed was ‘cognitive computing’ – a ‘cross between super-computing, manual technology and neuroscience’. During its brief game show career, Bloom insisted Watson wasn’t connected to the Internet, yet had access to over 200 million pages of structured and unstructured data …

Google is in the middle of a legal battle with European privacy watchdogs after the organisation refused to change its new privacy policy in order to adhere to EU compliance regulations. The watchdogs said “Google Inc.’s privacy practices don’t comply with Europe-wide data-protection rules.”

The Problem with Google’s Privacy Policy:

Google presented the new policy in March 2012 and it the changes allowed the search giant to help utilize targeted advertising by merging user data from its different websites (Gmail, Google+, Google Drive, etc.). Another issue is that the company’s 60 privacy policies have been combined into one “simpler” policy.

EU regulators have decided that the privacy policy does not provide enough information for users about how their data will be used or tracked. Also if a user does not agree with these policy changes they would not be able to use Google’s services. The …