Customer For Life » Cloud Computing

Private Cloud

bwoelkers — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 20:27:29 +0000

Some enterprise organizations such as Morgan Stanley are building Private Clouds. What is the reason? In their view, Public Clouds still have security and reliability concerns. While addressing some needs of how employees work, Private Clouds will have significant costs affiliated with their development, deployment and support. Companies replacing (or augmenting) legacy systems with Private Clouds are substituting one high cost solution with another. There are more than higher costs at stake for these deployments.

These organizations instead of focusing on innovation that is core to their business are spending valuable resources on building-out technology. This is akin to reinventing the wheel, over and over.

As the web, customer, partner, and vendor engagement methods evolve so must technology change. Therefore continued investment in Private Clouds is an unsustainable model.

Share and Enjoy:

Why Cloud Computing

bwoelkers — Mon, 10 May 2010 13:19:17 +0000

It is amazing that some folks still question the validity of cloud based computing. This doubt was somewhat understandable 10 years ago. Clearly, software as a service (SaaS), Cloud Computing is here to stay. If you still have doubts consider these facts:

According to IBM global revenue from cloud computing will jump to $126 billion in 2012 from $47 billion in 2008
Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, recently said his company is “all in” when talking about Cloud computing
IBM last week purchased Cast Iron, a powerful Cloud data integration provider. According to IBM: “The acquisition expands IBM’s industry-leading business process and integration software portfolio, which grew more than 20 percent in the first quarter of 2010.” This may not seem like a big deal but s/ he who controls data connectivity wins.

The Cloud delivers agility and on demand productivity. Sales always needed and continues to need up to the moment relevant information to close more deals. Opportunities happen in real-time. Responses to emerging opportunities must be swift and comprehensive in scope. Information must be accessible in the now.

Social media, including Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn are Cloud platforms for which business benefits have not been fully realized yet. With the advent of connectors such as Salesforce.com Chatter, this may also change. Tell us what you think.

Share and Enjoy:

The Ultimate Mashup – Integrating Google Wave, Service Cloud, Salesforce.com, Social Media

bwoelkers — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 22:30:44 +0000

Google just released in preview, Wave, to 100,000 users. What is Wave? Wave is a new collaboration tool. It allows for live sharing via voice, text, photos, videos and maps. Features include real-time editing as the discussion evolves. Google itself does not know where this new technology is going and how it will evolve. What we do know is that it is open source so that many apps can be built on the platform.

Here is a customer service and support piece from salesforce.com:

In the salesforce.com example the integration allows for automated help via a robot then live support from a customer service rep (CSR). Client specific profile information is shared in real-time.

Beyond customer service, one can easily imagine, Google Wave connecting with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Skype users with a single logon. This has tremendous implications for cross platform collaboration and uninterrupted productivity. Share without leaving your space.

Share and Enjoy:

Cloud Computing

bwoelkers — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 16:36:58 +0000

Cloud computing is a new concept that many confuse with grid computing. This emerging technology incorporates technologies like Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and Web 2.0 where reliance is on the internet to satisfy user needs. A few examples would be Salesforce.com, Google Apps and Amazon EC2, where the software resides on servers in the cloud, and users merely access them, most commonly through an internet browser.

Applications served up via the cloud usually occur at much lower costs to the consumer because there is no software to buy, no licensing, or no maintenance to deal with. When used as a service most customers are billed for usage, or have a subscription as is the case with Salesforce.com, the leader in SaaS for Customer Relationship Management (CRM).

Salesforce.com is able to further reduce costs by running their application on a multi-tenant architecture. What this means is they have only one copy of the application serving multiple customers. This reduces development costs by having only one application to maintain and upgrade. It also reduces server cost, because servers are not sitting around idly waiting for requests, as is the case with dedicated servers or client-server architecture.

Share and Enjoy: