SYS-CON Events announced today that the Japan External Trade Organization, a government-related organization that works to promote mutual trade and investment between Japan and the rest of the world, has been named “Bronze Sponsor” of SYS-CON’s 11th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on November 5–8, 2012, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.
JETRO, or the Japan External Trade Organization, is a government-related organization that works to promote mutual trade and investment between Japan and the rest of the world. Originally established in 1958 to promote Japanese exports abroad, JETRO’s core focus in the 21st century has shifted toward promoting foreign direct investment into Japan and helping small to medium-size Japanese firms maximize their global export potential.
A Big Data Infographic
You dear readers are some of the most informed technologists on the planent. I think few things surprise you about Big Data. But many of us studying this concept are in a continual search for ways to explain key issues to non technologists, and that can be hard to do at times.
Masters at expression at Wikibon have done us all a favor by producing a terrific infographic that captures some of the important aspects of Big Data in clear and easy to understand ways.
‘Cloud first’ IT policy is better for government than ‘cloud last’
By Dr Steve Hodgkinson, Research Director IT, Asia-Pacific
The New Zealand government recently announced an all-of-government cloud computing approach, which features a positive “cloud-first” statement of intent for ICT procurement.
This policy is at odds with the more conservative policy position of the Australian federal government, which, while also aiming to promote cloud adoption, is actually more focused on the supposedly new risks and issues of cloud services.
Australia’s stance is formally “cloud neutral” but, in practice, is “cloud last,” because it lacks a clear vision of the benefits of the cloud model but is very clear about its risks. The contrast between the two country’s positions is subtle but important, because significant barriers to cloud adoption are deeply embedded in the twentieth-century ICT procurement policies and practices of agencies.
While caution is prudent, some degree of positive “cloud-first” leadership and a practical approach to confronting the benefit …
Building Canada’s Cloud Identity Ecosystem
With the government promising delivery of the long-awaited Digital Economy strategy by the year end, this prompts a review of what role the Cloud industry can play in this strategy. This then further encourages us to identify what particular segments of the Cloud Computing industry we might specialize in, with a view to concentrating in […]
Lenovo Buys into Brazil
Lenovo, which was just saying something about looking for strategic growth acquisitions, said Wednesday that it has struck a deal to buy Brazil’s largest consumer electronics maker, a group of three companies called CCE, for $148 million in cash and stock.
The acquisition will make it Brazil’s third-largest PC vendor.
CCE, with revenues of $783 million last year, makes PCs, phones and TVs at seven factories in Brazil, one of the emerging BRIC countries and still a top PC market.
By IDC’s tally, nearly four million units shipped there in Q2 out of a global total of 85 million.
CCE includes Digibrás Indústria do Brasil SA, Digiboard Eletrônica da Amazônia LTDA and Dual Mix Comércio de Eletrônicos LTDA.
DISA’s Five-Year Strategic Information Infrastructure Plan
The Department of Defense’s Defense Information Systems Agency recently released their strategic plan for the next 5 years. DISA is a Combat Support Agency that “provides, operates, and assures command and control, information sharing capabilities, and a globally accessible enterprise information infrastructure in direct support to joint Warfighters, National level leaders, and other mission and coalition partners across the full spectrum […]
This post by AlexOlesker was first published at CTOvision.com.
Amazon Makes Waves to Swamp iPad’s Boat
In a highly anticipated event in Los Angeles Thursday that pushed its stock to a record high while it was happening, Amazon unveiled three next-generation Kindle Fire tablets and priced the mid-range 8.9-inch model with a 1,920 x 1,200 HD screen at $299, undercutting the 9.75-inch Apple iPad by $200.
A seven-inch 1,280 x 800 Kindle Fire HD will run $199, a buck less than Google’s seven-inch Nexus 7 and probably less than the iPad mini Apple is believed to be getting ready to put on the market.
The first will be available on November 20. The smaller one goes out the door on September 14. Both come standard with 16GB of memory.
Twitter’s Performance Metrics During the Political Conventions
While all eyes were on Tampa, Fla. and Charlotte, N.C. these last two weeks for the Republican and Democratic National Conventions, we had our eyes, and monitors, on Twitter to see if and how these events impacted Twitter’s website performance. As is the case with most big news events today, people took to Twitter in a big way for real-time …
Bulgaria, Hong Kong Among Diverse ICT Leaders
Yesterday, I listed the countries which performed best overall in our latest research at the Tau Institute.
Our mission at the Tau Institute is to produce a sophisticated ranking that takes into account relative progress of the nations of the world when it comes to ICT. We integrate several publicly available factors into our own algorithm. There is thus transparency in the data we input combined with a specialized weighting system that we believe reveals new insight into the statistics.
We’ve integrated the following factors into a single, weighted formula:
* Per capita income (from the World Bank)
* Local cost of living (ditto)
* Gini coefficient (income disparity as measured by the United Nations and CIA)
* Perception of corruption (from Transparency International)
* Human development (according to the United Nations)
* Data servers per capita (adjusted for local income, as measured by the World Bank)
* Average bandwidth speed (from Ookla, Inc.)
* % of population with access to the Internet (from the International Telecommunications Union)
* % population with broadband connections (ditto)
In the end, we’ve created a “pound-for-pound” analysis that reveals the countries that are doing the most with what they have. Our method goes far beyond the normal rankings one sees that simply show wealthy countries on top, developing nations on the bottom.
We can view the datas in several ways. The “raw” ranking hits a middle ground of opportunity and development. Countries that have lagged regardless of income level (such as Norway and Libya) do not fare as well in this index as countries that have shown good relative ICT commitments (such as Jordan), even if they’re still impoverished (such as Ethiopia).
As a reality check and benchmark, we’ve created a “Perfect Land” which has optimal statistics in all categories. The idea is that no country should beat Perfect Land in the overall index, although many countries will beat it in the raw index, which is weighted toward potential.
Here are the leaders in the raw ranking:
Tier 1 (>$30K in per capita income)
Hong Kong
Belgium
Netherlands
United Kingdom
Germany
Sweden
New Zealand
Spain
Finland
Israel
Tier 2 ($13K-$29K)
Lithuania
Hungary
South Korea
Estonia
Taiwan
Poland
Slovakia
Croatia
Czech Republic
Russia
Tier 3 ($6K-$13K)
Bulgaria
Romania
Serbia
Montenegro
Latvia
Kazakhstan
Libya
Malaysia
Turkey
Colombia
Tier 4 ($2K-$6K)
Ukraine
Morocco
Mongolia
Egypt
China
Philippines
Tunisia
Armenia
Jordan
Bolivia
Tier 5 (<$2K) Vietnam Kenya Tanzania Ethiopia Nigeria Senegal Ghana Pakistan India Laos Each of these countries has a story to tell, as do all countries covered in our research. We are currently engaging with local resources in some of the places that emerge as leaders. We are also very interested in making new connections within any country – the Tau Index serves merely to start conversations about ICT and its role in increasing economic development and improving the lives of people. Follow me on Twitter
Cloud Expo Silicon Valley – Democratization of IT: IT as Service Provider
Cloud computing is disrupting the world of IT as we know it. Unlike previous platform shifts, this one enables users to bypass central IT. Whether you call it “Rogue IT” or “Getting My Job Done,” end users taking IT into their own hands is happening today. The democratization of IT has profound implications for IT organizations and forces them to become service providers.
In his session at the 11th International Cloud Expo, Vice President of Enterprise Solutions at enStratus, will talk about how IT should think of its future role, what being a service provider means, and practical steps IT should take to transition to a service provider operation.