Enterprise IT managers are tasked with the mission to solve for the vast explosion of business data. As business data continues its relentless growth, building complex, tiered storage architectures is no longer practical. It has been nearly impossible to keep ahead of the explosion of data, until now.
Attend this webcast and join storage industry expert, David Vellante, as he leads a discussion with IBM and IBM Ecosystem partner, Nirvanix, on how to solve for the explosion of today’s unstructured data in the enterprise.
Global SMB Market: Web Presence
Part 3 of a 5-part series detailing Parallels SMB Cloud Insights research
In this Global SMB Market series we’ve been discussing our Parallels SMB Cloud Insights to help service providers target the rapidly-growing cloud services market for small and medium businesses. In our last post we talked about global growth opportunities in hosted infrastructure. This week we’ll discuss the opportunities for web presence with these companies.
As with hosted infrastructure, the opportunities in the web presence sector depend on the market segment to which a country belongs. However, compared to hosted infrastructure, there is already a strong penetration rate for all three market segments identified in our report (see Table 2, below), which can mean an easier job for service providers.
A Developed Web Presence
Developed countries with mature cloud services already have a well-developed web presence, with about 50% of companies having a service provider and 70% having a website. But even with these web-savvy companies, or Cloud Expanders, there is opportunity.
First, self-hosting a website is an expensive and technically complex solution for SMBs, yet the 15 to 20% of micro and small companies in this segment are currently doing just that. Service providers can educate these SMBs about the advantages of third-party web hosting and encourage them to switch to a hosted service. Second, service providers can offer tools such as website design, social media, and e-commerce capabilities, all elements that can be overwhelming and otherwise expensive for smaller businesses.
Maturing into Cloud Services
For companies in developed countries with maturing cloud services the opportunities are a little different. Our research found that only 50% of the SMBs in this group have a website, compared to 70% in the previous segment. But even with this dramatic drop in penetration, there is an opportunity to switch companies that are currently self-hosting – so-called Cloud Converters – to more affordable, easier to manage third-party web hosting as well as upsell services.
In addition, the 50% of SMBs in this segment that don’t currently have a website actually show a high willingness to adopt a hosted web presence, with over 30% of them considering adding third-party web hosting plans in the next three years, so now is the perfect time for service providers to get in on the ground floor.
Emerging into the Cloud
The web presence market among SMBs in developing countries with emerging cloud services has ample room for growth. Currently, less than 40% of SMBs in these countries have a company website, making these Cloud Leapers the primary opportunity in this market. Not only are they the largest group with no website, but they also show a strong willingness to adopt: about 35% of them plan to add a third-party web hosting plan in the upcoming three years.
Among all SMBs, whether they have a website or not, social media pages are the top forms of web presence. Although current penetration rates are still low, service providers should keep social media integration tools in mind, especially as Internet usage in all segments grows and leads to higher penetration rates.
In the next installment we’ll discuss options for Hosted Communication and Collaboration for SMBs.
Want to know more? Parallels has updated and enriched its wildly popular research on SMBs and their move to the cloud. We’ll present our findings in a webinar on May 30th. In this webinar, we will share the results of our latest US SMB research, including how SMBs are adopting cloud services, how much is being spent on each type of service, and how service providers should market to SMBs to benefit from the upcoming growth in this booming market.
UShareSoft Coupon Code ▸ usharesoftVIPgold Offer as Cloud Expo Sponsor
As an exhibitor at Cloud Expo New York, UShareSoft is offering special passes to SYS-CON’s 10th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on June 11–14, 2012, at the Javits Center in New York City, New York.
UShareSoft offers a cloud server template factory and enterprise app store platform for self-service software onboarding to cloud. UShareSoft’s UForge enables customers to automate the creation and management of cloud images and server templates, with full software governance. Additionally, UForge allows hosting providers to build their own dynamic app store for enterprise IT applications, quickly scaling their cloud services business and ecosystem. UShareSoft tools are helping hosting providers, ISVs and enterprises in their transition phase to the cloud. Headquartered in Europe, UShareSoft has an R&D center in Argentina and offices in the United States and Japan.
Coraid Coupon Code ▸ coraidVIPgold Special Offer as Cloud Expo Sponsor
As a Silver Sponsor of Cloud Expo New York, Coraid is offering special passes to SYS-CON’s 10th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on June 11–14, 2012, at the Javits Center in New York City, New York.
Coraid Inc. is a technology manufacturing company based in the United States. It designs and manufactures a full line of computer data storage products branded under the trade name EtherDrive storage. Coraid sells products through technology channel partners operating around the world. EtherDrive storage products provide enterprises of all sizes with a flexible tier of high performance Ethernet SAN storage. Coraid has been selling its products since 2004 delivering the fundamental building blocks for scaling out storage projects for virtualization, disaster recovery, high-performance computing, and cloud storage.
Access HP Cloud Storage from Mac OS X
If you have an HP Cloud account, you may be familiar with the following screen, which is the HP web based storage browser for HP Cloud Object Storage. You can upload, download and browse the files and folders in your HP Cloud Object Storage. Besides the HP Cloud Storage Web Browser access, you may also want to access the cloud storage from PC, from Mac, from mobile devices or from file servers. This is when Gladinet Cloud can help.
(ISC)² Coupon Code ▸ isc2VIPgold Special Offer as Cloud Expo Media Sponsor
As a Media Sponsor of Cloud Expo New York, (ISC)² is offering special passes to SYS-CON’s 10th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on June 11–14, 2012, at the Javits Center in New York City, New York.
The International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium, Inc., (ISC)², is the global leader in educating and certifying information security professionals throughout their careers. Our reputation has earned our certifications numerous awards and global recognition. As one of our members, you’ll have access to current industry information, networking opportunities, discounts on industry conferences and valuable career tools.
Jaspersoft Coupon Code ▸ jaspersoftVIPgold Offer as Cloud Expo Sponsor
As an exhibitor at Cloud Expo New York, Jaspersoft is offering special passes to SYS-CON’s 10th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on June 11–14, 2012, at the Javits Center in New York City, New York.
Jaspersoft provides the most flexible, cost-effective and widely deployed Business Intelligence (BI) suite in the world, enabling better decision-making through highly interactive reports, dashboards and analytics. By leading in support for cloud, Big Data, and mobile deployments, Jaspersoft helps its customers deliver on the promise of self-service BI at scale. Leveraging a commercial open source business model and a community of over 275,000 registered members, Jaspersoft’s open source BI software has been downloaded over 16 million times. Jaspersoft production deployments, in excess of 175,000, power 130,000 data-driven applications spanning 15,000 commercial customers. Jaspersoft is privately held and has locations around the world.
PubNub Coupon Code ▸ pubnubVIPgold Special Offer as Cloud Expo Sponsor
As an exhibitor of Cloud Expo New York, PubNub is offering special passes to SYS-CON’s 10th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on June 11–14, 2012, at the Javits Center in New York City, New York.
To obtain this special pass, here is a quick summary of all anyone needs to do – feel free to cut and paste these instructions into any email blast you might be sending out.
PubNub is a blazingly fast cloud-hosted data push service for building real-time web and mobile apps. Hundreds of apps and thousands of developers rely on PubNub for delivering “human-perceptive” real-time experiences that scale to millions of users worldwide. PubNub delivers the infrastructure needed to build amazing MMO games, social apps, business collaborative solutions, and more.
Who’s Winning the High-Speed Connection Race?
If (er, I mean when) you attend Cloud Expo in New York in a couple of weeks, where does your thinking lead you beyond the United States?
If you’re solely focused on a local challenge – whether building and deploying a cloud project or initiative, or selling technology – then perhaps you don’t think much beyond our shores. But given the globalized nature of much of business today, perhaps you have to.
We’re far from the era of ubiquitous, global cloud-computing structures. Hardware bottlenecks, pesky national governments, and sheer distance forestall the day when your real-time global cloud empire may be virtualizing in Johannesburg, mirroring in Doha, and processing data in Sofia and Jakarta to zap to users in Chicago and San Francisco. Nevertheless, a map of the world can be useful in determining your best sources, office locations, investments, and potential new customers.
I’ve endeavored through my research these past 18 months to locate the most dynamic IT (or ICT) nations on the planet.
My initial research focused on raw dynamism – which countries seemed to be accelerating most quickly, even if they were accelerating from a previously very low speed? Using raw economic data, I found places like Bangladesh, Morocco, Senegal, and Ukraine were on a course to emerge from the pack. These were countries that seemed to be doing the most with what they had, even if they don’t have very much.
Since my initial look, I’ve layered in several other economic, technological, and social parameters to locate the countries that not only were doing the most with what they had – which were not only accelerating – but were also making great strides in establishing themselves as ICT powers.
Now, as I prepare for New York, I’ve been looking at bandwidth. I looked at average Internet speeds and access to high-speed connections, then integrated this data into measures of local cost-of-living and income disparity.
Looking at things this way shows South Korea once again leading the world. The remaining Top 10 are Lithuania, Hong Kong, Bulgaria, Romania, Latvia, Ukraine, Singapore, Estonia, and Hungary. As we can see, the nations of Central and Eastern Europe are doing a spectacular job of deploying high-speed connnections – and making them accessible to their people.
Regional leaders include Canada, Chile, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Israel, Singapore, South Korea, and South Africa, although there is some disparity amongst the regions themselves.
Look me up in New York if you want to learn more about what I’m doing!
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EVault Partners with EverGreen Data Continuity to Deliver Disaster Recovery Solutions
EVault, Inc., a Seagate Company, and EverGreen Data Continuity today announced that EverGreen has joined the EVault Partner Program, and will be promoting and selling EVault cloud-connected backup and recovery products and services in the United States. As part of its risk assessment and mitigation service, EverGreen will offer EVault Cloud Disaster Recovery Service (EVault CDR) to further help customers prepare for and respond to disasters and unexpected outages.
EVault CDR is a cloud-based managed service that enables midmarket organizations and enterprise remote or branch offices to securely recover critical systems and data after a disaster. Customers can choose 4, 24 or 48 hour SLAs.
“As a trusted advisor to some of the world’s largest brands and agencies, Evergreen deploys our award-winning Mitigator Business Continuity Management (BCM) software along with our front-end professional services to help customers adequately prepare for any unforeseen event, offering them best-in-class solutions that will meet their needs and mitigate risk,” says Steve Burns, president of EverGreen. “With EVault CDR, we can confidently offer the best disaster recovery service that will help our clients get back to work shortly after a disaster. EVault’s guaranteed SLAs and quality customer service make it a perfect solution for our clients that cannot be without critical systems for an extended period of time.”
All EVault CDR customers work closely with a dedicated, experienced team of EverGreen and EVault DR experts, on call 24/7/365, to guide them through the entire process — from implementation, disaster recovery planning and testing through the execution of system and data recovery processes.
“Building strategic partnerships with industry leaders like EverGreen is critical to EVault’s success,” said Dave Hallmen, vice president of marketing and sales for EVault. “By leveraging EverGreen’s front-line expertise in business continuity coupled with our leadership in the backup and disaster recovery space, together we can help customers mitigate risk, and give them peace of mind that their vital company data is protected at all times.”
