All posts by Richard

Data center, Data center infrastructure management, Efficient energy use, Green, Green Computing, Hosting, Pike Research, Research

Report: Green Data Center Market $45 Billion by 2016

The combination of rising energy costs, increasing demand for computing power, environmental concerns, and economic pressure has made the green data center a focal point for the transformation of the IT industry as a whole. According to a recent report from Pike Research, a part of Navigant’s Energy Practice, the worldwide market for green data centers will grow from $17.1 billion in 2012 to $45.4 billion by 2016 – at a compound annual growth rate of nearly 28 percent.

“There is no single technology or design model that makes a data center green,” says research director Eric Woods. “In fact, the green data center is connected to the broader transformation that data centers are undergoing—a transformation that encompasses technical innovation, operational improvements, new design principles, changes to the relationship between IT and business, and changes in the data center supply chain.”

In particular, two powerful trends in IT are shaping the evolution of data centers, Woods adds: virtualization and cloud computing. Virtualization, the innovation with the greatest impact on the shape of the modern data center, is also recognized as one of the most effective steps toward improving energy efficiency in the data center. In itself, however, virtualization may not lead to reduced energy costs. To gain the maximum benefits from virtualization, other components of the data center infrastructure will need to be optimized to support more dynamic and higher-density computing environments. Cloud computing, meanwhile, has many efficiency advantages, but new metrics and new levels of transparency are required if its impact on the environment is to be adequately assessed, the report finds.

The report, “Green Data Centers”, explores global green data center trends with regional forecasts for market size and opportunities through 2016. The report examines the impacts of global economic and political factors on regional data center growth, along with newly adopted developments in power and cooling infrastructure, servers, storage, and data center infrastructure management software tools across the industry. The research study profiles key industry players and their strategies for expansion and technology adoption. An Executive Summary of the report is available for free download on the Pike Research website.


FluidSurveys, Non-governmental organization, Research, TechSoup

Why NGOs Are Moving IT to the Cloud

TechSoup Global (www.techsoupglobal.org) announced today the results of its 2012 Global Cloud Computing Survey of 10,500 nonprofits, charities, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) from 88 countries — the most extensive technology survey ever conducted of NGOs worldwide.

TechSoup Global’s report on barriers and motivators in cloud computing reveals that a majority of NGOs are planning to move their information technology (IT) to the cloud. However, they need more education and support to take full advantage of the benefits cloud computing offers regarding costs, productivity, and collaboration. Many NGOs are not even aware that they are using cloud applications already, or they are not familiar with the full suite of cloud-based applications available to them.

The survey results will enable the global NGO sector to make more informed decisions about cloud computing adoption and will also help capacity-building organizations, funders, corporate donors, and partners develop programs that maximize the potential of these technologies. For example, NGOs state that startup costs of moving information to the cloud and externalities such as lack of consistent electricity or Internet access are barriers that prevent them from using cloud computing.

Key results of the 2012 Global Cloud Computing Survey include:

  • 90% of respondents worldwide are using at least one cloud computing
    application.
  • 53% report plans to move a “significant portion” of their IT to the
    cloud within three years.
  • 60% say lack of knowledge is the greatest barrier to greater use of
    the cloud.
  • 79% say the greatest advantage is easier software or hardware
    administration.
  • 47% say cost-related changes and ease of setup would be the greatest
    motivators for moving their IT to the cloud.
  • NGOs in Egypt, Mexico, India, and South Africa have the most
    accelerated timetables for moving their IT to the cloud.

Leveraging the resources of TechSoup Global’s 36 partner organizations and more than 200,000 registered member organizations, the survey was translated into 21 languages. It includes statistically significant results (more than 100 responses) from 26 countries around the world.

“TechSoup Global is thrilled to better understand how and why cloud computing can rapidly advance the causes of every social benefit organization in all parts of the world,” said TechSoup Global co-CEO Rebecca Masisak. “By sharing the voices of NGOs with the sector as a whole, this survey will allow us to better use cloud computing to improve organizations’ effectiveness, collaboration, and access to data.”

“TechSoup Global has long worked to bring available technologies to nonprofit organizations. And this survey shows that the global NGO sector can do more to make the cloud easier by creating solutions that address the precise needs of organizations across the world,” said Dan Webb, TechSoup Global’s director of solutions and services.

The 2012 Global Cloud Computing Survey was conducted online using FluidSurveys, a product donated by Chide.it, a TechSoup Global donor partner.

To access the full report, visit www.techsoupglobal.org/2012-global-cloud-computing-survey. Details on responses by country are available in the appendix of the full report. TechSoup Global is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit.


3Cinteractive, Enterprise Mobile, Fision, Marketing, Mobile, Mobile application development, Mobile device, Partnerships

Fision Partners with 3Cinteractive to Integrate Mobile into Its Distributed Marketing Automation

Image representing 3Cinteractive as depicted i...

Fision, the leading sales and marketing automation SaaS provider, today announced an agreement with 3Cinteractive, the leading provider of cloud-based, enterprise mobile solutions, to leverage its Switchblade platform to extend sales and marketing automation across messaging, mobile web, smartphone apps, voice, and social media.

“Control, compliance and measurement of campaign distribution across all media channels has always been a recurring problem for businesses,” said Mike Brown, CEO of Fision. “This agreement furthers our mission to provide a simple solution that optimizes that effort. Mobility is the next mainstream media channel and the capabilities of 3Cinteractive extend the power of Fision to address that demand.”

Fision’s platform allows enterprises and small businesses in manufacturing, health care, retail, financial and business services to store, customize and distribute marketing materials, giving companies real-time metrics on customer behavior. Switchblade, 3Ci’s cloud-based mobile platform, provides businesses with a single platform to deploy multi-channel mobile applications to any mobile device throughout the world. The combination of these capabilities will extend Fision’s offering to include mobile solutions that engage consumers and increase their lifetime value.


Athenahealth, EHR, Electronic health record, Health administration, Health Care, M&A Activity, Medical

athenahealth Acquires Healthcare Data Services

athenahealth, Inc., a  provider of cloud-based practice management, electronic health record (EHR), and care coordination services, today announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Healthcare Data Services LLC (HDS), a web-based solutions provider and expert in health care data analysis and population health management for payers and providers. It is anticipated that the transaction will close in October 2012.

This acquisition is expected to expand athenahealth’s cloud-based services portfolio to include high-value, population-based cost and quality data analysis and reporting capabilities. By expanding its services in this way, athenahealth will be strengthening its ability to support health care organizations to navigate the growing number of risk-based payment models, and align care coordination with patient population needs.

“Value-based payment models are fundamentally changing the way patient care is coordinated, delivered, and reimbursed,” said Jonathan Bush, CEO and chairman of athenahealth. “With HDS, we can help health care organizations to thrive in the face of change—to drive down costs through smart, high quality care coordination and to understand the totality of services being provided. This acquisition supports our existing efforts to create an information backbone that makes health care work as it should.”

New payment models offered by the U.S. government and commercial health plans aim to create a reimbursement system that links care reimbursement to the quality of care delivered and, ultimately, to reduce overall health care expenses for populations of patients. These risk-based contracts come in a variety of models, including pay-for-performance (P4P) incentives, bundled payments, shared savings, and global capitation; each requires improved insight into patient population data so that health care organizations can gauge and manage patient needs while simultaneously tracking and adjusting their own performance against risk-based reimbursement contracts.

The addition of HDS would bring many advantages and synergies that would expand athenahealth’s recognition as a single-source provider of best-in-class workflow and data insight solutions to support all payment models:

  • Proven Innovation Excellence – HDS has led the market for population
    health tools in Massachusetts, which in turn has led the country in
    transforming toward more of an accountable care health care
    marketplace. Together, the combined organization would be able to help
    a broader set of health care organizations to drive quality and
    improvement to the way care is coordinated and reimbursed.
  • Key and Differentiating Services – The proven services and value of
    HDS would be able to leverage athenahealth’s investment, sales force
    capacity, and complementary cloud-based services. HDS complements
    athenahealth’s commitment to support risk-based payment models, as
    well as athenahealth’s mission to be the best in the world at getting
    medical caregivers paid for doing the right thing.
  • Advancement to Health Information Open Exchange – With HDS,
    athenahealth could better support health care organizations in their
    access and use of data as a means to drive clinical and financial
    improvement. HDS complements athenahealth’s clinical-cycle,
    patient-cycle, and care coordination workflows, as well as
    athenahealth’s efforts to create a health care information backbone to
    make health care work as it should.
  • Accelerated Growth within the Large-to-Enterprise Market – HDS brings
    valuable relationships within the medium-to-large health systems
    market. Greater access to these organizations would accelerate
    athenahealth’s delivery of its cloud-based services and in turn
    contribute to growing revenue streams.

“By combining HDS with athenahealth, we expect to create a comprehensive, easy-to-access platform for health care organizations to take on and succeed in the face of payment reform and the shift to accountable care,” said Jonathan Porter, co-founder of HDS. “The massive changes going on in health care reimbursement create challenges, but more so create opportunities. Together with athenahealth, we would be able to bridge the gap between providers, payers, and patients by providing ready-to-use population health management capabilities as part of EHR workflows that support restructured payment models and ensure the delivery of appropriate and necessary care to patients.”


Collaboration, Customer Relationship Management, Exafort, Google Apps, NetSuite, Phishing, Salesforce, salesforce.com

Aujas Launches Phishnix for Cloud Services

Aujas Information Risk Services today announced the launch of Phishnix for cloud services, a new product that will help clients protect their sensitive information on the cloud by strengthening their weakest link in the security chain, their own employees. The product is targeted for major cloud services such as Salesforce, Google Apps, Netsuite etc.

Salesforce.com is the most popular cloud CRM company in the world with more than 75,000 companies who trust their customer data on Salesforce. The Salesforce security guideline specifically warns against the threat and says, “As the Salesforce.com community grows, it has become an increasingly appealing target for phishers. Phishers often direct users to enter details at a fake website whose URL and look-and-feel are almost identical to the legitimate one.”

One example is a recent scam that involved an email luring receivers to participate in the beta test of ‘Dreamforce,’ promising discounts and requesting receivers to fill a form, in a fake web link. In such a case, employees who are unaware of it being a phishing attack may easily fall prey to it. Any company is likely to face heavy business loss, when employees become victims of phishing attacks. According to the RSA Fraud report 2011, global loss from phishing is estimated to be about $1 billion.

Phishnix does a behavioral analysis of employees when faced with a phishing attack. It is integrated with Salesforce and has ready Salesforce scenarios which the client can select. They can start the assessment in a matter of hours and analyze how their employees react to a phishing attack. That data is then used to create awareness and train the employees on how to respond to a phishing attack.

Speaking on the occasion Mr. Karl Kispert, Vice President at Phishnix said, “A single assessment and training cycle of Phishnix reduces the phishing fall rate by almost 35%. That is a huge reduction in the phishing risk for any organization.”

The product will be showcased by our partner Exafort at Dreamforce 2012, booth number 326 at the Moscone Center, San Francisco, on 18—21 September 2012. Stop by Exafort’s booth and ask for a demo and additional information about Phishnix. Dreamforce 2012 is the cloud computing industry event of the year with more than 50,000 attendees and 350 cloud computing companies showcasing more than 1000 solutions.

“Data security and confidentiality on the cloud is one of the biggest concerns for all our clients using cloud based services to run their business. Cloud service providers are addressing this concern to a large extent by building robust and secure applications and platforms. By adding Aujas’ Phishnix to our tool belt we can now gain valuable insights of our clients’ employees’ behavior with respect to information security and act upon them,” said  Arun Kanchi, CEO of Exafort Inc.

As cloud adoption increases within organizations, more sensitive data will be stored in the cloud. “We will see more focused phishing attacks targeting popular cloud applications. The road-map is to enable Phishnix for all popular cloud platforms, and help clients reduce phishing risk for all their cloud applications. It would become an integral part of their cloud security program,” said Sameer Shelke, CTO at Phishnix.


Collaboration, Enterprise Collaboration Platform, Partnerships, Scottish Equity Partners, Workshare

Workshare, SkyDox Launch Policy-Based Enterprise Collaboration Platform

Workshare, a provider of document collaboration software, today announced that it has joined forces with SkyDox. By combining their respective capabilities, they will provide existing and future customers with a unique platform for policy-based, cloud-enabled file sharing and enterprise collaboration.

The combination is supported by growth capital investment from a UK investor group led by Scottish Equity Partners (SEP) and includes Business Growth Fund (BGF).

Mobile working, Bring Your Own Device (BYOD), Big Data and the cloud have created a demand for Web 2.0 applications that provide today’s knowledge workers with the features and functionality they expect while also addressing enterprise IP and data security requirements. This combination will allow Workshare to integrate its best-of-breed, policy-based document comparison and metadata removal application with SkyDox’s scalable, highly secure, cloud-enabled file sharing and collaboration platform. The combined organization will enable its current and future customers to improve the efficiency of collaboration across organizational and geographical boundaries, while maintaining full auditability and adherence to internal and external data security and IP mandates.

“Workshare and SkyDox clearly recognize that secure mobile enablement is where the collaboration market is headed and are taking the next logical step towards delivering that to the enterprise,” said Terri McClure, a senior analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group. “The combined entity is uniquely positioned in the market, given the companies’ shared background and exceptionally complementary market offerings. The integrated solution, ultimately, has the potential to raise the industry bar for enterprise collaboration platforms considerably.”

“As the online collaboration services market continues to evolve, the vendors that rise to the top will master the security, compliance, and IT management concerns of IT leaders,” said Forrester Research. “In addition, these vendors will provide IT leaders the flexibility in deployment models they need to serve the unique needs of their business and workforce.”1

The management team will be comprised of a strong combination of executives drawn from the two organizations. SkyDox’s CEO Anthony Foy will be retained as CEO of the joint company. Foy has a deep, longstanding background in the software industry – building customer-centric businesses, improving share-holder value and improving customer satisfaction. Previously Foy served as the Group Managing Director at Interxion, a leading European data center and colocation services company where he was responsible for delivering 22 consecutive quarters of revenue growth which led to an Initial Public Offering. Scott Smull the former CEO of Workshare will continue to work with Workshare and will have multiple key executive responsibilities as part of the Executive Integration Team and spearheading customer advocacy activities. Barrie Hadfield who originally co-founded Workshare and architected the current solution has been appointed CTO. Barrie brings with him a deep understanding of the collaboration space and is well known and respected by a large number of Workshare customers, IT sector thought leaders and the analyst community.

“Organizations are constantly looking for ways to drive operational efficiency, grow revenue and reduce costs. This combination allows Workshare to deliver a more holistic collaborative experience to our customers by blending Web 2.0 technologies with our existing award-winning solutions to provide an unmatched policy-based enterprise collaboration platform,” said Anthony Foy, CEO Workshare. “The combined company is ideally positioned to deliver unique solutions that help employees improve inter and intra company collaboration without sacrificing enterprise information security requirements.”

The integration of Workshare and SkyDox operations is expected to be completed during the second half of 2012, and support and development for Workshare and SkyDox products will continue without interruption.


Business Processes, Business-to-business, Electronic Data Interchange, Purchase order, Retail, Supply chain, Supply Chain Management

GXS Ups Retail Supply Chain Efficiency with Catalogue-Based Web Ordering

GXS, a  provider of B2B integration services, today announced that GXS Intelligent Web Forms (IWF) allows manufacturers to quickly and easily enable their smaller retail customers to issue purchase orders electronically. IWF creates forms to digitise the full lifecycle of supply chain transactions with the customer community from purchase orders and order changes to electronic invoices and remittance advices. By integrating directly with GXS Catalogue, the retail industry’s leading data synchronisation application that supports product, price and image information, web forms ensure that retail buyers can only select valid, preauthorised SKUs for inclusion on purchase orders.

Most large retail chains issue purchase orders to their suppliers electronically using EDI (Electronic Document Interchange) but smaller, independent store owners often lack the budget, resources and expertise to support these B2B integration technologies.  As a result, a high percentage of the purchase orders issued from smaller retailers are transmitted via fax, email or spreadsheet, creating an efficiency drag on the operations of large suppliers.  Using GXS web forms, suppliers of food and beverage, apparel and footwear and other consumer products can offer their customers the option to issue purchase orders online. As a SaaS offering, GXS IWF does not require small retailers to license, install or maintain software. The web-based forms mimic the paper equivalents making the application easy to use without training or technical expertise.

By integrating with GXS Catalogue, the web forms can present users with a preloaded list of available and authorised items for each customer.  Catalogue integration ensures that users do not mistakenly request SKUs that are unauthorised, discontinued or non-existent.  Retail SKUs consist of long alphanumeric strings which can easily be transposed or mistyped in an electronic ordering system.  Some SKUs have special characters such as hyphens or spaces which further complicate the order entry process. Catalogue-based web forms reduce the amount of exception processing and order handling expenses for suppliers.  Higher quality purchase order data also reduces the likelihood of shipping delays and out-of-stocks for the retailers.

“Leading suppliers of consumer products and general merchandise have automated many of the order-to-cash and demand planning processes with their larger retail customers. These large suppliers have struggled to gain the same efficiencies with smaller retail chains and independent stores,” said Melanie Nuce, director of retail industry marketing for GXS.  “Catalogue-based web ordering offers a cost-effective approach to quickly achieving supply chain efficiencies with small retailers and opens up the opportunity for better customer service.”


American College of Radiology, EHR, Electronic health record, Medical, Medical imaging, Radiology

DR Systems Launches Radiology EHR for Meaningful Use Compliance

DR Systems announced that its cloud-based ambulatory EHR for radiologists – the e|HR Meaningful Use for Medical Imaging solution — is now commercially available after successfully completing beta testing.

The radiology-based EHR launch was timed so that radiologists can meet the approaching deadline for complying with meaningful use requirements. Radiologists and their practices can receive federal bonus payments of up to $44,000 per radiologist by implementing a complete, certified ambulatory EHR such as DR System’s e|HR. To receive the full incentive payment, however, meaningful use compliance – not just acquisition – must be achieved by October 3, 2012.

“Many radiology practices are concerned about the staff workflow burden of an EHR,” said Chuck Scudelari, COO of Pueblo Radiology Medical Group (Santa Barbara, Calif.), a beta test facility for DR System’s e|HR. “But there is no substantive staff workflow burden with the EHR from DR Systems. It provides excellent value for the federal bonus payments and the workflow fits nicely within the existing registration process. Plus, we’re seeing that it provides other benefits for our radiology practice in addition to satisfying meaningful use.”

An estimated 90% of radiologists are eligible for radiology incentive payments from the CMS, according to the American College of Radiology. Radiologists will have to qualify before this October to earn the full $44,000, as the total incentive payment goes down each year. Failure to comply with meaningful use requirements will eventually subject radiologists and others to financial penalties.

“Radiologists come out way ahead by deploying a system such as ours,” said radiologist Murray Reicher, M.D., F.A.C.R., DR Systems co-founder and chairman. “First, they earn a substantial, five-figure incentive payment that far exceeds the cost of the system. Second, they actually improve patient care and the efficiency of their radiology workflow, including the collection of patient information and integration of that information with the EHR.”

Dr. Reicher is a recognized authority on meaningful use and was author of an article on the subject that was published in the September 2011 issue of the Journal of the American College of Radiology.


Citrix, Citrix Systems, CumuLogic, Java, Venture Funding

Citrix Fosters Innovation with Investment in Cloud Startup CumuLogic

Citrix Startup Accelerator, a corporate initiative investing in early stage startups, today announced an investment in CumuLogic, an innovative new Cloud Application Platform software provider that enables enterprises, cloud providers and ISVs to develop and deploy Java applications in public, private and hybrid cloud environments.

Focused on entrepreneur-led innovation, the Citrix Startup Accelerator program provides seed investments, office space, and mentorship to select startups from around the world, enabling them to benefit from the global Citrix presence, its entrepreneur-friendly environment, large customer base and seasoned go-to-market strategies. The IT landscape is in a period of dramatic change, shifting expectations, and transformational new computing capabilities. As mobile workstyles and cloud services redefine the technology landscape, many of the best ideas will come from innovative startups with the flexibility to approach programs in entirely new ways. The Citrix Startup Accelerator is designed to tap into the innovation of most promising of these entrepreneurs, while helping them come to market successfully.

CumuLogic was selected by Citrix because of its unique ability to bridge between traditional datacenters and clouds at the application level. As a result, enterprises and cloud providers can begin deploying enterprise-class applications in cloud environments today, without waiting for all the development standards to evolve and mature. By transforming virtualized environments and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) clouds into a high-value Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) cloud, CumuLogic technology simplifies the development, deployment and runtime management of mobile, web and enterprise applications in public, private and hybrid clouds.