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Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard Deal: The Cloud is not Cheap

admin — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 19:21:39 +0000

You're hard pressed to find any sector of the tech economy that is getting more financing than cloud computing. Today's announcement by Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft is a good example. The two tech giants announced a partnership today that is valued at $250 million. Why are these ventures getting such an influx of revenue? If content is king, then infrastructure in the castle in the cloud. Sponsor Castles cost a lot to build and so does a cloud service. The Microsoft-HP deal is a case in point. The two companies are building a cloud infrastructure that spans hardware and software integration. They are developing their own applications. It's like an effort to build a massive data center network that works as one giant computer. The investment includes the use of HP servers for Azure, the cloud platform developed by Microsoft. In return, Microsoft software, database programs and other applications will be loaded on the HP machines. Both companies want to own the enterprise. It's apparent that the two feel this can only be done by having a deep cloud-based infrastructure that bundles a full suite of software and tools to optimize systems for business customers. Stacey Higginbotham of GigaOm makes an excellent point in asking if optimization is the new code word for proprietary systems. There's a danger in that for customers as it can lead to vendor lock-in. But Microsoft and HP obviously see a need to form their own partnership to compete with the likes of Cisco, which has a deal with VMWare. Oracle, for its part, is still waiting for approval on its deal with Sun Microsystems. Enterprise customers should be wary of these mega deals. The castle in the cloud may look nice but the enterprise customer may find itself in the dungeon if it makes too heavy an investment in proprietary systems that lock them into specific vendors. Discuss

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Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard Deal: The Cloud is not Cheap

Built For Speed: Turn Your Startup Into A Lean, Mean Iterating Machine

admin — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 18:50:00 +0000

Entrepreneur Eric Ries, who previously co-founded the 3D avatar-based chat client IMVU , is also widely credited with coining the phrase " lean startup " in 2008. Ries recently gathered as many resources as he could muster for lean startups and shared them on his blog, Lessons Learned . A lean startup is one that takes advantage of open-source technologies and other products to push a product to market at a "low burn," while at the same producing continual revisions to its product based on customer feedback. Ries provides a wide consortium of links to wikis , mailing lists , meetups , and bloggers all focusing on the lean startup initiative - a collection of great value to any startup that wants to lower costs while feverishly iterating their product. Sponsor Ries, who is often invited to speak about lean startups, says that this type of development is what helped IMVU achieve its loyal following. Timothy Fitz, a software engineer at IMVU, says the developers average 50 new code iterations per day. "That's 6 deploys an hour," writes Fitz on his blog . "Even at that pace we're often batching multiple commits into a single test/push cycle." The inspiration for this new methodology? Ries says it came from books like Lean Thinking , which outlines ways companies can reduce waste and boost revenue, but Ries is quick to point out that a lean startup and a lean company are two different things. According to Ries, lean companies attempting to trim the fat are striving to create value for their customers, but value is not the foremost goal for the leaning of startups. "Lean startups operate by a different standard," says Ries. "I suggest they define waste as 'every activity that does not contribute to learning about customers'." Photo by Flickr user Usodesita . Discuss

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Built For Speed: Turn Your Startup Into A Lean, Mean Iterating Machine

New Year’s Resolution? VCs Could Spend More In 2010

cgseo — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 08:01:00 +0000

The first quarter of 2010 could see a higher number of investments by venture capital firms than the fourth quarter of 2009, according to figures from new reports by the National Venture Capital Association and information and data services company ChubbyBrain . Data from a report relased by the NVCA yesterday shows that the fourth quarter of 2009 saw a growth of $1.7 billion in venture funds over the previous quarter, similar to numbers seen from Q4 2008 to Q1 2009. Data released today by ChubbyBrain shows that following the earlier growth in venture funds, Q2 2009 saw a $1.4 billion increase in VC investments, a trend that could mean big bucks for startups in the first quarter of 2010. Sponsor As we reported last week , 2009 was a difficult year for startups and venture capital firms, with venture-backed mergers and acquisitions continuing a downward trend in 2009. Carolynn Duncan, founder and director of the startup incubator Portland Ten , says that the "pressure crunch" of 2009 caused VCs to give prospective startups more than the third degree. "It was more like the fifth degree," Duncan told ReadWriteWeb. "It was so intense, even for the companies showing great traction and that had bootstrapped the hell out of their project." Duncan believes that as the new year kicks off VCs that raised funds at the end of 2009 will be looking at a new class of startups to invest in. When asked if 2010 would be an easier year to find funding, Duncan was hesitant, but optimistic. "I don't think 'easier' is the right word, maybe just not as demanding," she said. "People are just glad its 2010 and not 2009 anymore." Photo by Flickr user borman818 . Discuss

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New Year's Resolution? VCs Could Spend More In 2010

Top 6 Colleges with Entrepreneurial Programs

admin — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 20:30:00 +0000

For young budding entrepreneurs approaching graduation this spring, or for those looking to go back for a post-graduate degree, finding the right program for your needs is very important. In their seventh annual joint effort last fall, Entrepreneur Magazine and The Princeton Review teamed up to rank the top 25 undergraduate and graduate entrepreneurship programs in the United States. Only six programs managed to make the top 10 in both lists, securing their spots at the top of the best overall entrepreneurship programs. Sponsor #1. Babson College - Babson Park, MA Finding themselves in the top spot of both top 25 lists is the Arthur M. Blank Center for Entrepreneurship at the F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College . Babson's entrepreneurial programs boast the largest enrollment by far of any of the top schools with over 3,300 total enrolled students, and offers undergraduates a total of over $300,000 in scholarships. #2. Drexel University - Philadelphia, PA Drexel's undergraduate program of the Laurence A. Baiada Center for Entrepreneurship is rated sixth best, but the university's third-ranked graduate program at the Bennett S. LeBow College of Business has boosted them into the number two spot overall. Drexel offers the most money in scholarships out of the top six, providing $350,000 for both undergraduate and graduate students, and claims that 100% of their faculty are entrepreneurs themselves. #3 (Tie). University of Arizona - Tucson, AZ The entrepreneurial programs at the University of Arizona are the most exclusive clubs on this list, enrolling just 100 undergrads and 50 graduate students in it's McGuire Center for Entrepreneurship at the Eller College of Management . With $120,000 available in scholarships and low enrollment figures, entrepreneurs at Arizona have an excellent chance at receiving financial aid. #3 (Tie). Temple University - Philadelphia, PA

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Top 6 Colleges with Entrepreneurial Programs

Make Your Own Online Magazine From Your Flickr/Facebook Photos With YouTellYou

admin — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 05:05:59 +0000

We love site-building and story-telling applications, and social webizens love sharing their content - particularly multimedia content - in new and compelling ways. YouTellYou is a fun and simple tool that allows users to grab, annotate, tag and share their pictures in an online magazine-type format. Users can pull in photos from Smugmug, Facebook, Flickr or one's own computer, then go to town in a frenzy of sequences, captions and true pictorial story-weaving. Sponsor In about 10 minutes, we created this story about SxSW 2009 . We were able to get access to all the needed Flickr photos through a simple interface. Pics were then organized into layouts of one or two photos per section with optional captions for most layouts. When we published, we were pleased to see links with each photo to enlarge it or to find the original URL for each pic. The finished product also has a thorough commenting system and the option to share zines via email and Twitter. Our wishlist for this app would be a drag-and-drop interface for pulling photos into the magazine, Facebook Connect for easier account creation, some kind of theming for finished zines, the ability to add photos from other users and the ability to reblog or share the content we created in more ways. Finally, the site navigation and overall design needs improvement; however, for a free app with no advertising, we can't complain too much. We're torn on whether we personally would use the app again - for most on the RWW team, it'd be worth the effort to just build a webpage from scratch. But for end users, this kind of tool is indicative of a trend for amateur content creation and sharing in more polished ways than a simple Flickr slideshow or Facebook set. What do you think - would you use YouTellYou to tell a story with your photos? Let us know what you think of the app in the comments. Discuss

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Make Your Own Online Magazine From Your Flickr/Facebook Photos With YouTellYou

"Smart Phone" is a Misnomer: It’s a Computer, not a Phone

cgseo — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 21:33:06 +0000

The smart phone is not a phone. It's a computer. It's like your desktop or laptop. It stores data. It connects to the Internet. It runs applications. It's a computer, not a phone. The real challenge for the enterprise is to shift its thinking about how it will move beyond the carriers and one day become an entirely data-centric organization - an organization that gives information workers the ability to work entirely on an IP infrastructure, be it for Web-based productivity applications or on a VoiP network. Forrester Research issued a report today that calls 2010 the year of the smart phone. That seems pretty obvious, doesn't it? To its credit, Forrester does use the report as an opportunity to explore how the enterprise can make the smart phone a part of the daily work life for as many employees as possible. Sponsor There are many reasons for the enterprise to adopt a smart phone culture: There is no excuse anymore. Workers have to be connected. The big weave on the social Web is getting richer. Billions of threads are being added by the day. How can we even tolerate not being connected? Collaboration depends on being connected. You can't be fully connected without a decent smart phone strategy. People are not working at the office as much anymore. They need a smart phone to keep up with their work. As illustrated by Forrester, the trend is already in play: It does not have to be that expensive to adopt a smart phone culture. People want to use their smart phones for both their personal lives and work, too. They will pay for their data plans. Forrester agrees. From the executive summary by Ted Schadler: "Employees, aka consumers, are mad about smartphones, attracted by the ability to email, collaborate, and work with documents from anywhere. Fourteen percent of information workers across the US, Canada, and UK already use smartphones to do work today, and another 64% would like to. That demand, coupled with the willingness of some employees to share the cost of a monthly mobile plan, sets the stage for a surge in the use of personal smartphones for information work. Information and knowledge management professionals should immediately call for a formal bring-your-own (BYO) smartphone strategy, establish a sliding scale for when to reimburse employees, and pressure mobile carriers to cut costs across corporate-liable and personally liable plans." Forrester's BYO recommendation makes sense. But he does not explore how smart phones can be treated as computers. This discussion can create a new level of discourse in the enterprise between IT and business users. Forrester points out that IT recognizes the importance of smart phones. Many companies are already developing policies for how the devices should be treated. Collaboration tool are not being heavily used but this could change if smart phones were treated as tools as much as communication devices. MobileIron follows this approach, offering services that give IT managers the ability to be more like change agents than police forces. In MobileIron's view , information can be tracked with a data-centric approach. Applications can be monitored. Users and administrators can view a social graph that shows usage. That's a smart approach. It stimulates thinking and moves people to start exploring how a fully data-centric approach can be adopted over time as VoiP matures in the enterprise. Discuss

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"Smart Phone" is a Misnomer: It's a Computer, not a Phone

5 Web Apps To Keep Your Startup Organized

cgseo — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 05:30:00 +0000

In a world where emails, phone calls, texts, and Tweets constantly bombard us, it is getting harder and harder to manage the firehose of data and information being thrust our way. For young companies to succeed this environment, it is imparitive they become organized and efficient lest they fall behind and quickly become overwhelmed. While there is no shortage of online solutions, it can be hard to know which one is the right tool for the job, so here's a list of five web applications to help kick-start your company and keep it organized without breaking the bank. Sponsor Google Apps - Google's collection of web apps includes solutions for corporate email accounts, calendars or contacts, but its best use for a new startup is with document sharing. Using Google Docs to collaborate on text documents, spreadsheets or even presentations is far more efficient than sending a file in an email attachment. In recent years, Zoho has become an increasingly competitive enterprise alternative to Google, even adding integration with Google Apps . Zoho has also introduced more features that help it stand out against Google Apps, including their own CRM solution that aims to compete with Salesforce.com . Basecamp - We here at ReadWriteWeb use Basecamp on a daily basis for managing ongoing projects and reviewing edits of our stories. Developed by 37signals , Basecamp offers a great interface with an easily read dashboard of the latest activity, as well as to-do lists, milestones and email alerts. For the on-the-go entrepreneur, there are a handful of mobile Basecamp apps ranging in features and price. Personally, I recommend using Insight for iPhone , which was rebranded from Encamp and recently recommended by 37signals . Dropbox - Whether it's large financial spreadsheets, or Photoshop mockups of your website-to-be, you are going to need somewhere to store all your files. Dropbox makes all of these easy and relatively inexpensive, offering up to 100 GB for $20 a month. But it's not just storage. Dropbox can automatically sync with folders on your desktop, creating an offsite backup of your vital startup files in the cloud, which any member of your staff can access. An alternative solution would be to use Box.net , however their pricing plans are higher than Dropbox's and are aimed at larger corporations. Dimdim - The next time you find yourself struggling to explain an intricate concept to your coworkers through a text document or presentation, check out Dimdim and use the power of screen-sharing to make your point crystal clear. One of Dimdim's best features is that their product works entirely from within your web browser without the need to download or install any extra software. Screen-sharing services like Dimdim can save a young company hundreds if not thousands of dollars in travel expenses by providing a much more efficient way to meet and share information. Also a notable service in this space is Citrix's GoToMeeting . However, like Box.net to Dropbox, its pricing is much higher than Dimdim's. MindMeister - Between the last two semesters of graduate school, I worked on a collaborative ten-week reporting project, and used online mind-mapping app MindMeister extensively to stay organized. The application is a great way to keep those more abstract ideas organized in an easy-to-understand way. Countless startups have mapped out their product ideas and business plans on giant whiteboards, and now the whiteboard has gone digital. MindMeister makes it easy to create and share mind maps and flow charts, and best of all, its free to get started. Photo by Flickr user simax . Discuss

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FTC to Investigate Cloud Computing

cgseo — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 06:07:00 +0000

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is investigating the privacy and security implications of cloud computing. That could be quite an inquiry as the debate is still open about how to actually define cloud computing in the first place. Sponsor The investigation should raise some concerns with the enterprise community. Such an investigation could cover aspects of Internet communications that have been in use for years. How would the FTC distinguish between the rights of the consumer and businesses that also use cloud computing services? What regulations would drift into the enterprise sector? Any service provider could be viewed as part of the investigation under such a broad umbrella. The obvious parties would include Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Rackspace and the other large cloud computing services. SaaS is a form of cloud computing. That could mean a company like NetSuite , Zoho or Salesforce.com would have a stake in the outcome of such an investigation. According to The Hill , the investigation surfaced in a filing with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). In the filing, The FTC recognizes the cost savings of cloud computing but has concerns about information being stored remotely: "However, the storage of data on remote computers may also raise privacy and security concerns for consumers," wrote David Vladeck, who helms the FTC's Consumer Protection Bureau. This statement is puzzling. People have been storing their data remotely since the early 1990s on services that predate the social networks. The intent of the inquiry is to protect consumers privacy. But the repercussions of such a broad investigation will also have reverberations throughout the enterprise community if the inquiry is not narrowed. According to The Hill, the FTC is holding a roundtable Jan. 28 to focus on privacy protections. It will include specific discussions about cloud computing, identity management, mobile computing and social networking. Discuss

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Vanity Apps: The Next Big Thing For the iPhone?

cgseo — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 22:34:42 +0000

Thanks to the recent proliferation of do-it-yourself iPhone app services, the next big thing in Apple's App Store might just be vanity apps. Take, for example, Appsfire's Ouriel Ohayon, who just announced the launch of his own iPhone app. Ohayon used Odiogo Apps to create this personalized app. Odiogo , which mostly focuses on providing text-to-speech services for news sites and blogs, allows users to add RSS feeds, Twitter updates and photos from Flickr to its apps. Sponsor Odiogo's apps also feature the company's text-to-speech services, offline access and advertising support. For now, though, potential users still have to contact the company's sales department to get their own apps and the price of these customized apps isn't clear. More Clutter or a Great Opportunity? As the barrier of entry for creating customized iPhone apps continues to fall, chances are that we will see more and more vanity apps in the App Store. On the one hand, this could clutter the store with relatively useless apps. On the other hand, it could also provide a new source of income for independent bloggers who could use the apps to sell more advertising inventory or even charge a small fee for the app itself. Even bloggers with a small fanbase could reap the benefits of having their own iPhone apps. The question, however, is if users are actually interested in installing a single-purpose iPhone app that only gives them access to the content of one blogger. In the end, these apps are less flexible than a good mobile RSS reader. Apps like this probably make more sense for large multi-author blogs that publish a lot of content every day. On the other hand, the idea of being able to point their friends to their iPhone apps will surely prove to be irresistible for many people. Discuss

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Vanity Apps: The Next Big Thing For the iPhone?

5 Enterprise Trends To Watch in 2010: Part 2

admin — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 20:21:26 +0000

In our first post about trends in the enterprise for the coming year, we looked at five forces that will rise in importance in 2010. In part two, we picked five more trends that we feel will have importance in the enterprise for the year ahead. The more we look at the space, the more we see how mobile looms over all of these trends. It will help shape IT spending in the years ahead as smart phones and other devices increasingly become part of daily work life. Sponsor API's The use of API's will come on strong in 2010 as more companies adopt web-oriented architectures that reflect the growing importance of using social technologies as communication and productivity applications. For instance. you may know OpenSocial as a consumer-facing service for Google gadgets to integrate with Ning, MySpace and LinkedIn. But its true potential may be in the enterprise. Just before Christmas, OpenSocial announced it had written a white paper on a number of enterprise vendors. The paper lays the framework for an API infrastructure that customers may use for integrating Google gadgets. Companies participating in the effort include Atlassian , SocialText , CubeTree , Cisco , IBM , SAP , eXo Platform , Alfresco and of course, Google. Each of these enterprise vendors is integrating with OpenSocial to extend its products and for purposes of interoperability with other enterprise vendors. We expect that in 2010 more companies will develop API road maps to push information out to customers. We'll be watching companies like Sonoa Systems and Mashery as barometers for API adoption in the enterprise. Web Oriented Architecture The concept of web oriented architecture (WOA) first emerged a few years ago. Gartner's Nick Gall developed the concept and it has since grown in scope. Dion Hinchliffe recently wrote a WOA "un-manifesto," detailing the 17 principles that guide it. The future of WOA does not mean the end to service oriented architecture (SOA) but it does point to a shift in views about the way the Web works in the enterprise. As he always does, Dion Hinchliffe accurately illustrates the concept: WOA's influence can't be underestimated. Enterprise architects are looking to data-oriented services. Traditional SOA is still important to many organizations but the trends clearly point to the deeper availability of Web service components. And with this comes an increasing volume of applications that can be easily developed. Application architectures will be increasingly perceived as dynamic, configurable items, like pieces loosely joined. Community Management Social media has to be one of the most over-used phrases of the year but it should not reflect on the increasing need for community management practices within the enterprise. We expect community management to become an increasingly valued role. You only need to look as far as the proliferation of API's to understand what is happening. As pieces of information spread to communities across the web, the need to create a stronger bond will only intensify. The idea being that as more communities engage, the need to service them will change. The processes for spreading and aggregating information will become further automated but people with communications and technical skills will be increasingly needed to keep the communities cohesive. VoIP VoIP will move deeper into the enterprise. The days of closed, siloed telephony systems are coming to an end. The freedom of web-based communications will be far more clear to the enterprise customer this year as the sheer volume of applications and features enter the market. Again, this trend in many ways stems from the move to WOA in the enterprise. The move is to the web. Voice will also heed the call. A number of factors point to this trend. Google's intentions to enter the enterprise are pretty clear. Google acquired Gizmo5 , the web-based service for making calls from your computer or your mobile phone. This is a service that Google is expected to provide as a business service. Bandwidth.com recently unveiled its nationwide voice IP-network. Skype is making a play for the enterprise. Cisco and Skype have a partnership to offer Skype's service to customers. Avaya is said to be close to a deal with Skype. The signs are all there for VoIP to be a trend to watch next year. The Big Sync Finally, cloud computing will continue its pace as a trend to watch. But with it will come a battle that will leave some players bruised and battered. Microsoft has to be the most vulnerable. Joe Wilcox of Betanews makes an interesting point about this in a post about the need for Microsoft to do a better job in syncing mobile devices to the cloud. Here's why: Syncing has real importance with the advent of the mobile enterprise. Take the Blackberry as an example and its ability to sync to your email. Now, we have applications that update all the time. Syncing is critical in order for these applications to work on your mobile device. Wilcox makes the point that Google seems to get this and has done a good job in providing the ability to sync on the mobile. Ironically, this is in large part thanks to Microsoft, which licensed its "ActiveSync," technology to Google. Soon after, Google used ActiveSync in "its e-mail, calendar and contact synchronization from its cloud services to iPhone and Windows Mobile handsets," writes Wilcox. "Google also used the technology to provide Exchange Server sync with Google Apps, so that businesses could use the hosted service instead of Outlook." Google has it right. Apple seems to get it. But Microsoft does not have a clear path for syncing updates across a wide network of applications to a mobile device connected to the cloud. Conclusion As we look deeper into trends, it's evident that Google is getting a lot of attention. But the attention is deserved. Google took advantage of the recession to invest in research and development. Microsoft keeps promising big things but its direction is confusing. How data is accessed and delivered is the name of the game in 2010. It's a disadvantage to keep information in a silo. Monolithic applications and static documents will be less valued, replaced by a mobile enterprise fueled by web-based services. We saw massive adoption of the social Web in 2009. Next year will be the year where WOA and mobile technologies become core parts of the infrastructure for the enterprise. Discuss

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5 Enterprise Trends To Watch in 2010: Part 2