Grazed from TalkinCloud. Author: Dan Kobialka.

Cloud-based video conferencing services are becoming more popular worldwide, according to a new Global Industry Analysts (GIA) report. And as a result, the cloud-based video conferencing services market could be worth $2.9 billion by 2020. In addition, GIA found that the increasing use of video conferencing in the government, healthcare and education sectors could drive the cloud-based video conferencing services market’s growth over the next few years.

Other report results included:

• The United States is the largest market for cloud-based video conferencing services. However, the Asia-Pacific region is expected to be the fastest-growing market with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13.5 percent through 2020.
• Key market players include Applied Global Technologies, Blue Jeans Network, BT Conferencing, Level 3 Communications (LVLT) and NTT Communications.
• The rising demand for enterprise mobility and the ensuing increase in the number of mobile workers could lead many businesses to pursue cloud-based video conferencing services…

Read more from the source @ http://talkincloud.com/cloud-computing-vertical-markets/rising-demand-cloud-based-video-conferencing-services-study-says

Grazed from ChannelPartnersOnline. Author: Ken Mercer.

Cloud computing is catching the attention of CFOs, COOs and CMOs across the country, and that equals opportunity for informed VARs. The key to success? Bring to the table a deep understanding of how various cloud options map to business priorities. A few questions will help determine whether customers are best served by a public, private or hybrid cloud architecture as the network foundation for critical services and applications.

On a high level, when engaging with line-of-business execs, focus on enabling growth and the potential manpower benefits of cloud computing scenarios rather than just selling the cloud to replace private infrastructure 1:1. For example, say the CMO is worried that a marketing campaign might work a little too well. A hybrid-cloud (virtual server) option can help her sleep better at night by providing the on-demand flexibility needed to manage peak server usage caused by demand spikes. Hybrid cloud approaches can also help by providing geographic diversity for disaster recovery applications…

Grazed from CFO. Author: David M. Katz.

In a February editorial about the buildup of cyberattacks between the United States and Iran, The New York Times quoted President Obama’s observation that, compared with conventional weaponry, cyberweapons provide “no clear line between offense and defense.” Thus, getting into the enemy’s networks to exploit its weakness and disable its ability to attack you is both offense and defense.

Citing “major banks, Sony Pictures Entertainment, [and] an electrical utility,” the newspaper observed that such recent examples reveal that even corporate computer systems once considered impregnable are vulnerable to attack. In the borderless world of information technology, in fact, computer-security specialists and corporate risk managers have begun working on the assumption that it’s impossible for companies to keep their networks completely free from penetration…

Grazed from CloudTech. Author: Adam Spearing.

Let’s face it – until very recently big data has been a big letdown. Data warehouses and data analytics tools have historically proven difficult to design, build, and maintain. How much storage space will be necessary? How much data is there? What data management tools can the organisation afford and, just as important, what expertise is available in-house to build and run the data warehouse or data analytics platform?

InformationWeek recently outlined eight reasons why big data projects often fail. The article cited a survey from Gartner that found an astonishing 92% of organisations are stuck in neutral when it comes to their big data initiatives. Why? Because enterprises are spending a lot of money on big data technologies, or plan to, but don’t have the right skills or strategies in place to drive the initiatives forward…

Grazed from TalkinCloud. Author: Mike Vizard.

Now that Apple Watches that are set to arrive in April has everyone thinking about the potential of wearable device, it’s only a matter of time before solution providers across the channel are asked to develop applications that actually make use of these devices. With that in mind Salesforce.com unfurled Salesforce for Apple Watch when the devices were first launched. But Adam Seligman, vice president of developer relations for Salesforce.com (CRM), said the more interesting thing will be to see what applications developers create for the Apple Watch and other wearable platforms using Salesforce.com cloud platforms and application programming interfaces (APIs).

At the price points that the Apple Watch has been introduced at applications used by sales people and senior business executives are likely to be among the first to gain traction in the market. But Seligman notes that there will soon be a raft of wearable computing devices that can run applications built using the Saleforce1 software development kit (SDK)…

Read more from the source @ http://talkincloud.com/cloud-computing/03302015/when-wearables-meet-cloud

Grazed from Cloudcomputing. Author: Arnal Dayaratna.

On March 26, Amazon announced two new storage plans for Amazon Cloud Drive that deliver enhanced options regarding the storage of files in the cloud. Both storage plans give customers the option of unlimited storage and take direct aim at cloud storage competitors such as Box, Dropbox and Google Drive.

The Unlimited Photos Plan from Amazon Web Services allows customers to store an unlimited number of photos for $11.99 per year while the Unlimited Everything Plan allows users to store an unlimited number of files, whether they be photos, videos or other files, for $59.99/year. Both plans feature a free three month trial and disrupt the cloud storage landscape by giving away photo storage for less than $1/month and file storage for less than $5/month…

Grazed from CIO. Author: Bryan Campbell.

Cloud computing promises to drive down cost, drive up user/customer satisfaction and speed time to market/time to revenue. In a business climate driven by IT cost cutting, better alignment with business goal and greater value for each IT dollar spent; cloud computing is just what we need. The core of those benefits is directly linked to decreasing IT operational costs by way of automation of business processes.

This automation usually drives down the labor intensive aspects of IT service delivery and decreases the time interval from the genesis of innovation until it is actualized. With the current state of cloud computing, businesses are seeing benefits. The breadth and the depth of those benefits continue to evolve with great accrual of value over time…

Grazed from WhaTech. Author: Editorial Staff.

Outsource surveyed 150 senior IT and management decision-makers, 110 in Australia and 40 in New Zealand. Forty six percent of respondents said that cloud had CEO and board support.Respondents represented avariety of industries including banking and financial services, education, government, other professional services, retail, transport, insurance, utilities, resources, and entertainment.

However this board support has not so far lead to the same level of adoption. Only 13.3 percent of respondents’ organisations were using Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), or Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) with full senior management approval…

Grazed from ITProPortal. Author: Klaus Dieter Rennert.

A recent report from Chatham House, the international affairs think tank, noted the vital importance of cities to the global economy, calling them motors for growth. The report stated that cities produce innovation, and will increasingly do so with interconnected technologies coming to the fore.

However, they face enormous and increasingly common challenges – gridlock; insufficient housing; poor waste management; lack of clean water and safety. This chimed with new research we conducted with Frost & Sullivan on the topic of social innovation. In it, Frost & Sullivan defined social innovation as ‘the deployment of technology and new business models to bring positive change to the lives of individuals and societies.’…

Read more: http://www.itproportal.com/2015/03/29/social-innovation-action-collaboration-shared-value-new-business-model/#ixzz3VsaO9JVq

Grazed from Reuters. Author: Eric Auchard.

Britain’s Interoute, a high-capacity data network and corporate cloud services provider, is taking on new private equity investors to fund acquisitions across Europe and the United States, the company said on Monday. Aleph Capital Partners, a UK investment firm headed by former Goldman Sachs European private equity investment chief Hugues Lepic, and Crestview Partners, a U.S. private equity firm founded by ex-Goldman colleagues, have agreed to buy a 30 percent stake in London-based Interoute.

The value of the investment was undisclosed, but Aleph is chartered to make investments that range from 100 million to 400 million euros. The deal is expected to close in April, it said. The investment, Aleph’s first since it was set up two years ago, is a share purchase deal to buy out shareholder Emirates International Telecommunications (EIT), part of a conglomerate owned by the ruler of Dubai, which has been looking to pare debt. Privately held Interoute is majority-owned by Switzerland’s Sandoz Family Foundation…

Read more from the source @ http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/29/us-telecomunications-interoute-idUSKBN0MP0ZP20150329