What defines a progressive small to medium business (SMB)?

According to Cisco, it’s an SMB which is “increasingly encroaching on the territory of their larger competitors”.

Yet the biggest takeaway from the Cisco research is that these SMBs, if they are to become more progressive, will need to move to the cloud.

Other checkpoints for progressive SMBs are utilising the mobile workforce, collaborating in person and embracing social media.

Cloud computing is increasingly seen as a viable option for small and medium enterprises, even if they don’t realise it.

Back in September, a survey from Australian cloud software provider MYOB revealed that nearly four in five companies surveyed (79%) didn’t use the cloud for business, despite evidence that it would be good for their business – 44% of SMEs surveyed in the cloud expected their revenue to rise in the next 12 months, as opposed to 22% of …

Recent research from Symform has shown that software-as-a-service (SaaS) continues to be the most mature cloud market, but platform-as-a-service (PaaS) is lacking by comparison.

The survey of over 500 respondents showed that nearly four in five (79%) companies surveyed in the cloud were using SaaS, yet nearly half (48%) of companies in the cloud were not planning on utilising PaaS at any time during the next 12 months.

This correlates with recent Gartner market trends research, whereby SaaS continued to cannibalise on-premise CRM solutions. Half of the respondents in the Gartner survey cited lower total cost of ownership (TCO) as the primary driver for SaaS adoption.

Security in the cloud – updated

There were various aspects of cloud security touched upon in the report. In terms of general cloud security policy, there was an interesting range of responses.

The majority of respondents (35%) said that they allowed some cloud based applications …

Joe Dignan, Chief Analyst, Public Sector Technology, Ovum

“Strategic partnership” is an overused phrase. The reasons for the schism between the rhetoric of strategic partnerships and their flawed reality can be summed up by the disconnection between how the corporate function of an IT company formulates its go-to-market strategy and how it incentivizes its field sales team. Equally, the schism can be seen between the public sector’s inability to accept the fact that the private sector has to make a profit, and its belief that it must not tell the private sector anything in case it takes unfair advantage of the information.

Head office staff spend an inordinate amount of time and effort formulating strategic value propositions, negotiating at a senior level with global partners on partner solution plans, and taking those plans through their leadership function. They then engage with customers to explain the value propositions, their strategic …

The latest round of cloud computing and enterprise software forecasts reflect the growing influence of analytics, legacy systems integration, mobility and security on IT buyer’s decisions.

Bain & Company and Gartner have moved beyond aggregate forecasts, and are beginning to forecast by cloud and SaaS adoption stage.  SAP is using the Bain adoption model in their vertical market presentations today.

Despite the predictions of the demise of enterprise software, forecasts and sales cycles I’ve been involved with indicate market growth.  Mobility and cloud computing are the catalysts of rejuvenation in many enterprise application areas, and are accelerating sales cycles.  Presented in this roundup are market sizes, forecasts and compound annual growth rates (CAGRS) for ten enterprise software segments.

Key take-aways from the latest cloud computing and enterprise software forecasts are provided below:

• Software as a Service (SaaS) and cloud-based business application services will grow from $13.4 billion in …

The world is changing faster than ever. The economic centres of power are shifting:  from West to East, and from North to South.  Economic liberalisation is one driver, as is the speed at which capital moves seamlessly around the world and the general demographic trends of people moving from insular communities in the countryside to faster paced environments in towns and cities.  But the biggest driver is technology. 

Manufacturing and IT technology is moving faster than it ever has.  Small armies which can adapt and exploit new technologies quickly are taking on and defeating large armies which are wedded to long-lead capital expenditures.

Wealth is unlikely to be evenly distributed. A recent long term report from HSBC projects that by 2050 the richest countries measured by Gross Domestic Product (GDP) will be China, the USA, India and Japan, in that order.  But the richest countries by Income per Capita (i …

The third annual VMware Cloud Index survey has shone light on trends in Asia Pacific cloud computing, including which was the most knowledgeable nation.

The research surveyed 6,500 senior IT workers across the Asia Pacific region in 11 countries, including Australia, China, India, Japan and Korea.

Yet it appeared Singapore and Hong Kong were top of the class. 82% of respondents in Singapore claimed they had a strong knowledge of the cloud, with nine out of ten people in Hong Kong having a strong knowledge of virtualisation.

The key takeaways from the research included:

• Three quarters of those surveyed were either in the cloud or planning to go there
• Data privacy was the biggest barrier to cloud computing, ahead of security
• Most companies see cloud as having multiple benefits, with optimising existing IT management the most important
• 71% of respondents believe cloud computing has made their job less complex …

More than eight in ten companies are now using some form of cloud computing solution; proof that the benefits of the cloud are becoming more widely accepted amongst enterprises.

Moreover, positive steps are being made toward further boosting cloud services in the EU.

In September, Neelie Kroes, Europe’s Commissioner for the Digital Agenda, released the paper, “Unleashing the Potential of Cloud Computing in Europe.” This outlines a number of recommendations designed to drive European businesses and the public sector into the cloud. The goal is to create 2.5 million new European jobs and boost GDP in the Single Market to EUR 160 billion by 2020.

Data security in the cloud

However, whilst European organisations are being won over by the benefits, confusion still surrounds the issue of data security and privacy in the cloud.

Data is having an increasingly hard time crossing boundaries for this reason. Countries are …

As the hurricane raged over the US East Coast this week the world shivered at the thought of a possible disaster.

Sandy, the Frankenstorm, slowly withdrew leaving irreparable damage and chaos behind.

The citizens of the areas affected will definitely need considerable time (and money) to take everything back as it once was. However, in some aspects it could have been worse.

As Sandy came closer it cut the power supplies and caused a collapse of communication channels. Major datacentres located in the East Coast suffered considerable impacts and many web services were taken down.

This is why many wondered what would have happened if there wasn’t the cloud – this is the place where so much important data is, after all.

Cloud providers scatter user data across different datacentres and this is often considered to be a great disaster plan. Sandy was in a way a final test for …

“Times are hard” was a phrase often used in my house as a child usually when begging my mother for the latest pair of Nike trainers.  

Fast forward 20 years and not much has changed as we continue to struggle through the worst economic crisis we have ever seen. The downturn has had a huge impact upon the public sector with many departments being forced to cut budgets to help reduce the government deficit.

One way departments are seeking to cut costs is by reassessing their technology needs, which has in more cases than not, resulted in the implementation of cloud computing solutions. The government’s ‘G-Cloud’ framework hopes to eliminate waste by more efficient IT procurement helping departments innovate, creating a better public service. The framework includes a list of approved suppliers and provides quick and easy access to cloud services. The cost benefits of cloud adoption in the …

In working with manufacturers and financial services firms over the last year, one point is becoming very clear: SaaS is gaining trust as a solid alternative for global deployments across the enterprise.  And this trend has been accelerating in the last six months.  One case in point is a 4,000 seat SaaS CRM deployment going live in Australia, Europe, and the U.S. by December of this year.

What’s noteworthy about this shift is that just eighteen months ago an Australian-based manufacturer was only considering SaaS for on-premises enhancement of their CRM system.  What changed?  The European and U.S. distribution and sales offices were on nearly 40 different CRM, quoting, proposal and pricing systems.  It was nearly impossible to track global opportunities.

Meanwhile business was booming in Australia and there were up-sell and cross-sell opportunities being missed in the U.S. and European-based headquarters of their prospects …