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By Paul, on March 8th, 2010
Who is the number one player in the Cloud? This is a frequently asked question, but one that is difficult to answer. There have been several attempts to classify companies in the Cloud (such as the top 150 Cloud companies to watch) and these are definitely helpful in increasing awareness of newer or smaller companies that have an interesting cloud offering. However, the resulting lists are usually sorted by alphabetical order, and may not be a good starting point for an enterprise decision-maker looking to use the Cloud to solve a specific business problem.
Most recently, Peter Laird – now at Tendril Networks – did an n admirable job in moving away from alphabetical sorting to listing the companies that have the most mindshare using Google search rankings. Companies such as Rackspace, Sun and Salesforce were at the top of the list that he generated, which is a clear step forward form previous efforts.
Peter Laird: Ranking Cloud Computing Vendors 2009
Next week BTC Logic will release its Q1 2010 Cloud Top Ten companies list beginning on March 15 with the Top Ten Cloud Infrastructure companies. How is this list different? What is different from previous ranking attempts?
BTC Logic took the viewpoint of an enterprise leader or decision-maker looking to take advantage of the Cloud, and seeking to build consensus between his or her business executives and technology thought leaders. Furthermore, BTC Logic is an independent entity and so is not seeking to push any particular vendor technology unless that technology genuinely solves enterprise business issues.
The Top Ten lists are the result of an analysis of over 600 companies with offerings in the Cloud market place, and these lists should prove a very useful source of information for enterprises moving into the Cloud.
By Elliott, on February 28th, 2010
Do You Know Where Your Data Is In The Cloud?
www.forrester.com/cloudprivacyheatmap
As the specific regulations governing privacy and data protection vary greatly. To help grasp this issue at a high level, Forrester created “Interactive Data Protection Map” that denotes the degree of legal strictness across a range of nations.
It is easy to see by users lose control of their information when they place applications, and their data files, on cloud computers that can be located wherever there is electrical power and internet hookup. Critical and sometimes sensitive information that was once safely stored on local devices computers now resides on the servers of companies who do not necessarily disclose where their servers are located. Cloud Computing Services may mean that both access to the application and data will be at risk by placing both in the hands of a third party. Data hack and intrusion scenarios are not hard to imagine.
By Elliott, on February 28th, 2010
Absolute Software will update its LANRev to disable camera feature
Gregg Keizer, gkeizer@ix.netcom.com. February 22, 2010 article in Computerworld
Computers present new considerations for both legal and illegal privacy invasions. Cloud Computing exasperates the problem by allowing minimal barriers to startup and connectivity. Many companies believe they are under no moral obligation to challenge the appropriate balance between privacy rights and criminal investigations. Technologist have a tendency to look at their services as objective It is particularly problematic with respect to judgment errors like what happened at the Pennsylvania school , since serious issues can arise when computers are misused.
The tension between the need to know, to investigate conduct and privacy concerns of individuals and businesses cannot happen without moral imperatives. Societal rules offer individuals and businesses the ability to protect their privacy, and trust that public and private institutions will do the same.
Absolute Software, taking a leadership role, has taken the high ground by both labeling the actions by the school as morally bankrupt and disabling the offending features. What Absolute has done is made protecting privacy pone of its corporate tenants. They should be applauded for their action. The PA school district, on the other hand, should take a closer look at their ethics.
By Elliott, on February 28th, 2010
I recently took a closer look at container shipping. I came across an interesting book: The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger, written by Marc Levinson in 2006. This is a fascinating book, exposing a disruptive technology that radically changed the shipping industry from labor intensive and costly into something more diverse, more efficient and more cost effective.
We have Malcolm Mclean to thank for challenging the norm – an exception based solution in place from the start of vessel shipping. The inefficiencies in commercial shipping, including ineffective packaging and crating, “break-bulk’ or piecemeal cargo consisting of separate items that had to be handled individually, such as bags of grain or flour packed next to iron piping. The type and shapes of the shipping vessels were designed for manual loading: wide at the top and narrow at the bottom. The exception based process relied on long shore men to absorb the inefficiencies. Today, if you visit a shipping port, you will see ships, trains, and trucks all using the same two types of containers. By allowing only two sizes, 40 and 45 feet, the upstream and downstream processes become equally efficient, larger ships loading and unloading, balanced stacking, placement on trucks, large fast cranes for loading and unloading, and the logistics and operations of moving massive amounts of goods.
The same notions of containers or standardized software are very analogues to the cloud computing world. The tremendous efficiencies of containerized software, platforms, infrastructure, and consulting allow work to occur with greater interoperability and lower costs. Look at the number of Infrastructure, Platform and Software solutions as services. No need to fight for new hardware, new configurations, new test beds or exception based piecemeal software creation. One can focus on competitive advantage and unique attributes [...]
By Johannes, on February 28th, 2010
Much is being written about (public) cloud computing and its financial benefits. Typically, stated benefits arise from more efficient server utilization and reduced power consumption, as well as from the ability to manage more server capacity with existing IT resources. We find that many of these analyses paint too narrowly focused a picture, and are thus offering a few observations to help quantify more completely and accurately the costs and benefits of a planned cloud computing [...]
By Beth, on February 25th, 2010
As part of the “C” in BTC Logic I am continually surprised to find large respected businesses paying so little attention to people using their products and services. After all what is the User Experience if not the building block of any business process.
There are many discussions taking place around UX, is it relevant today or it is marketing hype? After all some say the experience is completing the intended user goal. If s/he can accomplish the goal the experience is perceived as a good one, right? As with most things the devil is in the details, particularly when Web 3.0 technologies are added to the mix. But I am getting ahead of myself.
Today, logging into my summary account at a large respected financial services firm I planned to add an account to an existing account summary. Easy enough I thought, as I initially set up the account, access it regularly, (more so when the market’s up) so adding to the summary would be relatively quick and uncomplicated. Well, You can imagine the ‘experience’ I had when my revised summary indicated I had successfully accomplished my task and wiped out all previous established accounts. This was a surprise not only to me but to numerous tech support people as well. Hours and many telephone conversations later, tech support was surprised to discover this chain of events was caused by following a work flow which began with selection of “View all accounts” and ended with “Validate your account”. Validating a new account nullified existing online accounts. When I asked the question how does a user add an account – the response was, “call us!”
Keep in mind this example does not touch upon the issues facing the user with Web 3.0 capabilities and the myriad of interactions they may or may not [...]
By Paul, on February 18th, 2010
I was reading through David Linthicum’s posting on the death of the data center, and have to mostly agree with him. Read the article here.
While companies are showing a significant move to virtualization within the data center and a clear shift to adding resources in the Cloud rather than an in-house data center, the short term effect will likely be to increase the number of data centers – Amazon being a good example of this.
However, I do believe that the ownership and location of the new data centers represents a dramatic shift. It will be service providers such as Amazon and IBM who will be adding the most capacity in the next few years, and they will be placing these in areas with maximum international bandwidth.
Longer term we may see a consolidation of in-house data centers as companies reconfigure their data center strategies to include external service providers.
The winners form this configuration are clearly those Cloud service providers who offer the best value proposition (particularly for private clouds) and –as always – the companies providing the tools to make the changes; VMWare being a leading example.
What are your thoughts on the future of the data center?
By Beth, on February 11th, 2010
Over the last decade, the term mashup has been coined to describe a software product generated from integrating a number of disparate open source products to make a new product or service. The most familiar probably is the combination of Craig’s List with Google Maps. Years ago one could simultaneously find an apartment on Craig’s list, locate the address on a street map and explore Google Earth to check out the street view – all without stepping outside to (gasp) purchase a newspaper.
Today the same mashup development is transcending from digital to hardware products. Chris Anderson, recently wrote about this at length in his article, The New Industrial Revolution. The DIY culture is supported by low cost, technically advance prototyping tools and flexible offshore manufacturing capabilities. Combine these with access to a global customer base by way of PayPal, makes these times interesting times for anyone with the burning desire and resolve to bring a new product to market.
So what is on your wish list?
By Renee, on February 11th, 2010
Like a lot of others, I read the 2010 predicted web design trends, from both a designer’s and developer’s point of view. At first, I thought that most of these creations were designer driven; site designs using bold graphics, large typography, magazine layouts and edgy artistic styles, and trendy technologies like rich media and mashup capable applications developers are enjoying coming up with. But after watching how these new trends were being implemented, I realized that they are actually stemming from the evolving needs of companies competing for internet eyeballs. With corporations progressively vying for search engine status and consumer traffic, social media and mobile applications are new ways to tackle that front.
Blogging has become one of these major movements. According to a recent Socialnomics.net post, there are now over 2 million blogs, and these are increasingly corporate postings. Companies have found that they can increase traffic to their sites; engaging customers and promoting themselves, by “talking” about who they are and what they do, while offering insights and industry thought leadership as a lure. The new web designs are all about blog sites. In fact, most of the uses for the new layouts fall under the category of WordPress site designs. Even in a corporate setting, these pages can have more personality, creating a friendly or edgy interface, while still upholding the brand.
Internet use through mobile or non-traditional platforms has also dramatically increased. With so many choices, companies are scrambling to offer ways for customers to interact through their phones, PDAs and even non-mobile applications like TV. Developing a killer phone App can be a huge boon with regards to traffic.
So while I thought the trends were more “art for art’s sake” in direction, I’m now convinced that the new trends are very much market driven.
By Paul, on February 8th, 2010
The number one challenge for most of our clients in 2010 remains finding ways to lift revenue while maintaining or increasing profit margins. There are still attractive segments in new geographical markets such as China, India, and Brazil, but expansion there can cause unusual problems such as the censorship issue in China, or heavy regulation in India.
The US and European markets are still very sluggish –the strength of countries like Germany and Norway is offset by continuing weakness in the UK, Spain, Greece, and Portugal. The removal of government stimuli in developing markets such as China will slow the growth there. A recent rebound in manufacturing in the US is overshadowed by the still depressed service and housing sectors. However even in these generally subdued developed markets there are opportunities for more precise sales and marketing efforts to push revenue growth into double digits.
Within the technology sector, Forrester is predicting an 8% growth in IT spending worldwide, but this seems overly optimistic in relation to the larger macroeconomic picture. The rollout of Windows 7 should provide support for PC markets and services throughout the first half of this year, and growth in the 5% range seems more believable. What is your current experience telling you?
Drilling down, the largest growth area in technology still looks to be the growth of virtualization and cloud services. VMware just posted some stellar quarterly numbers, and cloud service offerings are helping both Amazon and Salesforce. As consulting firms like BTC Logic (www.btclogic.com) remove some of the confusion around cloud computing and cloud vendor choices, I can see this segment becoming the engine of growth.
Companies wanting double digit growth this year need to be very smart in how they allocate their investment dollars [...]
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