The bloviations of a wacko CEO in the US against French workers provided some comic fodder this week. Making fun of the French is a bit of a national sport in the US, and the expected barbed retorts have come back from France this week.

More seriously, the “dirigiste” approach to government taken by France’s Fifth Republic since its founding in 1958 can seem to many Americans to be an impediment to economic and societal growth. But the less varnished, ostensible free-market approach taken by the US can seem barbaric to our European friends.

Indeed, France trails several of its neighbors in our rankings at the Tau Institute. We weigh several technology factors (such as bandwidth and Internet access) into our Tau Index, along with societal factors (such as corruption and human development), and integrate all this with the local cost-of-living.

The Netherlands emerges on top in Western Europe. Several Scandinavian and Baltic countries, as well as the UK and Germany, also fare better than France in our rankings.

Yet the US does no better than France. The two countries are in a virtual statistical dead heat, ranking barely in the Top 40 among the 102 countries we survey. Clearly, France could be doing better. Just as clearly, the US could as well.

Our rankings do not account for the type of government in power. The hardline Communists of Vietnam have propelled their country to near the top of our rankings, as have the egalitarian democrats of Finland and the Netherlands,

We don’t profess to say that one country’s government is better than anothers. Neither do we make hard predictions of how a high ranking may directly improve a nation’s economic and societal growth. We do, however, measure dynamism – technology can be disruptive, even as it’s a major driver of global change and development.

Among the more dynamic places we’ve ranked highly over the past two years are Egypt and Tunisia – and Vietnam. Today, the most dynamic regions we’ve found are Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia, and in terms of raw potential, Eastern Africa. The US and France are equally undynamic, even as Silicon Valley remains a great technology inventor and France remains the second-strongest economy in Europe.

But we can’t forget that Canada outpaces the US in North America, and several countries outpace France in Europe. So I say “Vive la France” and “God bless America” – and both of you get your act together when it comes to IT. The world will pass you both by as you continue your lengthy pissing match.

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The bloviations of a wacko CEO in the US against French workers provided some comic fodder this week. Making fun of the French is a bit of a national sport in the US, and the expected barbed retorts have come back from France this week.

More seriously, the “dirigiste” approach to government taken by France’s Fifth Republic since its founding in 1958 can seem to many Americans to be an impediment to economic and societal growth. But the less varnished, ostensible free-market approach taken by the US can seem barbaric to our European friends.

Indeed, France trails several of its neighbors in our rankings at the Tau Institute. We weigh several technology factors (such as bandwidth and Internet access) into our Tau Index, along with societal factors (such as corruption and human development), and integrate all this with the local cost-of-living.

The Netherlands emerges on top in Western Europe. Several Scandinavian and Baltic countries, as well as the UK and Germany, also fare better than France in our rankings.

Yet the US does no better than France. The two countries are in a virtual statistical dead heat, ranking barely in the Top 40 among the 102 countries we survey. Clearly, France could be doing better. Just as clearly, the US could as well.

Our rankings do not account for the type of government in power. The hardline Communists of Vietnam have propelled their country to near the top of our rankings, as have the egalitarian democrats of Finland and the Netherlands,

We don’t profess to say that one country’s government is better than anothers. Neither do we make hard predictions of how a high ranking may directly improve a nation’s economic and societal growth. We do, however, measure dynamism – technology can be disruptive, even as it’s a major driver of global change and development.

Among the more dynamic places we’ve ranked highly over the past two years are Egypt and Tunisia – and Vietnam. Today, the most dynamic regions we’ve found are Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia, and in terms of raw potential, Eastern Africa. The US and France are equally undynamic, even as Silicon Valley remains a great technology inventor and France remains the second-strongest economy in Europe.

But we can’t forget that Canada outpaces the US in North America, and several countries outpace France in Europe. So I say “Vive la France” and “God bless America” – and both of you get your act together when it comes to IT. The world will pass you both by as you continue your lengthy pissing match.

read more

Thereʼs a popular childrenʼs book called Whereʼs Waldo, in which the lead character – with his signature red-and-white striped shirt and somewhat goofy expression – is obscured by various collections of people and things. Heʼs hidden, but in plain sight (if youʼll excuse the oxymoron) and itʼs the young readerʼs task to locate him in every illustration. By the end of the book, children become adept at locating the enigmatic Waldo in a glance.
We can only hope that this instructional parable reminds us of how sometimes the simplest truth can be obstructed by our need to make things complex. And so it is with the new world of work. If you want to know where the jobs are, hereʼs a hint: Theyʼre in plain sight.
You might call this new, adult game Whereʼs the Work. And the stakes couldnʼt be higher.

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In his session at the 12th International Cloud Expo, Richard Taggart, CTO of SHI, will share a collection of best Information Technology Practices and Innovation Programs that have been proven to work in real life situations. These practices are some of the best ideas taken from SHI’s database of customer submissions. These programs include those designed to solve business to technology alignment issues, technology effectiveness, and new ways to stimulate true innovation in IT. Taggart is the former SVP and Corporate CIO of the Walt Disney Company.
Rich Taggart is CTO at SHI. He has over 25 years of experience in a variety of roles in IT and management. Prior to joining SHI, he was the Senior Vice President and Corporate CIO at the Walt Disney Company in Burbank, California. In this role, he was responsible for support of the Disney Corporate organization which included brand management, finance, human resources, legal, and other corporate functions and for support of departmental and global shared services applications.

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SYS-CON Events announced today that MFX, a leading provider of IT Infrastructure solutions and business application solutions, will exhibit at SYS-CON’s 12th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on June 10–13, 2013, at the Javits Center in New York City, New York.
Founded in 2001 as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited, a multi-billion dollar financial services holding company, MFX delivers cost effective infrastructure solutions matching your needs and the dynamic and growing data demands in industry today. MFX offerings meet these demands through a variety of infrastructure solution options priced to match the variability of your business. MFX Infrastructure Solutions are secure, dependable and proven, and are supported by an experienced staff of specialists who deliver our solutions with unparalleled service quality. Speed, Innovation and Technology are what we provide.

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Israeli-based Newvem, a start-up cloud operation analytics service, can do triage, so to speak, on anybody’s Amazon installation, pinpointing where the user or corporation of any size may be losing money by using the widgetry incorrectly or over-provisioning with resources that are too big for the job.
A user can stay up-to-date in real-time with what he’s spending on Amazon compute or storage, and find out precisely what resources are being deployed or where his governance is going awry.
From what it’s seen so far, the company estimates that 50% of Amazon users have security issues, 30% run an outage risk and 15% under-utilization problems.
Since Newvem started offering a free beta of its just released Amazon Cloud Care healthcare service eight months ago, its top 25 customers, mostly large accounts, have upped their use of the Amazon cloud anywhere from 3x to a whopping 70x.

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Signing up and signing on are major threats to any cloud application business. What approaches can an application provider take, and what are the implications on the business?
Did you know that:
Half of paid SaaS customers do not use the application at all
Nine out of 10 has left an application when they forgot a password, instead of restoring it
Eighty-six percent may leave a web site when asked to sign up
Two out of five would rather scrub the toilet than come up with a new password
These figures, based on research from Totango and Janrain in 2012, clearly show that sign-up and sign-on are major issues for any cloud application provider.

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Cloud computing allows US businesses to reduce their total IT costs by a significant 26 percent, according to a new study released on Wednesday. In addition, a majority 62 percent of respondents agree cloud computing has helped them boost profits.
“Businesses of all sizes, from the very largest global corporations to startups, say their operations are seeing multiple benefits from cloud computing,” noted Rackspace Chief Technology Officer, John Engates. “Thanks to the cloud, at least half of businesses on both sides of ‘the pond’ are growing with increased profits despite the ongoing economic backdrop. Savings from the cloud have enabled these companies to hire new employees, increase wages and drive innovation.”
The study, conducted by Rackspace Hosting with support from Manchester Business School, a UK and world business school, found an overwhelming 94 percent of businesses in the US using the cloud had saved money.

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There is a significant change in how software is developed over the last decade. Agile had been the buzzword over the last decade and probably is most significant of changes in software development to date. Now that the hype around Agile has been subsided, it is worth an effort to understand what it is like post agile. Often we see Agile with a narrow perspective, limiting it to a few programming practices and nothing more. We also fail to notice the indirect influence and the larger impact of Agile over the last decade.
TOOLING It is very interesting to see the way tooling has been changed over the decade. I must say this is the area where most innovation has happened. Almost all the aspects of software tooling has been changed; from version control systems to functional testing software. Several new categories of tools have born, which we couldn’t have imagined in 90s. Monolithic IDEs and tightly integrated eco systems are replaced with more specialized tools integrated via loose interfaces. Tools like GIT (distributed version control systems), Hudson (Continuous Integration Systems) are few examples of this change.

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There is a significant change in how software is developed over the last decade. Agile had been the buzzword over the last decade and probably is most significant of changes in software development to date. Now that the hype around Agile has been subsided, it is worth an effort to understand what it is like post agile. Often we see Agile with a narrow perspective, limiting it to a few programming practices and nothing more. We also fail to notice the indirect influence and the larger impact of Agile over the last decade.
TOOLING It is very interesting to see the way tooling has been changed over the decade. I must say this is the area where most innovation has happened. Almost all the aspects of software tooling has been changed; from version control systems to functional testing software. Several new categories of tools have born, which we couldn’t have imagined in 90s. Monolithic IDEs and tightly integrated eco systems are replaced with more specialized tools integrated via loose interfaces. Tools like GIT (distributed version control systems), Hudson (Continuous Integration Systems) are few examples of this change.

read more