The worldwide market for cloud-based SaaS offerings is expected to expand by about 20 percent per year through 2018, when it could exceed the $100 billion mark.

- International Data Corporation (IDC)

In the world of softwares, cloud is becoming the next big thing. Companies are now switching to cloud based delivery models. But that is not an easy task. For this a number of factors need to be considered like:

• The process by which new products are developed and old products are reconfigured for the cloud
• The ways companies should manage customer relationships
• The pace at which product-development teams should operate
• Companies’ tolerance of failure
• The degree to which companies are willing to invest in new technologies and capabilities

Keeping these factors in mind, Santiago Comella-Dorda, Chandra Gnanasambandam and Bhavik Shah, have listed out six principles that will help companies to make an easy shift towards cloud. They are:

1. Emphasize minimum viable products rather than ‘big bang’ releases
2. Treat users as part of the day-to-day development team
3. Expect and tolerate failure
4. Adopt agile approaches to software development
5. Give developers quality-assurance and testing responsibility
6. Invest in cutting-edge capabilities

To know more, please read the following article at McKinsey Insights:

http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/business_technology/from_box_to_cloud

A specific kind of data may be important for a few seconds or sometimes even a few years. Changing times catch up with all kinds of data. So what to do when data reaches its golden age? Archive! But it isn't enough to dump old data in a traditional data warehouse. We must think not only of data's immediate analytical value, but also at how to retain the value of data as it ages. This requires a new approach to archiving. We must ensure regulatory compliance and follow policies of data governance. We must provide access to data while preserving immutability of it or its metadata. Data should query enabled when needed, to generate new insights. Archives must be cost-efficient, enabling you take advantage of advances in data compression. Read more at : http://www.forbes.com/sites/teradata/2015/05/22/archived-but-accessible-retirement-planning-for-your-big-data/

The world of Web Experience Management has come a long way. Starting from traditional, brochure-ware, static web content management to a now more efficient – agile service - oriented web experience management platform. With the help of this platform, we can get the following benefits:

• Ability to mix content management with line-of-business applications and existing customer data
• Be prepared for all the changes occurring in this dynamic world

To avail these benefits and while considering an agile or content-services approach, firms look for the following capabilities:

• Decoupled Architecture
• Agile Deployment Model
• External Preview
• Structured Content
• NoSQL Database

To know more, please read the following article by David Hillis, VP, Business Development, Ingeniux at cmswire.com:

http://www.cmswire.com/customer-experience/agile-web-experience-management-content-as-a-service/

Digital workplace is the new norm today. We don’t do our work at one place today or on only one device. We carry our work with us as we move by transferring it to the device that’s most accessible. Smartphones, laptops, desktops, tablets etc. are some of the devices where ore work is saved. This is called Enterprise Mobility. But, with the increase in enterprise mobility, security has again become a big problem.

Dionisio Zumerle, Research Director, Gartner, has pointed out three key factors that need to be addressed to bridge the gap between enterprise mobility and effective security for business information. They are:

• People
• Process
• Technology

Thus, efforts need to be focused on developing information security models applicable for this multiple device systems while keeping in mind the above stated factors.

To know more, please read the following article at Forbes:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/gartnergroup/2015/06/10/mobile-security-challenges-in-the-age-of-digital-business/

Big data developments in 2015 show significant change in terms of data storing as well as data analyzing techniques. Measuring data agility is becoming more and more popular, as opposed to the conventional system of storage and management of data resources. The investment and scope of big data projects will be directly related to the impact and of an organization's response to changing trends among consumers, markets and competition. Another big trend organizations will focus on in 2015 is usage of data lakes. Using data lakes, Hadoop and BI systems and cloud computing, real time data analysis and decision making is expected to be fast. So the dynamic change in technology will bring revolution in terms of business decision making. Read more at: http://channels.theinnovationenterprise.com/articles/advancements-in-big-data-in-2015 

The Internet of Things (IoT) is one of the most hot and debated issues in context of Big Data Analytics. It provides huge and enormous volume of data and reduces the cost of obtaining data significantly. It is estimated that within the next five years there will be more than 50 trillion gigabytes of data. The huge volume of data may provide valuable insights into the market and may be useful for development of technology related to business expansion. Sometimes it may be a challenge to handle such large volume of data and extract useful information out of it. But with rapid progression in technology, analyzing such data is becoming less difficult, and it importance in modern business practices is rising exponentially.  Read more about this article at: http://www.content-loop.com/search-true-value-internet-things/

Yes, a $10 supercomputer swept Wall Street away. Braxton McKee, math and computer whiz, is tapping into the cloud to fetch all that market data inexpensively and built a software that employs Machine Learning algorithms to understand this data. Thanks to Cloud Computing and Big Data analytics getting cheaper, many startups and businesses can now employ their functionalities to provide services that are efficient, fast and scalable. The large amounts of data is mostly unstructured data, such as corporate documents, transcripts and social media and with the rise of Cloud Computing, the process is finally cost effective. Entities have begun leveraging cloud power to help hedge funds and other financial players run complex, big-data computer models. Maybe Cloud based Big Data analytics is the future. Read more at: http://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/10-hedge-fund-supercomputer-sweeps-wall-street-with-power-from-the-cloud-20150521-gh68hx.html

As cybercriminals are trying to penetrate into each and every system, leading to huge losses, some steps that can protect an enterprise from cyberattacks are: 1. It is important to enable full disk encryption technology, so that all data on the storage drives are scrambled, which makes it impossible to restore the original data, when in wrong hands.
2. However, a concern dealing with sensitive data can maintain a separate encrypted file volume for its most sensitive files, by installing it before the first usage.
3. It is preferable to use hardware-based encrypted USB flash drives for data transfer, which provides seamless encryption of data, as it gets copied onto the drive.
4. A private cloud hosted on a network-attached storage device can be maintained for data synchronization among privately-owned devices.
5. It is always preferable to use password managers in systems.
6. Multifactor authentication should be enabled, which requires an additional information for final authentication, like maybe a pin code sent via text message.
7. It is important to have some backup account (say email id) registered to get information of any password reset, which may happen in a cyber-hijack.
Read more at:http://www.cio.com/article/2933183/cybercrime/7-steps-to-protect-your-business-from-cybercrime.html

Have you recently asked the right questions from your CRM application? If no then here is a piece of advice from Inside CRM blog to upgrade your CRM application. It will bring more business agility, efficient workflow and will improve customer relationship.

But what are the right questions to ask:

• How old is your CRM solution? And if you can’t remember then here is your cue to upgrade.

• How many applications are you using to support your CRM?

• Does it grow with your business? 

To find your answers, click on the link: http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/insidecrm/how-to-tell-its-time-to-upgrade-your-crm-solution-67836

Data mining sounds like a monotonous activity on a pile of information, requiring little oversight. It is however, in the words of Professor Uwe Aickelin, University of Nottingham, "A discipline that blurs the lines between artificial intelligence, machine learning, statistics and other cutting-edge disciplines to unearth the golden nuggets that lurk within data." He explains how data mining is the effort to extract valuable information from unstructured or 'messy' data. Statistics fails to recognize patterns and it is here where Evolutionary Computation and Machine Learning is required. Industries have begun to understand the need to make sense of the large amounts of data out there and Data Mining is more important than ever now. Read more at: http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2015/05/why-data-mining-is-so-important/

While, IoT revolution is taking place all over the world, there are still some points that need to be taken into consideration to increase its use. One such point is its use in South East Asia.

Recently, Asia M2M IoT Business Platform 2015 conference was conducted in Bangkok, which focused on this issue. Although mobile technology adoption rate is very high in this subcontinent, people’s response to other new technologies is not that much. They are hesitant towards new technology.

Dana Blouin, Researcher at SIIT, who had attended this conference as a speaker, has listed down key themes discussed there. They are:

• Erratic Adoption
• Use What Customers Know
• The Value of the Smartphone

These points need to be kept in mind to make IoT, a more common phenomenon.

To know more, please read the following article at cmswire.com:

http://www.cmswire.com/internet-of-things/how-to-put-the-iot-in-the-hands-of-your-customers/

According to Bart Schouw, Director of IBO Solutions for Germany-based Software AG:

“The Internet of Things is a revolution. There will be serious threats to those who are not prepared and profitable opportunities for those who are issues such as security and governance will need to be addressed as IoT begins to impact more and more of our daily lives.”

In his report, eight insights on IoT are listed, that must be taken into consideration. Some of them are:

• Don’t Gamble
• Tap Analytics
• Pay-As-You-Go
• Expect More Regulation

To know more, please read this interesting article by David Roe, at cmswire.com:

http://www.cmswire.com/internet-of-things/the-iot-challenge-make-use-of-the-data/

The mission of Matt Morgan, the vice-president of global product marketing of Hortonworks is to establish Hadoop as the foundational technology of modern enterprise data architecture. Hortonworks Data Platform (HDP 2.3) is the only enterprise Hadoop-based platform that is made up of 100% Apache open source components. Enhanced security and data governance have been added to HDP 2.3 including new encryption of data, and the extension of the data governance initiative with Apache Atlas. But many doubt that skill shortage is one of the barrier to Hadoop adoption. Read more about this article at:  http://www.cmswire.com/big-data/is-hortonworks-paving-the-way-for-pervasive-hadoop-adoption/

Flipkart , an e-commerce co., has decided to focus on social media, mobile interface and data mining to boost its position in the online retail market.  Data mining and technology improvements are going to take up a major role in the coming days. Up gradation in infrastructures and data centres are essential to maintain its position in the market.  The company also expects to achieve $8 billion dollar sales thus utilizing every resource at its disposal.  To know more, please follow:

http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2015-04-13/news/61102918_1_mukesh-bansal-binny-bansal-billion-day

When it comes to the Internet of Things (IoT), one of the biggest challenges is managing the data created by devices and their flow in and out of the system a developer creates. This data is vital for an efficient system. The initial step is where the data is created and enters the Internet. In the second step, a central system holds on to this data, organizing it constantly. In the third stage old data is sore for future needs. NoSQL platforms like Cassandra are a suitable fit for IoT systems. Distributed database systems like Cassandra have no 'primary' server that controls the rest. Each node in a cluster can handle the incoming transactions. Read at:  http://www.wired.com/2015/03/internet-things-data-go/

Cloud technology has developed a lot in the past few years. After years of improvement in this space, hybrid cloud is the latest innovation in this field. Businesses are now being recommended to use hybrid cloud computing models.

But before implementing them, businesses need answers to few questions like what is hybrid computing? How is it beneficial for them?

Vivek Vahie, Senior Director, Navisite India, has answered these questions in the simplest form in his article at betanews.com. According to him:

“Hybrid cloud is any combination of public and private computing combined with existing on-premise infrastructure which is tailored to fit each individual business’ needs.”

He has shared following points in answer to the why question:

• More flexibility and control
• Helps find the balance between their in-house IT infrastructure and public cloud services.
• Potential cost savings
• Scalability and agility

Though there are problems in implementing hybrid cloud models like compatibility and security issues, still, it offers a bundle of vast opportunities.

To know more, please visit the following link:

http://betanews.com/2015/05/22/why-businesses-should-embrace-the-hybrid-cloud/

Big Data, one of the prevailing trend has changed our mind-set about Internet and other Technologies. The five keys to get an idea of the reach of Big Data are: 1) the amount of Data transmitted through an optical fiber doubles every nine months. 2) The number of cellphones in the world is now equal to the number of people thus becoming the fastest adopted technology ever. 3) Facebook has 1.3 billion active users and one hundred hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute 4) The number of IP-enabled sensors are increasing 5) 90% of the world's stock of data was generated in the past two years. Thus, Big Data has many applications in the business world. Read more about this article at:  https://www.bbvaopenmind.com/en/5-data-about-big-data/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=techreview&utm_campaign=MITcompany&utm_content=5bigdata 

For a future IT landscape dominated by Big Data technologies, it is crucial to use technologies and tools for Big Data. Hadoop and MongoDB are designed to perform in the Cloud which gives firms ability to scale computing and storage resources. Also, data professionals have to undergo proper training to acquire skills. Data stored in cloud should be according to the company's security policies and compliance laws. Mastering the art of messages, promotions, and marketing on a micro-level, will lead to more customer-centricity, and deeper customer engagement, will ultimately result in better ROI. Read more about this article at: http://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2015/27754/seven-ways-to-get-ready-for-big-data-of-the-future

Microsoft recently announced upgraded model of SQL server, which includes reporting services, analysis services and Integration Services to help companies in critical decision making. SQL server 2016 includes non-clustered columnstore index support with columnar index in-memory or on-disk row store for deploying an operational analytics and it has polybase. SQL server 2016 made several improvements in analytical services such as enterprise readiness, modelling platform, BI tools, SharePoint integration, and hybrid BI. An SQL server 2016 analysis service also provides functional parity with SharePoint vNext and Excel vNext. To know more about SQL server 2016 features, please follow this link: http://sqlmag.com/blog/what-coming-sql-server-2016-business-intelligence

Cloud computing has changed the way organizations work in this digital world. Whatever be the size of the companies, cloud computing is the key. This has now become the norm.

In context of small companies, its use has been even more beneficial. Many new organizations have also come into existence because of this. According to a research by Microsoft, “62% of companies using cloud services report significant benefits of IT productivity, and 45% of small businesses said they should adhere to cloud services this year.”

Diogo Costa, in his article at tech.co, has stated the advantages of using cloud computing for small companies. They are:

• Cost reduction
• Increased data security
• Possibility to work remotely

To understand them in detail, please visit the following link:

http://tech.co/small-companies-cloud-computing-2015-05