News from the Cloud: April 2010
A monthly round-up of highlights from our sister site, BusinessCloud9.com.
Microsoft: “all in” for Cloud Computing
29 Apr - Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online has finally crossed the Atlantic and is likely to spearhead an increasing emphasis on Cloud business applications, according to Microsoft Business Division president Stephen Elop.
At its recent Convergence conference, Microsoft confirmed that next release of Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online will be made available in 32 markets in the second half of 2010.
According to Elop, Cloud Computing is “fundamentally redefining our industry and how we will get our jobs done”. He continued: “Our intention is to fully embrace the Cloud in a way that fits the needs of all of our customers. We will spend this year alone $9.5bn investing in research and development. About 70% of our engineers in our R&D teams today are focused on Cloud Computing related activities, and within the next two years that will grow to 90%. As we like to say, we are all in, we're all in to Cloud Computing.”
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NetSuite challenges negative Cloud “myths”
17 Apr – At the launch of NetSuite’s latest SuiteCloud 2.0 offering, CEO Zach Nelson claimed it would be the “final nail in the coffin” for inaccurate myths that were spread about Cloud computing by on-premise rivals.
With new application management features, seamless Cloud-to-Cloud integration and new graphical workflow management tools, SuiteCloud 2.0 gave users flexibility and functionality that surpassed the offerings from on-premise rivals, he claimed.
NetSuite’s growth rate was 9% last year – the slowest in its history – but Nelson contrasted that figure with the 28% decline reported by SAP or the 16% decline reported by Sage. “In our slowest growth year, we accelerated the rate at which we took market share from our public competitors,” he said. “Customers are voting for real Cloud over fake Cloud.”
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Industry View: Enabling the Disruption of IT
16 Apr - Cloud computing has the potential to turn the economics of enterprise IT upside down, according to IBM’s UK Cloud leader Mike Brookbanks.
In an opinion article for BusinessCloud9.com, Brookbanks set out the advantages not just from the capital- versus operations-related expense perspective, but accounting for some of the other business benefits too. Being able to collect resources and deliver them from a co-ordinated Cloud data centre yields much higher utilisation rates of up to 90%, he said.
“Standardisation and automation in the Cloud greatly reduce the overhead costs required to deliver IT services,” he added. “By focusing on a few common IT configurations... the amount of labour required to deliver that service is greatly reduced.”
For end users, Cloud Computing is a quick and easy way to use services without having to fully grasp and understand the underlying technology. If properly implemented within an overall technology strategy, the Cloud can improve overall business performance while controlling the costs of distributing IT resources to the organisation, he concluded.
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Cloud industry hits back at Greenpeace carbon footprint allegations
7 Apr - Cloud Computing vendors have hit back at the claims by Greenpeace lobbyists that the move to the Cloud means a bigger, more corrosive carbon footprint.
Greenpeace argued that the growth of Cloud computing has been accompanied by an increase in demand for energy. The Cloud’s massive data centres consume “incredible amounts of energy”. Google and Facebook were singled out for criticism. Both hit back at the claims, countering that the data centres that underpin Cloud Computing are in fact increasingly energy efficient.
Google argued that internet-based services could lower carbon emissions in the following ways: “Rather than hop in your car and travel a few miles to the library, you can often find the information you seek doing a Google search from home; you can check inventory on a product before running an errand to a business that was out of stock or closed; and you can hold a meeting with coworkers over video chat instead of flying to meet them in person.”
Google acknowledged that data centre energy use was a concern, but said it chose renewable energy suppliers wherever possible. “Google data centers are 50% more energy-efficient than the industry standard,” it insisted. “In addition, as a company, we made a voluntary commitment to become carbon neutral in June 2007.”
Facebook rebutted the suggestion that it had chosen coal-based electricity to drive its data centres. “There is no such thing as a coal-powered data centre,” it argued. “Every data centre plugs into the grid offered by their utility or power provider. The electrons powering that data centre are produced by the various sources (e.g. hydro, natural gas, coal, geothermal, nuclear, etc.) the provider uses in proportions similar to the mix of sources used.”
