The Cloud is not only disrupting the way in which organizations acquire and utilize computing power and business applications, it is also changing the way application development and IT operations teams view their roles and the tools they use to perform their responsibilities. I believe as more organizations adopt more Cloud solutions, the way they view identity management will also change. This will redefine the nature of these tools and create new partnership opportunities. Click here to read more about my views in APMdigest.

For decades, organizations have been trying to improve their business processes to keep pace with escalating customer demands, rising competitive pressures and changing end-user requirements with limited success. The promise of business process reengineering (BPR) in the 1980s gave way to business process outsourcing (BPO) in the 1990s with only limited success. And, over the past decade, the economic downturn has made it even more critical that organizations change the way they operate.

THINKstrategies believes that today’s rapidly evolving Cloud-based business process oriented Platforms-as-a-Service (PaaS) offer a new generation of powerful solutions to address these age-old challenges so organizations can achieve their business objectives. Click here to read my views on these issues in my guest blogpost on behalf of Cordys.

The tenth anniversary of Salesforce.com’s annual Dreamforce conference turned into a massive celebration of the immediate benefits and exciting innovatives being produced in the Cloud. Rather than report on each of the many announcements and new features rolled out at the event, I’d like to focus on the more important messages conveyed at Dreamforce regarding the market movement to the Cloud, and the continuing success of Salesforce.com to assert itself as the thought-leader and dominant force in this industry.

The biggest news from Dreamforce was the magnitude and energy of the event. The overwhelming number of people (estimated at over 95 thousand!), both customers and partners, who are enthusiastically pursuing Salesforce.com’s ‘social revolution’ clearly indicates that the concept of Cloud-based alternatives to traditional, on-premise applications and systems is gaining greater momentum.

More specifically, Salesforce.com is attempting to capitalize on this growing receptivity … Read More »

Too often in the tech industry, the pundits and press try to create needless controversy about an exciting new innovation by declaring that adoption is an either/or proposition and polarizing the marketplace. These polemics can be unfair and a disservice to corporate decision-makers trying to sort out the myths and realities of the over-hyped industry trend. Especially because enterprises and ISVs alike generally require a mix of ‘on-demand’ and on-premise resources to achieve their corporate objectives.

A case in point is the way many have debated the tradeoffs of moving to the cloud. Click here to read my latest guest blogpost on behalf of Rackspace which discusses why moving to the Cloud doesn’t have to be an either/or proposition.

Every market indicator suggests that cloud computing is gaining broad-based interest and acceptance among organizations of all sizes across nearly every industry. You can’t turn on the TV or radio, or travel through an airport without being bombarded with references to products and services being offered via the ‘cloud’.

Yet, all the hype regarding cloud alternatives has left many IT and corporate decision-makers uncertain about the real attributes and potential benefits of today’s cloud solutions. Given the proliferation of players and varying definitions for cloud-based services, it isn’t surprising that there is plenty of confusion about what is real, and where, when and how to take advantage of cloud solutions.

In my first of a series of guest blogposts on behalf of Insight Enterprise, I discuss why organizations of all sizes should turn to channel companies as trusted suppliers and strategic sources of Cloud solutions. … Read More »

People’s political leanings and their opinions about Cloud Computing can be remarkably similar. The presidential election is focused on the economy, healthcare and foreign policy issues. In the corporate world, problems like Big Data and global competition are too critical to ignore. These issues are fueling intense debates around the office water cooler and corporate boardroom. Click here to read my latest commentary in E-Commerce Times to see how the parallels in these debates can dictate how people and organizations are responding to the politics of the Cloud.

Salesforce.com, Oracle, SAP/Sybase, Iron Mountain and CallidusCloud are the latest companies to become sponsors of the second annual Cloud Channel Summit on Monday, November 5, at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA, hosted by THINKstrategies, the Cloud Computing Showplace, and Rising Tide Media.

These companies join IBM, Alteva, AppDirect, Aryaka, Corent Technology, CorSource, GoodData, SoftServe and TechData as sponsors of the Summit.

The Cloud Channel Summit provides an intimate, peer-to-peer networking forum for industry executives to share perspectives, best practices and insights about how to build successful partnerships in the Cloud.

Stacy Nethercoat, VP of Software Product Marketing at Tech Data, will be the kickoff keynote speaker at the Summit. Stephen Cho, Director of Software Partner Business Development for Google Enterprise, is also returning as a keynote speaker at this year’s event.

The following executives have also agreed to speak at the Summit:

David Hoff, CTO and Co-founder, Cloud Sherpas
Nick Pegley, VP Marketing, All Covered
Joe Panettieri, Editorial Director of the … Read More »

Despite the accelerating growth of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and growing interest in all things Cloud, skeptics are still seeing dark shadows which they think indicate fundamental flaws in the long-term prospects of on-demand services.

The most recent example was the controversy created by Salesforce.com’s most recent quarterly financial results. While the company’s revenues grew 34% and deferred revenues increased 43% on a year-over-year basis, the company still reported a second quarter (Q2) GAAP net loss per share of $0.07.

Although I tend to look at the world through ‘Cloud-colored’ glasses, I don’t think I’m being naive because I see these numbers as a outgrowth of a prudent strategic decision by Salesforce.com’s management to aggressively invest in winning a greater share of the high growth SaaS/Cloud market. In fact, Marc Benioff made the same point during a recent interview on Jim Cramer’s “Mad Money” show.

Like Benioff, SuccessFactors’ … Read More »

A new generation of online marketplaces is making it easier for enterprises, as well as end-users, to acquire Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications and Cloud Computing resources on-demand. These new Cloud-based marketplaces are also redefining the types of companies that are offering SaaS and other Cloud solutions, as well as how they interact with the Cloud vendors. Click here to read my views about the rapid evolution of Cloud marketplaces in ec-bp.com. To learn more about the changing nature of channel relationships in the Cloud, join us at the Cloud Channel Summit on Monday, November 5 in Mountain View, CA.

APMdigest is the best online publication focused on application performance management (APM), looking at everything from analytics to Cloud-based alternatives to traditional on-premise management systems. I’ve been a contributor to the publication for about a year and it has been a great supporter of our Cloud Innovators Summit series of executive forums, including the upcoming Cloud Channel Summit on November 5 in Mountain View, CA. APMdigest recently gave me an opportunity to provide THINKstrategies’ perspectives regarding the latest trends in Cloud management. Click here to read my responses to their questions about how these trends will impact the evolution of Cloud management.