Business Technology Roundtable

While much of the market attention on cloud services adoption tends to be focused on private enterprise applications, government agencies potentially have a lot to gain from its widespread use. The cost-savings and scalability advantages of the cloud have been clear to those savvy IT leaders that are informed, but government adoption has been hampered by some unique challenges -- and the absence of a compelling mandate. That is, progress was slow until the " Cloud First " initiative was launched. IDC has released a status update that details the growing demand for cloud services and enterprise architecture resources among U.S. government agencies. Their latest market study focuses on the results of an IDC Government Insights survey, which measured the progress of cloud solutions at government agencies -- while also examining the related architecture needs. The results of the comprehensive survey revealed that despite the growing demand for cloud services, many IT mana...

The detractors of cloud computing benefits will state that the typical adoption is still limited at most enterprises -- they're deploying cloud services to a few early-adopters. That being said, some leading markets are confidently moving ahead with mainstream deployments, regardless of the caution. While others, such as western Europe, are apparently in transition. The western European private cloud market will grow at a CAGR of 23.2 percent for the next five years to reach $7.9 billion in 2016, according to the latest market study by International Data Corporation ( IDC ). IDC has been looking in-depth at the private cloud marketplace -- from a hardware, software, services and networking points of view. "The growth of private cloud is even more impressive in the context of the current economic situation," said Mette Ahorlu, research director, IDC European Services. According to IDC's assessment, demand in the region is being driven by the need for cost sa...

A comprehensive enterprise mobile device and application strategy, if executed correctly, can become a significant competitive advantage. But, there's a growing need for answers to the questions troubling many IT executives -- with regard to their mobile device policies, the adoption of media tablets, and mobile application development costs and practices. According to the latest market study by International Data Corporation (IDC), corporate-liable devices still prevail with 77 percent of survey respondent organizations providing smartphones to their employees and 49 percent providing media tablets in 2011. Of these corporate-liable devices, 70 percent were purchased by the organization and issued to the employees while only 7 percent were purchased by the employee with full or partial reimbursement. The goal of the study, based on responses from CIOs and IT professionals in the U.S. and Europe, is to provide IT organizations with insight into how their peers have addresse...

The increased uptake in cloud service adoption is truly a worldwide phenomenon. New research published by Cisco Systems demonstrates the dramatic shift in attitudes towards cloud services in the UK and Ireland. The report -- entitled " Cisco CloudWatch 2012 " -- is the second in Cisco's annual Cloud series and finds IT decision makers in a bullish mood, increasingly placing applications and services from across their business into the cloud and planning for further investment over the coming 12 months. Furthermore, the message that cloud services can deliver significant cost reduction is now resonating within the IT community -- cost saving has become a top driver for adopting cloud applications . Granted, security remains the number one concern when migrating services and applications to the cloud. But that concern is noticeably less pronounced than in last year's report. The use of public cloud is up 11 percent, although private cloud still dominates. ...

The ongoing transformation to a comprehensive Business Technology model requires savvy leaders to see beyond the traditional IT and networking silos within their organization -- thereby offering a cohesive portfolio of application-driven services to their key stakeholders. Cisco has introduced a versatile and broad approach to network programmability -- Cisco Open Network Environment ( Cisco ONE ) -- aimed at helping customers drive the next wave of business innovation through trends such as cloud, mobility , social networking, and video. Cisco ONE enables flexible, application-driven customization of network infrastructures to help realize business objectives such as: increased service velocity, resource optimization, and faster monetization of new services. The Cisco Open Network Environment is delivered through a rich set of platform APIs, agents and controllers, and overlay network technologies. Cisco ONE complements current approaches to software-defined networking while en...

Cisco issued results of their annual Visual Networking Index (VNI) Forecast (2011-2016). It's the company's ongoing initiative to forecast and analyze Internet Protocol (IP) networking growth and trends worldwide. The VNI Forecast update projects the significant amount of IP traffic expected to travel public and private networks -- including Internet, managed IP, and mobile data traffic generated by all users. This year, Cisco has also developed a new complementary study -- the Cisco VNI Service Adoption Forecast, which includes global and regional residential, consumer mobile, and business services growth rates. By 2016, annual global IP traffic is forecast to be 1.3 zettabytes -- (a zettabyte is equal to a sextillion bytes, or a trillion gigabytes). The projected increase of global IP traffic between 2015 and 2016 alone is more than 330 exabytes, which is almost equal to the total amount of global IP traffic generated in 2011 (369 exabytes). This significant level of ...

Like it or not, some enterprises have already entered a post-PC world -- where their business communication network must accommodate new user-driven choices. These include traditional applications, mobile apps, social apps and operating systems; various server architectures; and an array of mobile devices ranging from smartphones to tablets and other mobility tools. Are you experiencing this phenomenon? If not, you will soon. Moreover, this latest business technology trend has huge ramifications. Cisco’s Internet Business Solutions Group (IBSG) conducted extensive research and analysis to uncover key insights about BYOD (“bring your own device”) and desktop virtualization trends in U.S. enterprises. The Cisco IBSG Horizons BYOD and Virtualization study surveyed 600 enterprise IT leaders from 18 industries. The Top 10 Market Insights Insight 1: Mobility Is Pervasive Seventy-eight percent of U.S. white-collar employees use a mobile device (e.g., laptop, smartphone, or tablet...

As the role of cloud computing is growing around the globe, many CIOs and other senior IT decision makers are facing challenges with their existing network infrastructure -- to support the migration of their business applications to the cloud. A new international study by Cisco Systems revealed the ongoing challenges associated with public or private cloud deployments. These latest research findings provide insight into the current state of cloud service adoption and the chasm between IT expectations and network realities. The survey also examines the experiences of IT professionals regarding the level of difficulty and time required to update their networks and migrate their applications to the cloud. The 2012 Cisco Global Cloud Networking Survey addresses the applications that are most critical for businesses to move to a cloud services delivery model, as well as the network challenges and potential disruptions and road blocks they are facing during this process. The report also...

Government agencies are reportedly one of the primary benefactors of managed cloud services. According to the results from a recent market study by IDC, IT decision-makers across the Asia-Pacific region (excluding Japan) found that 59 percent of public sector respondents are confident in the ability of their internal IT departments to deploy private cloud environments. However, IDC Government Insights cautions that high levels of private cloud adoption may not bode well for a collaborative and citizen-engaging government and preemptive measures should be taken for collaboration to take place across organizational boundaries. More insights can be found in the IDC report entitled, "Cloud Computing for Government: a View from Asia-Pacific." Frank Levering, Research Manager for IDC said, "An efficient and productive internal IT department is definitely a good to have in any organization, private or public. However, a department that is highly confident in running its o...

Today, most important executive relationships are globally distributed, but many business leaders still say that they want more collaboration in person. Particularly during activities such as brainstorming for new ideas, managing a specific crisis or making presentations. This is among the key findings from a new Economist Intelligence Unit ( EIU ) survey. While the primary function of meetings is to build relationships with customers, some 89 percent of EIU survey respondents say communications where the parties can see and respond to each other benefit internal business functions such as employee coaching and training as well as communications with partners and customers. An additional 43 percent of respondents use meetings to discuss and resolve major issues with customers such as a service or product failure or dissatisfaction with the partnership. Motivations for expanding these meetings also include contract renewals, brainstorming sessions and being introduced to other clien...

If you believe that you've had to learn more about the safe online operation and ongoing management of your PC than you ever wanted to know, then you'll be pleased to discover that there's relief on the horizon. According to the latest market study by Gartner, the reign of the personal computer is coming to an apparent close. By 2014, the personal cloud will replace the personal computer -- and this transition will likely include greater use of media tablets , chromebooks or other similar devices. Gartner analysts said the personal cloud will become the foundation for a new era that will provide users with an increased level of flexibility with the devices they use for daily activities -- leveraging the strengths of each device, ultimately enabling new levels of user satisfaction and productivity. However, Garner says that it will require enterprise IT leaders and their staff to fundamentally rethink how they deliver applications and services to their end-users. Seek...

Big Data applications have gained new momentum in the marketplace, as the benefits of working with larger and larger data sets enables analysts to spot key business-related trends. International Data Corporation ( IDC ) released a worldwide forecast of Big Data opportunities, noting that the market is expected to grow from $3.2 billion in 2010 to $16.9 billion in 2015. This represents a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 40 percent -- or about 7 times that of the overall Information and Communications Technology (ICT) market. "The Big Data market is expanding rapidly as large IT companies and start-ups vie for customers and market share," said Dan Vesset, program vice president, Business Analytics Solutions at IDC. IDC believes that for business technology buyers, opportunities exist to use Big Data solutions to improve operational efficiency and to drive innovation. Use cases are already present across industries and geographic regions. "There are also Big D...

There's little doubt about the continued adoption of videoconferencing and telepresence applications over the past few years. Clearly, growth has been fueled by the increasing popularity of video communications among multinational companies around the world -- particularly with mobile video chat applications that utilize new handheld devices . According to IDC's latest market assessment, the videoconferencing and telepresence market will continue to be one of the fastest growing networking markets for the foreseeable future. "Growth has been spurred on by more well-defined video use cases among organizations across a range of vertical market segments, including healthcare, higher education, financial services, legal, law enforcement, manufacturing, and retail," said Rich Costello, senior analyst, Enterprise Communications Infrastructure, at IDC . Other industry analysts are equally enthusiastic about the market outlook, as more enterprise users find new ways to ...

According to a new market study by Cisco, a majority (60%) of IT decision makers from North European countries believe the ability to work remotely leads to increased productivity -- and it is no longer necessary to be confined to an office to be productive. Although these IT decision makers believe technology (such as business tablets ) allows them to be more mobile and flexible, more than half (56%) of those surveyed -- led by those in Norway and The Netherlands -- work one or more extra hours per day as a result of the ability to work remotely. In Northern Europe, there is a growing need for remote access to the company network, social media access in the workplace and for the freedom to use personal devices for business purposes -- also known as "Bring Your Own Device" or BYOD. This trend can have a significant impact on the IT policies of organizations and among end users who are employed by companies with IT policies -- as the study also found that nearly half (47...

While most commentary about managed cloud services tend to focus on the advances in commercial enterprise applications, government agencies are also making noteworthy progress. In particular, the advent of regional community cloud hubs is a phenomenon that's worthy of further exploration. According to their latest market study and related report, IDC Government Insights believes regional cloud hubs will significantly change the way state and local governments procure online computing services. These regional cloud hubs, defined as one government agency offering computing and storage services to other government agencies, have proven successful in the State of Michigan and State of Utah. In addition, the IDC's research provides a framework for building similar regional cloud solutions. According to Shawn McCarthy, research analyst, IDC Government Insights, "We believe that cloud hubs will see rapid growth, since the first multi-agency efforts have already shown a pos...

Market leading companies are embracing enterprise talent networking practices -- to gain a competitive advantage within their industry. While Online collaboration tools have been readily available for some time, few IT managers proactively combine them into a cohesive strategy to advance their organization's productivity. That being said, it's been the tech-savvy forward-thinking executives that have led the cause to date -- enabling their organization to join the ranks of the early-adopters, and paving the way for others to follow. Cisco announced that Virgin Media, the UK's top entertainment and digital communications company, is deploying the powerful combination of Cisco Quad , Cisco WebEx and Cisco Unified Communications to its eager employee base. The solutions are part of the Virgin Media progressive "Flexible Working Initiative" that will enable thousands of employees to collaborate and work remotely -- utilizing video calls and shared documents, a...

Here's the scenario, you're a busy executive working away from your office and you just want to quickly research something on the Web. You turn on the company-provided notebook computer and you wait the standard 3-6 minute delay, before you can actually use it. The corporate IT department has numerous mandatory processes that must load first -- such as virus protection, data backup, system and app software updates, etc. -- on a typical Windows system. That's often dozens of processes running at start-up, and some will consume 100 percent of the available processing power. That automated cycle can temporarily incapacitate a notebook PC. Don't bother attempting to load a web browser while this PC start-up sequence is in motion. What's the alternative? If you have a media tablet, simply use it instead and you're on the Web in a matter of seconds. Mobile Workers and Their Virtual Workspace Is your company prepared for the pending business tablet invasion th...

 As more multinational business executives and IT managers consider embracing managed cloud service offerings, many are wondering how the service provider landscape is evolving -- and where providers plan to differentiate their capabilities. Much of the initial market insight focused on the key emerging trends, but now we're starting to see more detailed analysis. A new market study by Infonetics Research details operator plans for managed cloud services -- including their strategies and approaches to offering services, how services will be delivered now and in the future, and top applications of each type of cloud service including: Software as a Service (SaaS), Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), and Platform as a Service (PaaS). Their latest worldwide study resulted in the report entitled "Cloud Service Strategies: Global Service Provider Survey," where Infonetics analysts interviewed 20 incumbent telco, competitive, data center operators, and cable operators t...