CloudBus

Photo Credit - Theo Priestly (https://www.linkedin.com/in/theopriestley/) A post in LinkedIn on 25 years of teletext reminded me of the implementation of the teletext project in India in the early 1990's .  My first introduction to teletext was in the United Kingdom in 1990 where I learnt the finer points of horse racing in the teletext feed, it was interesting information and available with a click on the TV remote. I returned to India in 1991 and was hired as a member of the OTCEI  (Over the Counter Exchange of India) team to build India's first national fully automated stock exchange  created on the lines of NASDAQ USA.  We successfully  launched the exchange but needed a solution for  price dissemination to smaller cities. The Satellite Antenna for teletext in Mumbai (LtoR) Sudesh Puthran, author, Late R. Ravimohan, Sandeep Bagalkar & Karthik Shah   There was only one vendor for equity price dissemination those days, it ...

1.  Blockchain Blockchain will take center stage as it moves beyond cryptocurrency into health, government, supply chain, legal, finance, banking, trading, ecommerce it will be a tsunami of Blockhain winners and adoption of Blockchain-as-a-Service (BaaS) offered by IBM, Microsoft and Amazon will support the Blockchain revolution.  2. AI and Beyond Adoption of AI in its numerous avatars will accelerate, the war for dominance between IBM and Google will move center stage. Many small AI players will cease to exist and we will see successful adoption by use of AI As a Service solution by leading and trusted vendors. Privacy will continue to be a concern and tighter regulations for compliance will be enforced by the regulators. 3. Private Clouds Private clouds will gain momentum as compliance and security become key drivers, IBM will lead the charge on Private clouds. Private clouds offer secure and enterprise support for business applications. 4. Conso...

India's biggest challenge has been to empower its citizens with financial inclusion by providing banking to its unbanked population to Banking. The government's initiative of opening 15 million accounts in one day sets the tone to make sure that every adult citizen has a bank account in India.  Critics say it cannot be done, but we know from history that carpet bombing is the best way to overcome a challenge. The Indians have set out to a economic transformation in their country, by empowering its unbanked citizens the menace of cash in the system can be overcome thus improving the GDP of India. It is estimated that the cash economy in India is bigger than the legal economy in India, the cash in this system is known as black money in India and has strong parallel network for banking in cash. If you use a credit or debit card with an Indian merchant he will charge you about 2% to 3% extra as the transaction fee for using the card, this encourages customers to pay in cas...

Recently I was in a panel discussion in a Seminar and the question of the CIO's journey to the corner office as the CEO of the Company. Unfortunately the instances of the CIO transforming to a CEO are few in the world of business and there are number  of reasons logically this transformation is possible but in a Real world it is a fantasy. Let us examine the qualities of a good CIO the first of course is being a good team player, second political acumen to survive and please the various stake holders in business and the last is the IT prowess. CIO's who are successful do excel in people management and handling corporate warfare and wading through uncertain cycles in the business. But are these qualities enough to make them the CEO, there are certain factors missing, the CIO never leads the business troops which is essential to be a CEO, neither does the CEO interact with the Board on a regular basis in most companies, the CIO is drowned in budgets,data and analysis whereas ...

Everybody is a Winner Baby was a popular song many decades ago and  is true for Cloud Computing. Everybody wins in the Cloud, the service provider, the application developer, the network provider, the end point device maker and all the innovators who come up with a new idea everyday in the cloud. Cloud is about Innovation and Excellence with a small investment to get started and if your idea is big enough you are all set to be a Winner. When you compare the capital invested to the rewards by companies like Twitter and FB the  poster boys of today your realize that no other investment has provided humongous valuation for such a small investment, The valuation hinges on the innovative ideas and excellence of delivery and savvy marketing to the end consumer. Everyone is a Winner in Cloud Computing !  In cloud computing  you signed for Salesforce or Google or Zoho  for free and got hooked and   realized you could be technology illiterate and sti...

Founders must Let Go! Many founders are so attached with their company that they are unable to scale of grow their company fast enough to realize value and take it to greater levels.  The challenge for the Founders is to grow the company quickly and then bring in professional management and list the company so that the risks are distributed among shareholders plus the company can raise more capital and the founders can de-risk their investment in their company.  But most times company founders treat their company as the extension of their personality and like a protective parent do not let go and allow it to grow and mature. There are so enamored by their success that they suffer from myopia. Over the last 20 years I have seen companies similar in aggression and business grow, but I have found companies where founders were willing to take it to a wider investor base and also bring on board more passionate professionals succeed where as companies where the owners have h...

Recently there have been a few Shutdowns of Cloud Services with short notice periods which have forced customers to scurry for cover and in some cases customers have been caught in a bind Shutdown in the Cloud will be an eventuality when companies cannot scale in the cloud and remain profitable, they get choked for cash and suffer slowly leading to instant death within weeks after they are choked of funds. How do we handle Shutdown's in the Cloud will be the next domain for Risk Management in the Cloud. Though outright it looks straightforward and it appears we can apply the same matrix as we would to technology vendors, but this may not be the right approach. There are various dimension of Risk to be associated and constant monitoring of the health of the vendors is essential in the fast changing landscape of technology vendors which is pitted with risk and unexpected twists and turns. Why Cloud computing, we seem to forget how Tandem, Digital was snapped up by Compaq in mont...

As we ring out 2012 which had its share of success and tribulation in cloud computing. We can ring in 2013 as the year Cloud Computing will  transform into an everyday utility like electricity. The Cloud will cease to be a novelty or a laboratory, it is for real and it has proved it can deliver reliably in 2012 despite the pessimists who  kept picking on every cloud disruption rather then seeing the totality of the benefits. 2013 will be the year when the cloud will be the utility that transform and drives the economy in a tough and recessionary year. There will be large cloud utilities formed by merger and acquisition of fragmented cloud server providers and we we will have companies like Microsoft, HP, Dell, IBM, Cisco, EMC  embracing the cloud for their survival and relevance in the technology landscape. More then 250 companies in the Fortune 500 can move to the cloud today based on their nature of their business and focus on gro...

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...

The Business will lead cloud computing adoption in 2012 and beyond. Just like ERP adoption was led by business and not the EDP manager , cloud computing adoption will be led by the Business and not the CIO/CTO. If you do not learn how to ride the cloud computing horse, then you are doomed to be trampled under their hooves, learn to adapt to business. Unless Technology leaders learn to change their stripes quickly and improve their trust and knowledge on cloud computing they stand to be drowned in the cloud computing deluge which is waiting to be unleashed in the coming years. CIO/CTO/ Die Hard Technology non believers, convert and repent and adopt cloud computing else you will be swept away into insignificance like the old EDP Manager . Welcome 2012 with the belief and conviction that Cloud Computing and Business will tango together just like the two horses in the picture. Add Cloud Computing Adoption as the No 1 item in your TO DO list for 2012!

Blackberry has become the standard for business mobility today be it a SOHO, SMB or Enterprise.There are many outstanding features that make Blackberry Business's favorite mobile device a few key features are: a. Innovation b. Reliability c. Security d. Business Applications e. Ease of Use. BB eats breathes and lives Business in its phones and also provides awesome compliance which has resulted in Bond based on TRUST between RIM & Business. This weeks BB outage would not have affected Business that had reliable Business Continuity Plans; rather  the BB disruption has been a good test of their business continuity planning and technology resilience in adversity. BB has gone beyond messaging, the BB devices today support some of the most intuitive business applications for quick deployment and acclimatization. Business leaders will return to their Blackberry Phones with a vengeance this weekend and those that deserted Bla...

The US Market Meltdown and the imminent austerity measure will mean a more prudent USA and a weaker US Dollar making imports and outsourcing dearer. A New Era for Technology Business after the Market Meltdown Some changes in The  Technology Business will be:   Technology Manufacturing will move back to USA – In a phased manner technology manufacturing will move to back to USA  as  global manufacturing will not   provide significant cost savings. Software/BPO/KPO Outsourcing will move back to companies in the USA, this will affect the fortunes of companies in the rest of the world.   Renewed Infrastructure creation will call for newer and innovative technology solutions in traditional areas like construction and road building for efficiency and control. C loud Computing  will exponentially grow in the next two quarters and will be the catalyst for technology cost reduction and business agility.   VC and Angels will tighten their belts, there wi...