strategy

42 posts

A woman executive in a grey suit smiles with arms crossed, illustrating CIO career prospects in the cloud era

Cloud Computing Vital For CIO Career Prospects

CIOs have tied their future career prospects very much to the mast of cloud computing, with recent research revealing that they believe cloud computing is shifting the focus of their role away from primarily technology onto vital business services, and increasing their chances of promotion to CEO. In a global survey of 615 CEOs, including Australian CIOs, 57 percent of the Australian respondents said that’s what they believed about the affects of cloud computing on […]

Close up of a glowing light bulb, illustrating cloud solving the IT innovation and maintenance imbalance

Cloud Solves IT Innovation And Maintenance Imbalance

CIOs will have the opportunity to move away from the traditional scenario of spending 80% of their budget on maintenance and 20% on innovation if they harness cloud computing technologies. This in turn will raise the expectations put on CIOs from the boardroom, who will expect IT to drive business innovations. Cloud computing is shaking-up competitive landscapes as companies of all sizes can access the same resources and reach similar markets as a result. But […]

Aerial photography of houses and buildings, illustrating cloud sprawl

Cloud Sprawl

The cloud computing industry rolls along at a staggering pace. So much so that one of the biggest issues currently affecting adoptees is the speed at which it expands. It may sound like a badly made ’90s sci-fi flick, but ‘Cloud Sprawl’ is causing many a headache for IT directors across the globe. And while the term may have been first coined over two years ago, it appears it’s only now that we’re coming to […]

Several white arrows pointing upwards on a wooden wall, illustrating how cloud computing will change IT

How Cloud Computing Will Change IT

If you came here for the article with the title, “How Cloud Computing Will Change IT”, unfortunately, it has been removed at the request of the publisher of the website from which it was obtained. Asking me to remove it was within their rights, but I believe it was a shortsighted decision based on old media ideas about the copyright “protection” of assets and the imagined potential loss of ad revenue. I am not competing […]

Brown round coins on brown wooden surface, illustrating lowering cloud storage costs

Research Brings Cloud Costs Back To Earth

Researchers from Swinburne University of Technology are looking for ways to reduce the high cost of internet data storage and retrieval in cloud computing. While cloud computing – which relies on remote, rather than local servers – offers almost unlimited capacity for data storage and processing, current usage charges mean the costs are expanding at the same near-limitless rate. Social media such as Facebook and Flickr are simple examples of cloud computing, but the drain […]

Person sitting on gaming chair while playing video game, illustrating Zynga's cloud computing advantage

Zynga’s Cloud Computing Advantage

Zynga was created in 2007 with the idea that “play — like search, share and shop — would become one of the core activities on the internet.” Just 5 years later, the company has about 150 million monthly unique users in 166 countries, and has just filed for what could become one of the most important IPOs of 2011. There’s little doubt that Zynga is one of the fastest and most interesting growth stories on […]

Architectural photography of the White House, illustrating federal cloud culture

Getting Feds Comfortable With Cloud Culture

Technology leaders in the White House have promoted greater use of cloud technology at the federal level almost from the start of the Obama presidency. Now the administration has issued its strongest backing yet for cloud technology with the release of the Federal Strategy for Cloud Computing. Officials are using the strategy not only to pull together various cloud initiatives into a coherent package, but also as a directive to federal agencies to actively pursue […]

A laptop, tablet, smartphone, camera, and glasses on a dark wooden desk, illustrating IT consumerisation as an opportunity

IT Consumerisation: An Opportunity

The last 24 months have brought an explosion of new devices, Web applications and social-media platforms. Chief information officers (CIOs) are under pressure from other employees, including senior executives, to open corporate networks to consumer devices and allow access to more of the Web. This migration of consumer devices like smart phones and tablets into enterprise computing is making CIOs very nervous. The risks to data security are obvious and real, and the loss of […]

Black chess piece on chess board, illustrating cloud computing changing corporate strategy

How Cloud Computing is Changing Corporate Strategy

When it comes to outsourcing, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Coming up is not just more outsourcing, although that will happen. As the industry evolves, and as new technology comes into play–based in the cloud–IT services will become different in kind. They will have a lot to do with strategy; and the changes may fundamentally change the economics of some industries, resulting in new winners and losers. That’s the message I heard in Mumbai earlier […]

Clouds blanket the sky at a beautiful sunrise, illustrating clearing up cloud computing confusion

No Need For a Cloud of Confusion

It may sound like a PR ploy, but “cloud computing” truly is a different way of using technology resources, and more firms are adopting it. If your head hasn’t been lost up in the cirrus or cumulus, you’ve probably heard of cloud computing over the last few years. “The cloud” has figured prominently in President Obama’s technology initiatives, in the business plans of familiar tech giants such as Google, Amazon and Microsoft, and even in […]