Feb 12
22

Business can make significant savings from using cloud computing to make phone calls, according to one industry expert.

Max Cooter, editor of technology site Cloudpro.co.uk, has issued a wealth of advice and invaluable information on the prospect of switching existing systems for web-based operations.

Cooter explains that with voice over cloud, businesses do not need to pay for telephone lines, the cost of installing a private branch exchange, or the cost of the calls. This can be particularly effective at saving money if the business makes a lot of international calls.

He goes on to claim that cloud computing can also save businesses money when employees are travelling abroad.

“The call charges can be much reduced, particularly to abroad, that is going to be a big factor. When you think how much people pay in roaming charges when they use their mobile abroad, they can actually dial into a cloud service locally and call – it makes sense,” Mr Cooter said.

Another advantage is that using cloud-based telecommunications reduces the reliance on staff. Mr Cooter stated that while the big savings will be made in call costs, there is also the potential to support the decrease in size of a telecommunications department when the technology is in use.

The follows the recent report from Alan Bereford, managing director of EcoCooling, who suggests the technology can help businesses become more efficient in their use of IT equipment, making signification reductions in their energy usage.

Post to Twitter Tweet This Post

Feb 12
21

The government has announced that the long awaited channel for the public sector to purchase cloud computing services, is now open for business.

The CloudStore, as it will be known, will feature around 1,700 apps provided by more than 250 suppliers. The store aims to allow public sector bodies to buy software and infrastructure more quickly, cheaply and with greater transparency.

“The launch of CloudStore is an important milestone in the Government’s ICT strategy to deliver savings and an IT system fit for the 21st century,” said Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude.

“By creating a competitive marketplace, the G-Cloud framework will constantly encourage service providers to improve the quality and value of the solutions they offer, reducing the cost to taxpayers and suppliers.”

The government says it hopes CloudStore will increase the proportion of public-sector IT services from small and medium-sized enterprises.

“It gives SMB suppliers of niche products the same opportunities as bigger organisations supplying services,” Maude added.

Examples of services that will be on offer through G-Cloud include: email, word processing, system hosting, enterprise resource planning, electronic records management, customer relationship management and office productivity applications.

The G-Cloud framework has been under development for more than two years, with the aim of providing a route for the easy procurement of IT services on a ‘pay as you go’ basis.

The Cabinet Office has said cloud services should account for 50% of central government IT spending by 2015.

Post to Twitter Tweet This Post

Feb 12
20

The world’s largest pizza delivery company, Domino’s, has announced the completion of an IT overhaul, aimed at freeing up internal resources.

The company announced the switch to cloud computing after a reported 43% increase in online sales, driving a £44 million pre-tax profit.

Lance Batchelor, Domino’s chief executive, said in a statement to investors that the company had “successfully completed a wholesale move of our critical IT systems” to a hosted setup.

“This gives us added security, greater scalability and frees up the internal team to focus on developing initiatives like our new apps and further ways to leverage greater online sales and customer engagement,” Lance added.

An increase in sales of pizzas through internet and mobile phone apps contributed to their success. Online business now accounts for 25% of all orders. Mobile phone sales through apps have also risen, with 12% of online sales from an app being made in the fourth quarter. Dominos states that this is all dependent on high IT uptime levels.

By switching to cloud computing the company can expect much higher levels of uptime. According to recent reports from John Dunn, security editor of Techworld, the technology can even help businesses improve their cyber security standards.

Barchelor added that the company had also “started to update the store operating system to Pulse – the system used in most Domino’s markets across the globe”. The system is aimed at providing “improved management information” as well as “better labour scheduling and cost monitoring” for franchisees.

One in five stores has switched to the Pulse system already and Domino’s aims to have over half of the roll out completed by the end of this year.

Post to Twitter Tweet This Post

Feb 12
17

The market for cloud computing services among small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) is expected to surge in the next two years, a study has found.

According to Parallels’ SMB Cloud Insight Report, the market for cloud computing among SMBs will top a staggering $68 billion worldwide by 2014, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 26%.

“Parallels’ research continues to confirm that SMBs are at the forefront of cloud adoption,” said company CEO Birger Steen during the annual Parallels Summit in Orlando, Florida on Wednesday.

John Zanni, the vice president of service provider marketing and alliances at Parallels, told the summit that the pulse is growing faster for cloud computing. He said SMBs will double the number of paid cloud services and they are “very willing to not have on-premises IT.” This means the market could be ready to see a big influx of businesses utilising the cloud.

Small budgets and deliberate spending are the hallmarks of SMB buying behaviour, giving cloud providers the edge over traditional IT vendors, added Zanni.

Amit Singh, vice president of Google Enterpise, also predicted that 2012 would be huge for SMB cloud adoption. Singh claimed that pushing smaller businesses into cloud computing makes sense because the infrastructure was “becoming much more adaptable”.

Post to Twitter Tweet This Post

Feb 12
16

UnitedHealth Group plans to release a new cloud computing service for health providers that could provide a major boost for the healthcare industry.

The offering called Optum, is part of the broad trend of moving data storage and functions into an online environment so they can be retrieved from multiple devices and locations.

The service will ensure that doctors can share information regarding patients, safely over the internet, as healthcare companies continue their push to improve care with better coordination. For instance, a doctor can use cloud-based applications, or apps, to receive automatic updates on a hospitalised patient’s condition or to be notified when a patient visits an emergency room or fails to fill prescriptions, a company spokesman said.

“We’re going to make collaboration possible in ways it is certainly not possible today,” said Andy Slavitt, Optum group executive vice president.

According to The Washington Post, coordinating cloud solutions with medical processes should help lead to better care for patients, as it is hoped the technology will enable doctors to review medical histories prior to prescribing prescriptions. Doctors will be able to catch prescriptions that could cause conflict or a bad reaction. It will also reduce test duplications and help people remember when to see the doctor or refill their prescriptions.

Optum said it plans to open up a beta version of its service in June and hopes to roll it out more broadly late this year.

Post to Twitter Tweet This Post

Feb 12
15

Almost two-thirds of British workers want to see their day-to-day software transferred to the cloud according to a new survey from Virgin Media.

The Virgin research, which surveyed 5,000 businesses and organisations, found that employees in the public sector were among the keenest to adopt cloud with 61% of staff wishing that all their applications could be transferred to the cloud.

Ahead of the government’s first cloud-based service going live in February, 10% of public sector staff are already using cloud software on a daily basis.

Tony Grace, chief operating officer of Virgin Media Business, said 2012 might finally be the year of cloud computing. “This year will see the cloud take off. The government is ramping up activity and we’re working with them on the G-cloud initiative,” he said.

“But it’s not just the public sector, one in ten businesses have already started investing in cloud technology,” Grace added.

“This should come as no surprise given the benefits that can be gained through cloud technology such as only paying for what you use rather than having to build your infrastructure to cope with peak demand.”

Grace went on to say that companies are still worried about data management safety, with almost 28% admitting that worries over security are major concerns. However, a recent report found that cloud computing can actually work as an additional security measure if used correctly.

Post to Twitter Tweet This Post

Feb 12
14

The government has announced a cloud technology programme that could position Ireland at the forefront of information technology innovation.

Announced yesterday, EMC will construct a cloud computing centre, called Cloud4Gov, with hubs in government networks and in EMC’s centre of excellence.

The programme will be implemented within the next few weeks and will provide a secure, private space for Irish small and medium-sized enterprises to demonstrate data efficiency and cost savings solutions. The programme is expected to have far-reaching implications about how the public sector will store and share information in years to come.

The centre will promote Ireland as a leader in the cloud computing and big data industries and will “enable SMEs to compete for Government services contracts previously out of reach due to high costs in the development and sales process.”

EMC country manager Jason Ward said “Cloud4Gov will be a platform to promote Ireland as a leader in innovation which is committed to driving the smart economy.”

The system also has economic implications, potentially saving IT costs through more efficient data storage, driving job creation along the way.

Jason Ward added: “This platform will remove the upfront IT cost and infrastructure barriers, and provide a unique opportunity for companies to develop and showcase their new applications using data sets from public sector organisations.”

Recent research from The London School of Economics and Political Science’s predicts that the development of cloud computing will create significant employment opportunities, promote economic growth and increase productivity worldwide.

Post to Twitter Tweet This Post

Feb 12
13

Janet, The UK government-funded research and education network, has unveiled a framework of eight of the world’s leading cloud and data centre suppliers in the first dedicated procurement framework of its kind.

The framework is offering colocation through to cloud infrastructure services, which will be available to every organisation with a Janet network connection. In conjunction with the recently formed JANET Brokerage service, the organisation claims it will help drive the use of cloud computing across the UK, as well as saving time and money.

Dan Perry, head of strategic business at Janet, said: “We’ve managed to establish a framework that is agile enough for everyone on the Janet network, in a remarkably short space of time.“

So far, five IT suppliers have been named – Dell, Eduserv, HP, Liberata and Logicalis and Janet said it is already in discussions with a number of universities and public sector bodies keen to use the framework.

“Institutions are queuing up to use it, with our support, to help them move to cloud computing and datacentres,” Perry added.

Janet commented that the nature and provision of cloud services will change over time, and the scope of this framework enables suppliers to evolve their products to continually provide the latest technologies available.

This follows from the recent report that cloud computing will create significant employment opportunities, promote economic growth and increase productivity worldwide.

Post to Twitter Tweet This Post

Feb 12
10

Despite security issues being one of the biggest deterrents of cloud adoption, the technology could help businesses improve their cyber security standards.

This is the view of John Dunn, security editor of Techworld, who believes the technology can actually work as an additional security measure helping to protect your computer if used correctly.

“So all of the traffic that goes in and out of your company will come through a layer that’s run by a cloud company – it will be filtered and looked at,” Dunn said.

“If you’re a bank, for example, one of the big worries is what they call ‘man in the middle’ attacks. A cloud layer between yourself and your customers makes it much harder for man in the middle attacks to occur,” he noted.

With the cloud layer inserted between the company and the customer, it makes it much more difficult for hackers with malicious intent to force themselves into the same position.

“The security layer the companies have, the security software and products they buy and the infrastructure they run means there is a real move to actually buy that as a service.”

‘Man in the middle’ and Trojan attacks are two of the primary ways that hackers can access bank transactions to steal or delete data. Dunn suggests that cloud computing could very well be the answer to these threats.

Post to Twitter Tweet This Post

Feb 12
9

Google has ambitious plans to launch its own cloud-based storage device, Google Drive, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The report suggests the service responds to the growing use of mobile devices to access personal files sorted on the internet.

Drive will let users store documents, photos, and videos on Google’s servers so that they can be accessible from any web connected device and allows them to easily share the files with others. There will also be Google Drive apps for mobile devices, it’s suggested, for uploading photos and video direct to the cloud store.

According to the report, the service will launch in “weeks or months” and will rival the likes of Dropbox, possibly undercutting the popular web storage and sync solution on price.

Dropbox is another cloud storage provider has experienced meteoric growth since the service was founded in 2007. It now boasts a member base of over 45 million. Customers use it not only for archiving their pictures and documents, but to manage and sync those files between devices.

The Wall Street Journal reported that, “The Google service will be free for most consumers and businesses. But, Google will charge a fee to those who want to store a large amount of file.”

Given the proliferation of smart phones and the surge of digital music, the appetite for cloud storage is subsequently booming. Research from independent information provide, Visiongain, predicts that the mobile cloud computing marketing will grow rapidly in the next few years. It makes sense that Google would want to fight for its share of the action.

Post to Twitter Tweet This Post

Older posts