CloudBus

If you want to convince your Board of Directors on cloud adoption, a good place is to begin is with a SAAS (Software as a Service Solution) for the Members of your companies Board. Do you  know  in every board meeting confidentiality, integrity and availability are the key for Board members and they also need to be kept informed of various actions taken by your Company. The  important events are the quarterly Board Meeting, Extraordinary Board Meeting and the Annual General Body Meeting. Most Board Meetings start with preparing a Agenda and a Board Note which highlights the points to be discussed and approved by the Board of Directors. This has to be prepared and circulated among Board Members with utmost secrecy since any leakage will harm the company and may lead to regulatory non-compliance. It takes a number of days to prepare the Board Notes and the weight of the completed Board Notes paper dossier is heavy and need to be securely delivered to the Directors...

The cloud phobia among the skeptics peaks with a random cloud outage and is immediately touted as a cloud failure using social media tools and email services that use cloud as a backbone, and the message is "we told you so". Photo Courtesy : Kenneth Menzes Millions of people are using Cloud Based services for their social interaction and are blooming in their social interactions. Social Media services including this blog run on the cloud, including Google, Facebook, Twitter to name a few and yes there have been outages but no one is complaining. But the skeptics wait for one failure and then run riot and tout cloud computing is a failure and one needs to get back to the data center. The paradox is many companies that use the cloud to run their business have great  market value. Facebook :  173 Billion Twitter : 24 Billion  LinkedIn : 20 Billion  Google : 392 Billion  This is a small sample of the market value of cloud driven companies, their founde...

Indian start-ups are high on SMAC and are brimming with ideas and many are working hard on their ideas in a garage somewhere in Bangalore or yonder;  working day and night to bring out the next big winner in the cloud, but can they hit pay dirt like Hewlett & Packard? Many of these start-ups will be driving SAAS solutions on the cloud and Nasscom has added  momentum by leading the charge with a target of 10,000 start-ups a very modest number, India can  do with a million start-ups'  to service the world  and create economic value for India. The first aspect the start-up needs to get right is the domain name,is it "startup.in" or is it startup.com, starup.biz, starup.net,  it is nice to be nationalistic but in the cloud SAAS you are building could be used by anyone in the world and will  need a global address.; also is the start-ups  twitter handles and other social media address available in the proposed name of the start-up? The websi...

Recent advertisements have shown IBM  comparing itself against AWS in the cloud. Here is the ZDNet article  http://www.zdnet.com/ibm-takes-aim-at-amazon-web-services-via-marketing-campaign-7000022805/ . It seems to be a let down for Big Blue who has forgotten its blue blood and is stooping to compare itself to a company which is about a decade old. If you missed my blog on the Big 5 it is worth a read again, since most of the analogies seems to have panned out, here is the link http://cloudbus.blogspot.in/2011/04/big-5-in-cloud-computing.html?q=the+big+five Photo Credit : Sudesh IBM seems to have forgotten that the Elephant can Dance and only  needs to learn new steps in the world of SMAC and Internet of Things.IBM should not discount its loyal customer base who are there to cheer and support IBM through thick and thin; some customers could also teach IBM to dance to their tunes. IBM has all the arsenal required, but is reluctant to open its chest and take off...

It it time to bid goodbye to cloud computing, the time has come to evangelise the three services offered by the cloud IAAS - Infrastructure as a service PAAS - Platform as a service SAAS - Software as a service. Are you ready to embrace cloud services Cloud has been established as an utility - secure reliable resilient and trustworthy. So the future is in evangelizing, marketing, branding and deploying the services that ride on the cloud. The opportunity in SAAS has seen exponential growth making cloud ubiquitous for computing. The next challenge is in increasing PAAS and SAAS adoption, this means shaking up the enterprise computing space, changing the mindsets of the CTO/CIO and the CISO  and the Cloud Strategist. Are we ready for this, the next year will see the intense adoption of PAAS and SAAS as more companies shut down their data centers and move to cloud computing. Are you prepared to ride the next tsunami in the cloud computing saga, are you prepared to d...

This week has been busy as I had to review a number of cloud based solutions SAAS and cloud hosted for a contest among Indian Software companies. Some of the solutions were outstanding in compliance, workflow,agriculture,  abstract word search engines, patient management, rewritten ERP solutions, content management, specific business vertical solutions   optimization solutions all were world class solutions and can be used anywhere in the world. It is a wide open marketplace, can Indian Companies tap the opportunity ? Photo Credit : Amitav Thamba  BUT here is what these companies need to do to compete in the world market place 1. Declare the name of cloud vendor they are using, it is difficult to ascertain whether they are in the cloud or a traditional hosting environment. 2. Provide a free trial of your solution, with ability to regularize it after the trial period. Most companies wanted a big form to be filled before the trial, you have...

Today an old friend of mine asked me on my idea of selling SAAS software solutions to a CIO. His contention was since I was a CIO  could I share my perspective of how to go about selling SAAS solutions to CIO's. The CIO The CIO - Chief Information Officer is a busy person, who is more like a juggler who has to make sure that the digital infrastructure and solutions are working like a well oiled machinery for the success of  the business. CIO is a busy person and it is important you have your elevator pitch ready to get your product into his.her eco system. Pitching to the  CIO Will the solution be useful for his business, does it feel a need that a Business has been asking for  a while. If it is a new fad the CIO has no time for your solution. Important for you to map the CIO with the benefits and advantages for your software product. Remembers not more than 7 points .. that is all his attention level, so get the best first. Here goes a sug...

Is SAP losing its Sheen ! I have had three calls this week to attend the SAP India Forum in Mumbai but have not qualified since my turnover as a consulting company does not meet SAP India's requirements ! The fact that their agency repeatedly calls me to register and follows it up with an email and again turnover verification is the show stopper. It is clear that SAP wants only customers who have significant turnover in their business and not consultants who are vendor agnostic . Is it Sunset for SAP ! I am no new comer to SAP and have seen it swallow companies and enforce inflexibility in its process and stifle innovation ! I have had a few consulting stints where I have had mixed success in making SAP usage flexible and user friendly, but companies still finalize their forecast and balance sheets on data downloaded from the SAP and then used in Excel Sheets. Of course those companies who can afford the connector can directly connect into SAP through ...

Oracle CloudWorld is coming to your city soon, here is the schedule Sydney, Australia March 13 Register Now Mumbai, India April 2 Register Now New York City, United States April 2 Register Now Singapore, Singapore April 4 Register Now Tokyo, Japan April 9 詳しくはこちら Frankfurt, Germany Coming Soon Notify me when registration opens London, England Coming Soon Notify me when registration opens Mexico City, Mexico May 7 http://www.oracle.com/events/global/en/cloudworld/register/index.html I wonder if it is too late for Oracle to get into the cloud computing bandwagon ? Oracle suffers from its database centered marketing, which is under threat with Big Data solutions. Oracle has to play catch up on Big Data now though it still retains its grip on its citadels in the Banking and Financial Services & Insurance (BFSI) sector Oracle has some of the best business applications in the world either their own or acquired, Oracle has  done a fair job of integrating the...

The Indian regulator Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has recently agreed to provide licences to a number of new Banks in India with a caveat of serving the under banked population. The promoters of these Banks will be scurrying with their consultants to hire CIO/CTO from other Banks to get off their Core Banking Systems off the ground before they can launch their banks. It will be good for them to pause for a moment and consider Cloud Computing as a vehicle for their technology launch and here are some of the benefits Cloud Computing will be the dawn of a new technology paradigm for Indian Banks.  Time to Market will be in weeks rather then months so they can start their operations ASAP, especially if they adopt a SAAS based Banking solution. (e.g. the cloud based core banking solution offered by NABARD through Wipro and TCS). They will operate in an Opex model, which means capital will not be locked into traditional technology capex investments.  Agility ...

Cloud forecast for 2012  Cloud Computing will spread like this Banyan Tree Nourishing Computing Globally.  1. Amazon and Microsoft will lead, and Cisco, HP, IBM and others will have a tough fight for the third place in the Cloud Computing Business.  2. Thousands of SAAS Mobile Applications will be launched using the cloud in 2012, you could even have applications for monitoring your dogs health and diet, including posting photos and similar applications. 3. There will be a number of outages among smaller cloud service providers and this will lead to tighter regulation of cloud computing and also trigger a wave of Mergers with stronger cloud service providers. 4. Cyber Attacks will increase many fold using the cloud as the base for launching these attacks, Security professionals will need to gear for many sleepless nights in 2012 to stay ahead of the cyber criminals. 5. Business Leaders will aggressively bring cloud adoption mainstream and it will be a gr...

As the global economy continues its roller coaster ride the VC has become selective in their funding.  The one category which the VC will fund are Saas Solutions in the Cloud. What is the criteria to attract the VC's interest and get the funds you badly need to grow your business. Photo Courtesy Ajay Gopal. 1. You need a running application which is a SaaS solution in the cloud. 2. You must have an monthly income on the use of your solution with a projected growth of 50% quarter to quarter.  3. The solution must be unique and if possible you must have a few patents or IPR on some processes. Thus creating a barrier for replication.  5. It could be in any industry vertical or any consumer/corporate segment.  If you meet the five criteria above the VC will be calling at your door with the cheque and for their share in growing your business. You need a great SaaS solution idea which can be developed in the cloud and a credit card to buy cloud services a...