3 Reports re: Cloud Computing & SaaS
In my research of items concerning the latest in the software industry, I came across three short articles of interest. I’ll give you a brief synopsis of each and a link to the article if you wish to explore further. I’ve added a bonus “Quote of the Week” at the end. Sorry but I just couldn’t resist.
1. Gartner Reports on the Surge in SaaS
Larry Barrett’s article on Gartner’s SaaS Market Report entitled SaaS Market Growing by Leaps and Bounds: Gartner states the latest report from Gartner shows no indication on any slowing in the demand for on-demand software applications. Gartner defines “SaaS as software that is owned, delivered and managed remotely by one or more providers”. Gartner expects 2010 SaaS sales to top $8.5 billion, an increase of over 14% of 2009 sales.
Advantages to SaaS:
· Lower start-up costs compared to on premises deployments
· Lower maintenance costs compared to on premises deployments
· Ease in sharing applications and documents through the cloud
Gartner analyst Sharon Mertz stated, "As tighter capital budgets demand leaner alternatives, familiarity with the model increases, and interest in platform as a service and cloud computing grows.” Further Mertz noted, "Greater market competition and increased focus by the mega-vendors reinforces the legitimacy of on-demand, mitigating initial objections about security and availability for many, as acceptance of SaaS as a viable model for enterprise computing services grows."
2. Microsoft Claims Top Spot in Cloud Computing
Stuart J. Johnston’s article on Microsoft’s claim to be #1 in Cloud Computing entitled Microsoft: We’re No. 1 in the Cloud reports that Kevin Turner, Microsoft COO, proclaimed at their annual meeting for financial analysts in Redmond, Washington that Microsoft is “number one” in cloud computing. The company claims 40 million cloud computing users globally and Turner reported that "Seventy percent of the wins in the cloud that we had in [the fourth quarter of fiscal 2010]… were new Microsoft customers." He touted three of their new customers:
· Dow Chemical Co.
· Hyatt Hotels & Resorts
· University of Georgia
Additionally, Turner made sure that his audience was aware of the company’s record year due in large part to a total of over 175 million licenses sold for their new Windows 7 operating system in the short nine months since its release.
3. Public Cloud Storage Services the New Choice for Enterprises
David Needle has a new article on Public Cloud Storage entitled New Public Cloud Storage Services Target IT. In it he discusses the latest report from research firm Ovum regarding public cloud storage services. Ovum senior analyst Timothy Stammers stated:
"Not only do they relieve the burden of storing data on customers' premises, but they also have the multiplying effect of transferring to the cloud provider the responsibility of backing up that data"
Initially companies poured vast sums of cash into online storage services to no avail. Economies of scale could not be reached due to the fact that the vendors were using the same storage systems of the enterprises they wished to sell. Huge network bandwidth costs along with their customer’s refusal to accept to the unknown contributed to the collapse of this new emerging venture.
The solution and/or opportunity was as follows:
· Slowing economy put CIO’s on the hunt for cost cutting measures
· Cost of network bandwidth plunges
· The unknown becomes known due to success of certain vendors, most notably Amazon and Salesforce
· New object-oriented storage technology, i.e. much more bang for the buck
New start-ups offering these services include Nirvanix, Nasumi, and Ctera. Stammers revealed that these vendors often leverage the storage clouds from such mega-providers as Amazon, Microsoft, and RackSpace. He stated,
“To the customer it still looks like ordinary storage and there's caching to alleviate latency issues. Typically these systems also provide their own backup, but companies may also choose to do that on their own for an extra level of protection.”
4. Quote of the Week
And finally, I just couldn’t resist this one. To paraphrase a line from a well-known cable news network, I’ll Report, You Decide. Here is my pick from David Needle’s article entitled Say What? The Week’s Top Five IT Quotes:
"First of all, moving to the cloud is not the right way to think about anything. There will be new things in the cloud -- redoing something doesn't make a lot of sense. If you want to argue we've been somewhat slow in expanding to the cloud -- fair enough -- but customers have a lot of interest in seeing that our applications maintain their core value, the data integrity and consistency. Taking that to the cloud takes a lot of work."
Kaj Van de Loo, an executive in the office of the CTO at SAP, defending his company's cloud computing strategy.
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