Category Archives: News & Analysis

ERP, NetSuite, News & Analysis, Oracle, SAP, Scott Scherr, Software as a service, Ultimate Software, Zach Nelson

Ultimate Software, NetSuite link HCM and ERP clouds

Ultimate Software and NetSuite are integrating their HCM and ERP services

Ultimate Software and NetSuite are integrating their HCM and ERP services

Ultimate Software, a provider of cloud-based human capital management services has inked a deal with NetSuite, a vendor of ERP cloud services, which will see the two companies integrate their software.

The two companies will integrate the UltiPro HCM solution and NetSuite’s ERP suite, which will enable joint customers to manage a broader chunk of their business lifecycles –financials, supply chain, CRM, payroll, HR, and talent management.

“By connecting UltiPro’s rich HR, talent, and payroll capabilities to NetSuite’s suite of ERP applications, Ultimate and NetSuite offer businesses the ability to manage their entire spectrum of business technology needs through two of the most trusted cloud vendors in the world—while enjoying industry-leading functionality, scalability, and configurability—without requiring point solutions for different business applications,” said Scott Scherr, chief executive officer of Ultimate.

“Not only are both our solutions leaders in cloud business technology, but our commitment to culture and service to customers is highly aligned.  We’re excited to bring this partnership to the market,” Scherr said.

Zach Nelson, chief executive officer of NetSuite said: “The combination of Ultimate’s robust HCM functionality together with NetSuite’s system of record for core operational processes provides our customers with a tightly integrated solution to run the core aspects of their business.”

The move suggests cloud ERP vendors are looking to double down on beating the large incumbents at their own game. The SAPs and Oracles of the world have long found that combining ERP and HR platforms make them more attractive to some large enterprises, so any move to bring end-to-end integration of these services in the cloud space will likely be welcome news to born-in-the-cloud firms that are also keen on de-risking their supply chains with multiple vendors.

Amazon Cloud Storage, Box, Microsoft, News & Analysis, Storage as a Service

Amazon follows Box, Microsoft in removing cloud storage caps

Amazon, Box and Microsoft are also offering unlimited cloud storage plans now

Amazon, Box and Microsoft are also offering unlimited cloud storage plans now

Following a move to give unlimited cloud storage to Amazon Prime customers the company has now announced unlimited cloud storage plans for its Amazon Cloud Drive service. The move comes some time after a number of the company’s competitors in the cloud storage space made similar moves.

The company announced two new cloud storage plans – Unlimited Photos Plan, which allows users to store an unlimited number of photos and includes 5GB for other file types, and an Unlimited Everything Plan, which includes unlimited storage for any file type.

The Unlimited Everything Plan costs $60 per year; the Unlimited Photos Plan, $12 per year.

“Most people have a lifetime of birthdays, vacations, holidays, and everyday moments stored across numerous devices. And, they don’t know how many gigabytes of storage they need to back all of them up,” said Josh Petersen, director of Amazon Cloud Drive in prepared remarks.

“With the two new plans we are introducing today, customers don’t need to worry about storage space—they now have an affordable, secure solution to store unlimited amounts of photos, videos, movies, music, and files in one convenient place,” he said.

The move may be a sign Amazon is starting to feel the heat from competitors in the cloud storage space. Box, which recently went public, had last year announced that it would remove storage limits for enterprise users of the popular storage suite, with Microsoft following suit with its Unlimited OneDrive storage offering soon after.

Anise Asia, Asia Pacific, News & Analysis, SAP, Simon Aspinall, Suhaimee Abu Hassan, Vendor, Virtustream

Anise Asia taps Virtustream to help serve up SAP cloud software to SMEs

Anise Asia is working with Virtustream to deliver SAP applications to SMEs

Anise Asia is working with Virtustream to deliver SAP applications to SMEs

Malaysia-based cloud service provider Anise Asia has selected Virtustream to help the company offer SAP Business One software via the cloud to SMEs.

The partnership will see Anise Asia deploy Virtustream’s micro-VM technology in a bid to help it scale and bill for SAP cloud services, which will be aimed primarily at Malaysian SMEs.

“With SAP Business One Cloud, we answered our clients’ call for an ERP solution that was quick to deploy and easy to run and maintain. By moving those solutions into the cloud, we are addressing their demand for more flexibility, security and cost savings,” said Suhaimee Abu Hassan, founder and chief executive officer of Anise Asia.

“Virtustream is a trusted partner with vast SAP application and managed services expertise, and SAP certification that enables us to provide our customers with the best and most comprehensive set of services available in the market,” he said.

Virtustream said the move will help expand the reach of its cloud and software services, as well as its professional services unit.

“This is a strategic move for both companies,” said Simon Aspinall, president of service provider business, Virtustream. “Together, Anise Asia and Virtustream are able to address the growing demand for enterprise-class cloud services in the ASEAN market.”

Bernard Chiang, managing director of SAP Malaysia said: “Our partners are an extension of the SAP network and, quite often with their local knowledge and expertise, play the critical role of fulfilling the ‘last mile’ of implementation.”

Andrew Kellett, data protection, Data security, News & Analysis, ovum

Ovum: Security skills shortage remains most prevalent barrier in cloud

Security skills shortages are hampering IT's ability to adopt cloud services

A security skills shortage is hampering cloud adoption

Security and an IT security skills shortage remain the most prevalent barriers to cloud uptake, according to Ovum principle analyst Andrew Kellett.

Although Ovum’s research suggests the volume of sensitive corporate data stored in the cloud continues to grow, with enterprise cloud adoption rates exceeding 80 per cent, in many cases this data is not adequately protected.

“Security, or lack thereof, is a significant issue. If there is one problem area inhibiting further adoption of cloud-based services, it is enterprise concerns about shortfalls in the protection regimes of many cloud service providers,” Kellet said, adding that since more sensitive data appears to be stored in the cloud the most basic security practices and controls aren’t necessarily enough.

“On too many occasions, security policies only come into place once a new technology has already gone mainstream, and this is certainly true of the cloud industry. Many cloud providers have been guilty of ‘bolting on’ security as an afterthought, something which has left previous generations of technology vulnerable to malware attacks, advanced persistent threats and other breach tactics.”

“Whether they like it or not, organisations are putting their trust in the hands of the service provider, often without being completely satisfied that such trust is justified or that service levels and protection can be maintained,” he concluded.

Other recently published research from Ovum suggests enterprises are quite concerned with how their cloud service providers implement security controls. The company recently surveyed 818 ITDMs for their views on cloud security and found that in the US specifically, respondents seemed most concerned about lack of control over the location of data (82 per cent), increased vulnerability of shared infrastructure (79 per cent), and “privileged user” abuse of the cloud service provider (78 per cent).

FinancialForce, Funding, News & Analysis, Salesforce, Software as a service, VC

FinancialForce raises $110m to grow Salesforce-based ERP

FinancialForce has raised $110m from TCV, Salesforce

FinancialForce has raised $110m from TCV, Salesforce

FinancialForce, a provider of a Salesforce-based ERP and HR services has raised $110m in a round led by Technology Crossover Ventures (TCV) with participation from Salesforce’s investment arm, Salesforce Ventures. The company said it will use the funds to expand sales, marketing and development.

The latest funding round comes less than a year after the company scored $50m from Advent International.

“Our goal has always been to transform the ERP market in the same way that Salesforce has for CRM. As our growth indicates, the industry is responding to our customer-centric approach to ERP where our apps, built natively to run alongside the Salesforce Customer Success Platform, help businesses create meaningful relationships with customers and employees to grow their top and bottom lines,” said Jeremy Roche, chief executive officer and president, FinancialForce.com.

“With TCV and Salesforce Venture’s contributions, FinancialForce.com can continue our rapid rate of growth and become the cloud ERP choice for all forward-thinking companies,” Roche added.

The company has reported strong growth over the past couple of years, no doubt bolstered by the continued success Salesforce seems to be realising.

FinancialForce said 2014 was its “banner year” for the firm, reporting 91 per cent annual subscription run rate growth and $50m in revenue. It also increased its global headcount by more than 80 per cent, from 250 employees at the end of 2013 to more than 450 at the end of 2014. The company said it currently has more than 500 employees spread across six global offices.

The funding round speaks to what now seems to have become an entrenched industry dynamic – where younger, more nimble cloud-native startups like NetSuite and FinancialForce are starting to overtake large IT incumbents, particularly in areas where software is traditionally bulky and relies heavily on tight integration (i.e. ERP). Salesforce, the platform upon which FinancialForce is based, recently announced full fiscal year 2015 revenue hitting $5.37bn – no small sum by any stretch of the imagination.

data privacy, data protection, Microsoft, News & Analysis, Public Sector

Microsoft, civil liberties renew calls for Patriot Act reform

Microsoft and close to 50 tech companies and civil liberties assocaitions have renewed calls to reform the US Patriot Act ahead of the expiry of the law's provisions governing bulk data collection

Microsoft and close to 50 tech companies and civil liberties associations have renewed calls to reform the US Patriot Act ahead of the expiry of the law’s provisions governing bulk data collection

Microsoft, along with nearly fifty other technology civil rights associations and technology firms have signed an open letter to senior members of the US government calling for reform of the Patriot Act, a cause célèbre for Microsoft among other cloud firms in recent years.

Microsoft has previously criticised the US government’s bulk data collection practices, and the ability of its authorities to act on warrants beyond US soil (particularly when such acts contradict local laws where those businesses operate).

In an open letter to very senior members of the US government including Michael Rogers, director of the NSA, senate minority leader Harry Reid, and US president Barack Obama, the organisations reaffirm the need to end the US government’s bulk data collection practices, and make government and corporate reporting on any Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court decisions more transparent.

The US Patriot Act Section 215, which currently serves as the legal basis for the NSA’s bulk collection of metadata, is due to expire in June this year.

“We the undersigned represent a wide range of privacy and human rights advocates, technology companies, and trade associations that hold an equally wide range of positions on the issue of surveillance reform. Many of us have differing views on exactly what reforms must be included in any bill reauthorizing USA Patriot Act Section 215,” the letter reads.

“That said, our broad, diverse, and bipartisan coalition believes that the status quo is untenable and that it is urgent that Congress move forward with reform.”

“It has been nearly two years since the first news stories revealed the scope of the United States’ surveillance and bulk collection activities. Now is the time to take on meaningful legislative reforms to the nation’s surveillance programs that maintain national security while preserving privacy, transparency, and accountability.”

Microsoft is among a range of technology companies in support of reforming how American legal entities treat data, both within the context of surveillance activities or general legal proceedings. But US lawmakers have signaled they are prepared to act on longstanding promises to reform the legal landscape. Last month American lawmakers introduced two bipartisan bills that seek to limit the reach of US courts over data stored in cloud services located outside the US, a move welcomed by a broad coalition of technology and telecoms firm – including Microsoft.

engineering, Enterprise IT, Khatib & Alami, News & Analysis, private

AEC firm K&A moves from private to public cloud, saves 40% in costs

Khatib & Alami moved onto iland's public cloud platform this year

Khatib & Alami moved onto iland’s public cloud platform this year

Global architectural design and project management firm Khatib & Alami (K&A) has moved from a private cloud platform onto a public cloud, which the company said has led to a 40 per cent reduction in IT operations management spend.

K&A, which was set up in 1964 and has offices in the Middle East, Africa, Western Europe and North America, offers a range of architectural and engineering services.

The company originally moved to deploy its internal applications on a private cloud platform hosted in iland’s datacentre in London, which it did in order to consolidate its IT environments.

At the time the company also experimented with public cloud platforms, but preferred to maintain its private cloud deployment. However, while it’s difficult to narrow down an exact figure where private and public cloud platforms are equal in cost, the company’s corporate IT manager Mohamed Saad said the public cloud option began to make more sense at the company’s growth began to outpace its ability to scale efficiently, both in terms to technology and personnel.

“The hardware was becoming too restrictive because we weren’t able to scale up.  We would have had to purchase more hardware and then deploy that and add more virtual servers with capacity for additional processing power. We would also have needed to employ the maintenance staff that went along with purchasing more hardware. Then we’d have to maintain all this equipment,” he explained.

“All of the maintenance and management headaches and the fact we needed rapid scalability helped us come to the decision that having our own private cloud infrastructure was just too much of a hassle.”

“What’s more, iland’s public cloud was considerably more economical than using our own equipment. We’re getting close to 35 to 40 per cent cost savings with iland’s cloud. iland now hosts all of our mission critical applications, allowing us to focus our IT efforts on activities that drive our business forward,” he added.

Europe, HP, News & Analysis, OpenStack, Public Sector, Xavier Poisson

HP, EC launch public sector cloud pilots in several European cities

The EC is working with HP to bring cloud to municipal governments in Europe

The EC is working with HP to bring cloud to municipal governments in Europe

HP announced it is working with the European Commission on several pilot cloud implementations in a bid to test how internal and citizen-facing public sector services cloud be moved off legacy platforms into more elastic cloud environments. The move is part of the Commission’s broader efforts to catalyse the use of cloud services in the public sector.

HP is working with the EC on the organisation’s ironically-named STORM (Surfing Towards the Opportunity of Real Migration) cloud project, which envisions the establishment of a public services cloud that allows services and data to be securely shared between the public and private sector partners.

The project currently includes three HP-led trials in Valladolid, Spain; Águeda, Portugal; and Thessaloniki, Greece. As part of the initiative HP is defining, designing and implementing an OpenStack-based infrastructure-as-a-service platform.

The initial stage of the project will see Valladolid pilot Urbanismo en Red, an application that gives citizens access to municipal development plans online. Thessaloniki will trial Virtual City Marketplace, a portal to buy and sell local services, while Agueda aims to increase public participation by allowing citizens and communities to express their opinion online and submit ideas for urban improvements.

The goal, the company said, is to accelerate the “cloudification” of public services in Europe, and to fine-tune and seed out a cloud platform model that can be replicated in other cities in Europe.

“Europe must ensure that new IT devices, applications, data repositories and services interact seamlessly anywhere – just like the Internet,” says Xavier Poisson Gouyou Beauchamps, vice president, cloud computing EMEA, HP.

“This project aims to make collaboration between public authorities easier and more cost effective through the sharing and re-use of common platforms, components and infrastructures. As a result, municipalities across the EU will take a step closer to becoming truly ‘smart cities’.”

“HP is working closely with the EU across a number of projects tied to accountability, security and compliance in order to accelerate digital growth in Europe,” he added.

Enterprise Strategy Group, Funding, Gene Stevens, News & Analysis, Scott Chasin, Universal Music Group

ProtectWise scores $17m to bring cloud security DVR to the enterprise

ProjectWise has exited stealth and announced it has raised $17m in funding

ProjectWise has exited stealth and announced it has raised $17m in funding

ProtectWise, which specialises in providing cloud security services, has exited stealth mode and announced it has secured $17m. The company, which was founded by former McAfee executives Scott Chasin and Gene Stevens, said it will use the funding to expand its sales and marketing efforts.

ProtectWise offers what it’s essentially calling a “cloud network DVR” that the company says can recall and analyse traffic going back weeks, months and even years in a bid to uncover any threats.

“By creating a network memory in the cloud, we’re able to provide a time machine for threat detection,” said Stevens, the company’s chief technology officer. “It automatically replays and analyzes stored network traffic whenever new threats emerge to uncover threats that were previously unknown.  This makes it possible to continuously analyze what we observe in the past and the present together to refine and reveal the threats that matter most.”

It also applies machine learning algorithms in conjunction with a number of commercial intelligence feeds to generate a broad security posture overview of a company’s digital services.

Some of the company’s early customers (it claims over a dozen overall) include the Enterprise Strategy Group and Universal Music Group.

“Enterprises today are grappling with Defense in Doubt,” said Chasin, the company’s chief executive officer. “The traditional defence in depth approach has left security professionals with a costly daisy chain of endpoint solutions that provide only a point-in-time view of threats and emit a tidal wave of security alarms with no context or correlation across solutions. By shifting network security to the cloud, we make it possible to leave this outdated, ineffective model of enterprise network security behind.”

Cloud security firms have attracted significant funding over the past couple of years, a testament to a growing shift towards cloud services. Earlier this month cloud security provider Elastica announced it had secured $30m in series B funding, a year after the firm exited stealth mode and announced its first investment round.

Bonny Joy, Christopher Dodge, News & Analysis, Operator, telco, Telco Cloud

Cloud storage bundles improve stickiness but not revenues – research

Cloud storage helps operators retain customers, not necessarily generate revenue

Cloud storage helps operators retain customers, not necessarily generate revenue

Research undertaken by analyst firm Strategy Analytics has concluded that pre-installed mobile cloud storage bundles, such as Dropbox, have become table stakes for device vendors and are perceived more as a prerequisite than a value-add, reports Telecoms.com.

SA pooled the resources of three analysts covering mobile content, user experience and app tracking to come to the conclusion that premium storage bundles have already become ‘me too’ propositions that confer little product differentiation. Having said that they also conclude they can still be effective for both device vendors and operators when it comes to customer loyalty.

Christopher Dodge, Associate Director of SA’s Wireless Media Labs, said: “Our research suggests that consumers are agnostic to who the service provider is, but at the same time they place significant emphasis on the trustworthiness of the service, which in turn creates an opportunity for device OEMs and operators in becoming the trusted provider of the service, through pre-installing the application on the device with free storage.”

Nitesh Patel, Director of the Wireless Media Strategies Service, said: “For operators, the focus with cloud storage service should be on indirect monetization – this means rather than relying on cloud as a premium service, they should manage it effectively for reducing customer churn.”

Bonny Joy, Chief of SA’s Consumer Telemetry Platforms said: “ OEM partnerships with cloud storage providers are being received favorably by the end users. The AppOptix based on over one million application sessions in the US found that Dropbox on Samsung devices realize a traffc of 12.8 MB  per day, the highest among  major OEM brands.”

Fellow analyst firm CCS Insight has also published some research today, but focusing on the UK consumer communications services market. CCS is forecasting that by 2020, 79% of UK households will have signed up to a multiplay service bundle, a 60% increase on the current level. Furthermore the number of households buying a bundle of at least four comms services is expected to increase by over 400%.

Paolo Pescatore, Director of Multiplay and Media at CCS Insight, reckons this means premium content will become even more valuable and that industry consolidation is set to continue. “With a furious battle for customers raging, we expect the amounts paid for exclusive content deals on movies, sports and TV shows to continue to skyrocket. Sports will be a major weapon in every provider’s arsenal for many years to come,” he said.

“Our surveys reveal that consumers find it more convenient and better value to buy broadband, mobile, TV and land-line access from one company, so established providers that can offer all these services are in a strong position. Once multiplay packages are the norm, it’ll be the exclusive content on offer that’ll set providers apart. It’s little wonder we’re seeing a frenzy of acquisitions as leading players scramble to secure assets.”