Grazed from Midsize Insider. Author: Shaun Drew.

It’s hard to find any modern technology news that doesn’t, in some way, touch upon the cloud. This pervasive new way of thinking about business technology is understandable, but some new thoughts on the matter suggest that jumping in feet first may not be the best option, regardless of the obvious benefits. To further complicate matters, new research shows that many businesses are entering the cloud without IT’s knowledge or approval, which can be a dangerous situation.

A Cautious Approach

These days, there’s no doubting the benefits of cloud computing. It greatly enhances the chances of meaningful collaboration, reduces IT infrastructure costs, and makes it easier to initiate changes within an IT organization. These realities are bringing more and more businesses into the cloud with each passing day, including a large number of small and midsize businesses that aren’t naturally technology companies. This is all in spite of the well-documented issues that the cloud can bring…

Grazed from Forbes. Author: Joe McKendrick.

Is a subscription-based economy — fueled by cloud computing — now the new normal? Two industry experts participating in a recent Webcast say yes, and enterprises of all types and sizes are being drawn into this new world. ‘Psychological, not financial, factors drive cloud decisions:’ Wharton’s Don Huesman, SAP’s Erik Berggren.

“We are moving into a world that is evolving into a subscription economy,” says Erik Berggren, vice president of customer results and global research at Success Factors (an SAP company). “What you want both as a consumer and as a business user is the utility of something. You want a means of transportation. You want computing power. You want answers to your questions. You want to get something done really quickly in your business. That’s going to be the driving force.”…

Grazed from CloudTech. Author: Ovum.

Cloud computing is an increasingly multi-faceted phenomenon. It continues to quickly evolve not just at private and public cloud levels (and increasingly in the continuum between these two extremes) but also at infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), platform-as-a-service (PaaS), and software-as-a-service (SaaS) levels.

In the Ovum report, 2013 Trends to Watch: Private and Public Clouds, Ovum advises that cloud service providers and consumers need to take into account the latest IaaS developments at network level, get their head around the PaaS market, and understand how – and to what extent – SaaS is evolving into business process-as-a-service (BPaaS)…

Grazed from CloudTech. Author: James Bourne.

A cornerstone study into cloud computing in the UK has revealed the key difference in opinion between cloud users and non-cloud users. The study, from Raconteur Media and written by Mike O’Driscoll entitled ‘Navigating the Cloud’, had a relatively small survey base – just under 250 completed at least part of the survey – but of that number, there was a lot of clout – 84% saw themselves as the key IT decision maker.

Again, software as a service (SaaS) proved itself to be the most mature cloud market. 81% of respondents currently use SaaS, compared to 45% for information as a service (IaaS) and 38% for platform as a service (38%). Crucially, only 5% of respondents had no plans to use SaaS in their company. This correlates with research from Symform which showed that SaaS “continued to be the entryway” for cloud platforms…