SYS-CON Events announced today that the «First International WebRTC Summit» (@WebRTCSummit) will take place Nov 6-7, 2013, at the Santa Clara Convention Center, Santa Clara, CA.
WebRTC (Web Real-Time Communication) is an open source project supported by Google, Mozilla and Opera that aims to enable browser-to-browser applications for voice calling, video chat, and P2P file sharing without plugins. Its mission is “To enable rich, high quality, RTC applications to be developed in the browser via simple Javascript APIs and HTML5.”
A survey by TokBox found that the WebRTC adoption rate among small organizations is growing quickly where over 25% of developers say it is important for their work.
Cloud Expo Silicon Valley: Everything-as-a-Channel
Leverage your existing channels, and identify new ones to increase revenue…
In a recent Gartner report, Lisa Arthur of Forbes predicted that in five years the CMO will surpass the CIO in purchase authority for IT. As the SaaS business model continues to erode the authority of IT in the decision process of acquiring software and apps, opportunities to transform the channel are emerging all around us – platforms that have never been considered part of the traditional channel are being opportunistically recognized in developing new revenue streams and providing routes to market.
What Do All these SMAC Developments Mean?
I see digital transformation spinning off many different business trends and technology waves. Consumers want to consume media on mobile devices. This in turn drives tablet sales, as most media is easier to view on tablets. Tablets and other mobile devices encourage and promote the digitization of customer engagements and produce more data (code halos) that enables new business models to emerge based on a strategic use of big data analytics tied to marketing and commerce platforms.
The more data and commerce that flows through mobile devices, the more companies focus on mobile marketing and sales channels. I see no end to the popularity of mobile devices, so this trend is guaranteed to continue. The question for us now is how this will impact traditional sales and marketing channels and strategies.
Government Agencies Decoding Encryption – How to Keep Cloud Data Private
The latest reports surrounding the surveillance programs of the NSA and their International counterparts reveal that these agencies have been able to decode the encryption methods some enterprises and organizations use to keep their online data private.
While these headlines are likely disconcerting for those operating in the U.S. or using software applications from cloud providers, as stated in our recent press release and blog post, enterprises do not need to allow their fears to slow down or stop their cloud adoption.
More attention has been turning to tokenization recently as a strong approach to secure sensitive data. Tokenization, like encryption, encodes or conceals data so it is protected from unauthorized parties. But unlike encryption, in which a mathematical link back to the original data’s true form still exists; tokenization is unique in that it completely removes the original data from the systems in which the replacement tokens reside (in this case, the cloud itself). You can find out more information about tokenization on this resource page.
When implemented in its strongest fashion (a randomized token generation approach
IBM Wins Its Largest U.S. Cloud-Computing Contract
That’s one big check for Big Blue.
IBM won a federal cloud-computing contract with a maximum value of $1 billion, its largest such agreement with the U.S. government, according to an article on Bloomberg.com.
The Interior Department awarded similar, 10-year pacts to nine other suppliers, including Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT), which also described the agreement as its largest federal cloud contract.
The deals might reach a combined $10 billion, allowing the agency to speed its efforts to move information to the cloud, a Web-based pool of shared resources such as data storage and software. Other U.S. departments may eventually tap the program.
The agreement shows that “IBM’s ability to help governments transform with new technologies, like cloud, continue to grow,” Michael Rowinski, a spokesman for the Armonk, New York-based company, said in an e-mail yesterday.
Enabling the New Cloud Distribution Model to Fuel Growth and Adoption
by Alex Danyluk, Senior Director, ISV & SaaS Alliances, Parallels
The march to the cloud is accelerating and undeniable. And every link in the IT distribution chain, from companies that develop software to customers, is adjusting to the new cloud distribution model. At the center of this new chain are various types of new and traditional distributors, from traditional hosting companies like HostWay and Hostnet, to managed service providers (MSPs) like Apptix and ApprRiver, to telecommunication companies like Sprint, Telenor and America Movil, to non-traditional service providers like Dell and Staples.
While there is great diversity in the distribution, they all share some common challenges and needs. They all want to sell a rich basket of independent software vendor (ISV) goods that are well integrated with each other and are easy for distributors and their customers to manage. They also want to enhance customer and user interface (UI) experiences. These needs create a challenge for both the new distributors and ISVs that want to reach these new diverse distribution channels. Each ISV and distributor needs to integrate their systems one by one, integrating provisioning, billing, portals and inter-application interoperability.
The cost and time to connect these ISVs with cloud distributors is a barrier to growth and adoption. Several companies, including Parallels, recognized this problem a few years ago and helped create the APS standard (www.APSstandard.org) to build a replicable model for connecting ISVs to distributors. To date, more than 400 ISV applications are APS packaged, distributing their offers via hundreds of distributors around the globe.
Following the APS standard, an ISV can build a connector once to easily enable distribution through APS-enabled disruptors. APS integrations can automatically set up user accounts when a customer purchase is made and assists with billing information, as would be expected from such a standard. APS goes further to ensure the customers and distributors have an excellent experience. APS has the ability for two different services to exchange information so that services like Symantec anti-virus and Microsoft Hosted Exchange automatically knows how to work with each other when a customer purchase both. ISVs can also embed rich customer HTML5 screens, further enhancing the user experience.
With APS, both ISVs and distributors now have a means of not only enabling the distribution of cloud services in the new cloud distribution model, but also enhancing the overall customer and service provider experience for advanced cross product integration capabilities and rich UI experiences.
On September 9, 2:30-3:30, in the Sequoia Room, at VentureBeat’s CloudBeat conference, I’ll be participating in a panel with Uday Keshavdas, Director of Business Development at Box and Joan Fazio Senior Director, Emerging Channels and Verticals, Commercial Marketing at Symantec, and we look forward to continuing the discussion there.
Is hosted private cloud the future of cloud infrastructure?
Every business is different, and their infrastructure is sure to follow suit. However, just as there are standards within best practices for cloud, so too are there consistencies where cloud platforms are concerned.
When we say cloud platforms, however, we don’t mean open or closed clouds, like Rackspace versus AWS. Instead we are referring to public, private and hybrid clouds.
A recent Business Technology Roundtable blog post delved into an IDC study, finding that companies are increasingly leveraging hosted private clouds. IDC points to the hosted private cloud as the new backbone to the infrastructure services,
“…transforming existing provider models for IT outsourcing, hosting infrastructure services, and other key IT industries.”
But what accounts for private cloud’s ascendance? While public cloud will always have a larger audience private clouds get to the heart of what businesses need: dedicated infrastructure that supports the compliance requirements of data.
The truth …
Cloud Expo Silicon Valley: Zero to Empire in 89 Days
In his session at the 13th International Cloud Expo®, Hollis Tibbetts, Director for Global Marketing Operations for Dell Software Group, will discuss how you can create a revenue generating machine with Social Media + Cloud in under 90 days.
Hollis Tibbetts is currently Director for Global Marketing Operations for Dell Software Group. He has established himself as a successful software marketing and technology expert. His various strategy, marketing and technology articles are read nearly 50,000 times a month.
Hollis has developed substantial expertise in middleware, SaaS, Cloud, data management and distributed application technologies, with over 20 years experience in marketing, technical, product management, product marketing and business development roles at leading companies in such as Pervasive, Aruna (acquired by Progress Software), Sybase (now SAP), webMethods (now Software AG), M7 Corporation (acquired by BEA/Oracle), OnDisplay (acquired by Vignette) and KIVA Software (acquired by Netscape). He has established himself as an industry expert, having authored a large number of technology white papers, as well as published media articles and book contributions.
Cloud – it’s not rocket science
We have all heard of cloud computing and we all know what it does. It’s undeniable, the cloud has revolutionised IT and will ultimately replace a significant portion of today’s IT services. Yes, it’s here to stay.
With such a saturated and competitive market, vendors are offering an array of cloud models and services, which are relatively easy to acquire. Whether it is public, private or hybrid, enterprises’ choices in the cloud are endless.
Nowadays, they can even choose to adopt a private or hosted cloud today and a public cloud model tomorrow. Gone are the days when different “clouds” couldn’t be combined. While this may provide enterprises with more flexibility and the freedom of choice, it can also hinder their governance, control and oversight of their IT infrastructure.
Take NASA for example. NASA recently released a report, auditing its progress of cloud adoption between June …
I’m Not Scared of DevOps and You Shouldn’t Be Either
DevOps is speeding towards the IT world like a freight train and the hype around it is deafening. There is no reason to be afraid of this change as it is the natural reaction to the agile movement that revolutionized development just a few years ago. By definition, DevOps is the natural alignment of IT performance to business profitability. The relevance of this has yet to be quantified but it has been suggested that the route to the CEO’s chair will come from the IT leaders that successfully make the transition to a DevOps model. If this still seems foreign to you, I recommend reading up on DevOps Blog from IT Revolution, the OpsCode Blog, and check out The Phoenix Project.
Despite all the talk around simple monitoring tools, breaking through the walls between Dev and Ops still poses a real challenge. This is because of a misunderstanding around Operations real purpose – extracting real value from its resources. According to Kevin Behr the definition of Operations is the act of harvesting value from IT resources. Anything that prevents this from happening is a detriment to the business. This means that firefighting and war room sessions are a hindrance to the DevOps model. The following screenshots are good examples of a war room scenario.