|
 |
| |
 |
DAY TWELVE |
 |
|
The year Cloud came of age
2011 was the Year of the Cloud. Yes, the concept has been around for many years, and plenty of companies were offering internet-based distributed services. Software as a service, infrastructure as a service, platform as a service – it’s a big list that covers a lot of technology and businesses. But the genius of the cloud lies with the marketing – it’s a great concept. In fact, it’s probably easier for the public to grasp than the internet or web were when they first appeared. Or at least they should be. A survey of US consumers found that less than a quarter were familiar with the term, despite over three-quarters of them admitting to using cloud-based services – they just didn’t know it.
The cloud represents great new business opportunities for start-ups and internet companies, such as Dropbox, which famously turned down an unimaginably vast sum of money from Steve Jobs. The big IT vendors are also turning into cloud service providers, with the likes of Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Google and HP all releasing new services this year.
However, it also represents a threat to the traditional telcos. It’s yet another OTT challenge to their established business models. But whilst some will undoubtedly fight a defensive position, others are looking to embrace the new opportunities. AT&T is one such telco that is pushing its new cloud services to SMBs. And its this sector that the major cloud providers are targeting. But like the consumer market, SMBs are also faced with a perplexing number of permutations of cloud; from public to private and everything in-between.
Having got the marketing rolling this year, the industry needs to sharpen up on what exactly is being offered next year. More clarity over cloud services will help adoption rates, and could lead to a significant shift in IT use by the end of 2012. |
 |
31 January 2011
Hey, you, get onto my cloud
Cloud services have the potential to make sellers out of corporate users, opines a senior Gartner researcher, who expects 20 per cent of the Global 500 non-IT players to be selling-on their own corporate DNA by 2015.
|
18 March 2011
Five years before Cloud-based music streaming takes off
A new study from ABI Research forecasts that by 2016, Cloud-based music streaming services will become prevalent than owning albums, songs or tracks. The company says this shift will primarily be driven by the growing use of smartphones as music players.
|
11 August 2011
Consumers suffering from Clouded vision
If you think the ICT industry has a hard time coming up with a standard definition of Cloud, then spare a thought for the consumers – not surprisingly, they haven’t a clue.
|
04 October 2011
Cloud poses serious threat to CPE market
Forty-one per cent of all enterprise communications application users worldwide will migrate to the Cloud by 2016. According to ABI Research, the Customer Premises Equipment market will only grow by only 4 per cent.
|
05 October
Explanations: Cloud
One of IT’s most used and abused words, ‘cloud’ is nevertheless the direction that the entire industry believes it’s following. Since it’s so important you might think a little clarity is in order.
|
08 November 2011
Apple’s $7 billion Cloud warchest
Despite a lacklustre start for its iCloud service, financial reports suggest Apple could be ramping up its cloud strategy and spending big to make it a success.
|
16 November 2011
AT&T’s DIY business cloud
Telco AT&T is offering businesses a Platform as a Service cloud solution that it says anyone can use, as it stakes its claim in a potential $12bn market.
|
28 November 2011
Jobs in the Cloud?
Apple’s new cloud data centre in the town of Maiden brings precious little economic relief to the North Carolina community.
|
30 November 2011
Stand by for the intra-cloud data deluge
One under-appreciated aspect of the move towards ‘cloud’ computing and services is the extent to which vast volumes of network traffic will be intra-cloud, rather than cloud-to-user, so there’s a set of new challenges for network operators.
|
14 December 2011
As Microsoft releases more iOS apps, is Office next?
With a flurry of cross-platform mobile client releases for its cloud-based services, including the SkyDrive app, Microsoft is stepping up its game as it seeks to maximise the opportunities presented by the cloud.
|
|
02 August 2011
Telcos need to rethink their Cloud strategies
Despite over $8 billion already invested in physical assets, principally data centres, there is concern over telco investment strategy – where’s the money going, what’s the end-game and where’s the financial return?
|
31 August 2011
Cloud-powered Mobile Applications
Leila Makki reports on the growth of Cloud-based mobile services and applications, and meets three companies who are doing pioneering work in this new sector.
|
09 November 2011
So who exactly came up with Cloud Computing?
You can’t go anywhere in the ICT world these days without being confronted by the cloud. Whether public or private, infrastructure or services, cloud is officially ‘The Next Big Thing’. But who first coined the term ‘Cloud Computing’?
|
22 November 2011
Alcatel-Lucent spotlights its carrier cloud offering
Alcatel-Lucent has unveiled its network-oriented ‘carrier cloud’ solution: it’s an approach which clouds up the operator’s network and IT first... providing cloud services for customers comes after that.
|
09 December 2011
Telefonica’s cloud innovations
Cloud services are central to the global research and development efforts of Telefonica. From the Terabox cloud-augmented USB dongle, to virtualisation and the real elastic cloud.
|
|
|
 |
|
|
