Microsoft Study Says 40% of SMBs to Go On Cloud within 3 Years Microsoft, a major player in cloud computing with its Azure platform, released its global “SMB Cloud Adoption Study 2011” last week. The study was conducted to investigate the impact of cloud computing on small and medium businesses (SMBs), and the results are quite encouraging. The study, conducted in conjunction with market research firm Edge Strategies, polled 3,258 SMBs with 250 or fewer employees in 16 countries – Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, the U.K. and
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Mainframes -> PCs -> Cloud Computing? “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” – Thomas J. Watson (1874-1956), former president of IBM. “640 KB is more memory than anyone will ever need.” – Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft. Although there is no documentary evidence of these quotes having actually originated from these two stalwarts of computing, the fact that there is considerable popular literature attributed to them is evidence of the prevailing thought at different times in computing history. So, what do these two quotes tell us? Only that expectations in the computing industry change considerably
The Next Cloud Computing Superpower? Some time back, I had written on the possibility of India emerging as a cloud computing superpower. (See: Is India The Next Cloud Computing Superpower?). I had based my assumption on the fact that India has a large number of software engineers available to leverage their knowledge in the emerging technology of cloud computing. However, that assumption dealt with the intellectual knowledge India could bring to the cloud computing table, not the rate of adoption the technology will have among Indian enterprises. As far as the latter is concerned, a recent report has been a
Is Consolidation Coming to Cloud Computing? In recent times, the biggest news in cloud computing has been Hewlett-Packard’s (HP) entry into the sector. And this entry is not a side business; the new CEO truly believes the company’s future lies in the cloud, going on record saying, “Everything that we do in the future will be delivered as a service.” (See: HP Declares Ambitious Plans in Cloud Computing Space). Now, HP is truly a big boy in the IT space, in fact the biggest boy among all the IT companies in terms of annual revenue (by market capitalization it’s a
Looking Back at Joe Weinman’s 10 Laws of Cloudonomics Back in September 2008, Joe Weinman, Strategic Solutions Sales VP for AT&T Global Business Services, came up with a new term “Cloudonomics” to describe the economic effects of cloud computing. At that time, cloud computing hadn’t entered the popular lexicon and his definition went a long way towards popularizing the technology. During this time, Weinman also came up with what he called “The 10 Laws of Cloudonomics.” Now, two and a half years later when cloud computing has somewhat matured as a technology, it will be interesting to look back at
More SMBs to Adopt Cloud in 2011 Popularity of Cloud Computing is increasing in Asia-Pacific (excluding Japan) (APAC) region and a newly released research conducted by AMI-Partners shows that Cloud Computing market for SMBs in this region will hit US$11.4B in 2011. Apparently, SMBs have recognized the tremendous opportunities offered by Cloud and are therefore decided to pump US$11.4 billion into cloud computing solutions. This year is set to a profitable year for solution vendors in APAC region as AMI forecasts the market for cloud solutions to grow at more than twice the rate of traditional ICT technologies. SMBs in
Earthquakes and Cloud Computing “We learn geology the morning after the earthquake.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), American poet and lecturer. Switch on the television, and there’s only one news item grabbing headlines around the globe – the earthquake in Japan. Unless you have been meditating in the Himalayas, you must know that Japan has been hit by the strongest earthquake in 140 years, measuring a massive 8.9 on the Richter scale. Although the epicenter was hundreds of miles from the mainland, the resultant tsunami has resulted in extensive loss of life and material damages. The official death toll stands
