Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2013 by Gartner

Gartner defines a strategic technology as one with the potential for significant impact on the enterprise in the next three years. Factors that denote significant impact include a high potential for disruption to IT or the business, the need for a major dollar investment, or the risk of being late to adopt.

David Cearley, VP, Gartner said, “We have identified the top 10 technologies that will be strategic for most organizations, and that IT leaders should factor into their strategic planning processes over the next two years.” “This does not necessarily mean enterprises should adopt and invest in all of the listed technologies; however companies need to be making deliberate decisions about how they fit with their expected needs in the near future.”

Mr. Cearley said that these technologies are emerging amidst a nexus of converging forces - social, mobile, cloud and information. Although these forces are innovative and disruptive on their own, together they are revolutionizing business and society, disrupting old business models and creating new leaders. As such, the Nexus of Forces is the basis of the technology platform of the future. 

The top 10 strategic technology trends for 2013

Mobile device battles: Mobile experiences eclipse the desktop experience. Consumerization drives tablets into the enterprise. Cloud and mobile are mutually reinforcing trends. Bring your own device trend accelerates. In 2013, mobile devices will pass PCs to be most common Web access tools. By 2015, over 80% of handsets in mature markets will be smart phones. 20% of those will be Windows phones. By 2015, tablet shipments will be 50% of laptop shipments, with Windows 8 in third place behind Apple and Android. Microsoft‘s share of overall client platform will fall to 60%, and could drop below 50%. In smartphones, Windows could pass RIM to be #3 player, and could be same size as Apple in units by 2015. Windows 8 will be “relatively niche,” with mostly appealing to enterprise buyers.

Mobile applications & HTML 5: Through 2014, JavaScript performance will push HTML5 and the browser as a mainstream application developer environment. There will be long shift to HTML5 from native apps as HTML5 becomes more capable. But native apps won’t disappear, and will always offer best experiences.

Personal Cloud: Cloud will be center of digital lives, for apps, content and preferences. Sync across devices. Services become more important; devices become less important.

Internet of Things: Internet of things is already here. Over 50% of Internet connections are things. In 2011,  over 15 billion things on the Web, with 50 billion+ intermittent connections. By 2020, over 30 billion connected things, with over 200 billion with intermittent connections. Key technologies here include embedded sensors, image recognition and NFC. By 2015, in more than 70% of enterprises, a single exec will oversee all Internet connected things. Becomes the Internet of Everything.

Hybrid IT and Cloud Computing: Changes role of IT.  IT departments must play more roles in coordinating IT related activities.

Strategic Big Data: Organizations need to focus on non-traditional data types and external data sources. Hadoop and NoSQL gain momentum. Big data will meet social. Five richest big data sources on the Web include social graph, intent graph, consumption graph, interest graph and mobile graph. Concept of single corporate data warehouse is dead. Multiple systems need to be tied together.

Actionable Analytics: Cloud, packaged analytics and big data accelerates in 2013, 2014. Can now perform analytics and simulation on every action taken in business. Mobile devices will have access to the data, supporting business decision making.

Mainstream In-Memory Computing: Changes expectations, designs and architectures. Can boost performance and response times. Enables real-time self service business intelligence. SAP and others will accelerate delivery of applications in 2012/2013 to leverage in memory capability.

Integrated Ecosystems: More packaging of software and services to address infrastructure or application workload. There will be more shipment of “appliances,” with software delivered as hardware. New trend: virtual appliances, which Gartner sees gaining in popularity over the next five years.

Enterprise App Stores: By 2014, there will be more than 70 billion mobile app downloads from app stores every year. Also by 2014, most organizations will deliver mobile apps to workers via private application stores.

Source:  Gartner,Inc., Forbes.

The World’s Most Innovative Companies by Forbes

Forbes has published an issue on 'How Innovative Leaders Maintain Their Edge' to be “the world’s most innovative companies” based upon an innovation premium. It's started with asking “Why are some companies able to create and sustain a high innovation premium while others don’t?”

While still in the early stages of an in-depth analysis of high-versus low-innovation premium companies, the initial results show at least three key things that the innovative companies do to create and sustain an innovation premium. How well companies leverage people, process, and philosophies (what we call the 3Ps) differentiates the best in class from the next in class when it comes to keeping innovation alive and delivering an innovation premium year after year.

The World's Most Innovative Companies
Company	Innovation Premium	Sales Growth	Return	Industry
Salesforce.com (U.S.)	73.0%	37.7%	29.7%	Online CRM
Alexion (U.S.)	72.3%	46.5%	47.6%	Global bio pharmaceutical company
Amazon.com (U.S.)	58.3%	34.9%	26.3%	e-commerce and Web services
Red Hat (U.S.)	58.1%	22.6%	23.9%	Open-source software maker
Baidu (China)	57.60%	73.90%	50.00%	China’s leading search engine
Intuitive Surgical (U.S.)	54.0%	27.6%	20.8%	Health care - surgical
Rakuten (Japan)	51.5%	18.3%	25.8%	e-commerce firm
Edwards Lifesciences (U.S.)	46.9%	13.1%	33.7%	Life sciences
Larsen & Toubro (India)	46.1%	19.0%	-0.5%	Engineering firm
ARM Holdings (U.K.)	45.4%	16.9%	27.3%	Microprocessors Designing
Tencent Holdings (China)	44.1%	55.8%	53.0%	Chinese Internet and gaming giant
Hindustan Unilever (India)	43.9%	11.4%	17.0%	Consumer goods company
FMC Technologies (U.S.)	40.7%	29.8%	18.4%	High-pressure fluid control equipment
Cerner (U.S.)	39.2%	24.6%	20.3%	Health care
Pernod Ricard (France)	39.0%	7.9%	4.3%	Beverages
Monsanto (U.S.)	38.6%	18.6%	8.3%	Agricultural Biotechnology corporation
Perrigo (U.S.)	38.3%	15.2%	38.3%	Healthcare Products
Kweichow Moutai (China)	37.9%	56.2%	18.6%	Premium Hard liquor
Infosys (India)	37.7%	12.7%	0.4%	IT consulting, software development and outsourcing services.
Wuliangye Yibin (China)	37.6%	36.5 %	5.9%	Chinese alcoholic beverage company
Starbucks (U.S.)	37.0%	12.7%	13.4%	Coffee Company
Nidec (Japan)	36.1%	3.4%	7.2%	Hard-disk-drive spindle-motor manufacturer
Estee Lauder (U.S.)	36.0%	10.3%	26.6%	Beauty Products
Google (U.S.)	35.9%	29.5%	6.2%	Search  Engine
Danone (France)	35.8%	7.8%	0.3%	Health Food

Cloud Infographic: The Big Data Boom

Data is a common problem in organizations, and hence they want to figure out how to get their enterprise data assets under control. Being able to handle large amounts of information is a priority for big enterprises in the industry because organizations are trying to get their data under control. Nevertheless, learning from the great success of big data in the cloud world, many governments have also become active players in the cloud domain.

Netuitive survey confirms data growth and complexity increasing challenge of managing critical application performance.


Source: Netuitive; Cloudtweaks.com

Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest – A Social Media Checklist For Businesses [INFOGRAPHIC]

Social media has a pretty steep learning curve, and when you’re a brand using these tools for the first time the wealth of information in how to best leverage platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ and Pinterest, as well as blogs and video, can be overwhelming.

This is especially true for marketing. Where do we begin?

Appreciatively, help is at hand, courtesy of this infographic from The Whole Brain Group, which provides a handy, printable, social media checklist for businesses. While the tips and recommendations here are not hard and fast – few things are in the very art-meets-science world of social marketing – it’s a good place to start for companies of all sizes who have heard great things about social networking but don’t know where to start.

(Source: Mediabistro)

Security Challenges of Cloud Storage

Cloud-based storage as a service includes inherent vulnerabilities, but they need not prevent a business user from taking advantage of its economies and flexibilities. Here are the five most important ways to address data security in cloud-based storage infrastructures.

• Data Leakage: Many businesses that would benefit significantly from using cloud storage are holding back because of data leakage fear. The cloud is a multi-tenant environment, where resources are shared. It is also an outside party, with the potential to access a customer’s data. Sharing storage hardware and placing data in the hands of a vendor seem, intuitively, to be risky. Whether accidental, or due to a malicious hacker attack, data leakage would be a major security violation. The best strategy is to assume from the start that the cloud vendor is compromised and send only encrypted files to the cloud. Use the strongest encryption that you can; anything less is not worthwhile. Don’t depend on the cloud provider or an intermediary to encrypt those files for you – then they’ll be able to decrypt them as well, and you’ll have to rely on trust. With the cloud, all data and metadata should be encrypted at the edge, before it leaves your premises. The only person to trust is yourself.
  
  
• Cloud Credentials: Even encrypted data can be vulnerable if your files are pooled in with those of another customer. Access to a given pool of storage is based on credentials, and if you are lumped together with another set of customers and share the same credentials, there is a risk that one of them could obtain those credentials and access your data. They would not be able to decipher it, assuming it is encrypted, but they could delete the files. By securing your own unique credentials, however, your files will be separate. No one else will be able to log into your account and delete your data.
  
  
• Snooping: Files can be vulnerable in the cloud, but there are also risks during data transmission. Encrypted files do not need to be sent over a secure line – this amounts to double encryption. But it is best to assume the worst and guard against any measure of snooping by only sending and retrieving data over a secure line. This prevents against someone seeing cloud metadata. Data and metadata should be completely opaque on the wire and in the cloud. Nothing – no file names, time stamps – should be decipherable once it leaves your premises.
  
  
• Key Management: This has to be addressed properly because if you botch key management, there is a risk that users will not want to activate the cryptography, which then compromises security. Key management should be so simple that users are not even aware of it: Encryption should be automatic. There should be no way to turn it off. This way, if there is no insecure mode, then there is no chance of someone accidentally sending unencrypted, vulnerable data to the cloud. Keys should also be securely escrowed, and difficult to retrieve, so that no one can obtain that key to access your data. 
  
  
• Performance: A strong security strategy is a necessity, but it should not seriously impact performance. Encryption of data being sent to the cloud, and decryption of files called back from the cloud, should happen with little or no impact on the user experience. Ideally, it should all happen without the user noticing a thing.

Source - Nasuni

Indian Cloud Market: Growth and Constraints

According to market advisory firm Zinnov Management Consulting, “The overall Indian market for cloud - both public & private - has grown steadily to reach USD 860- 912 million in calendar year 2011”.

Key moves of Indian cloud industry:

• The 'Public Cloud Opportunity in India' study highlighted that, the public cloud market comprises 20-22 per cent of the share, while the remaining 78-80 per cent is accounted for by private cloud.
• The public cloud market has rapidly evolved in the last two years in India with significant traction across SaaS, PaaS & IaaS (software as a service, platform as a service, infrastructure as a service). With the current market of USD 160 -192 million in 2011, public cloud in India is at a very nascent state of the market and may not have hit the inflection point yet, indicating significant future potential.
• SaaS market in India is largely dominated by email, collaboration tools, CRM and ERP which stood at USD 123-143 million for 2011. The SaaS market has grown at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 46 per cent from USD 56-67 million in 2009 until 2011. It is expected to grow more in future.
• The PaaS and IaaS markets in India, on the other hand, are rapidly growing, though from a small base, the study added. The PaaS market in India is at USD 1.5-2.5 million in 2011, having grown at a CAGR of 75 per cent from USD 0.5-1.5 million 2009.
• IaaS market in India, on the other side, stands at USD 38-47 million. This segment has seen a promising growth of CAGR 84 per cent from a market share of USD 11-14 million in 2009. Because of emerging partnerships, it expected to grow at jet speed.

Although, these numbers are impressive, they indicate just a glimpse of the immense potential and transformation that is possible from adoption of cloud computing technologies. Despite of growth, Indian companies do have certain constraints while adopting cloud. The constraints would be -

• Data security and privacy
• Immature eco-system
• Insufficient development of cloud-ready applications
• Lack of case studies measuring returns from cloud computing investments in Indian scenario
• Erratic broadband availability (connectivity)

Because of global influence, Indian companies would certainly overcome these constraints and presents a remarkable growth in cloud computing era.

Reference: Economictimes, informationweek.

Cloud Computing Trends Affecting Cloud Strategy Through 2015

Continual monitoring of cloud computing trends, with regular updates to the enterprise's cloud strategy, will be essential to avoid costly mistakes or miss market opportunities over the next few years, according to Gartner, Inc. Although the potential for cloud computing is significant, the breadth and depth of the impact, as well as the level of adoption over time, are uncertain and will require frequent review.

"Cloud computing is a major technology trend that has permeated the market over the last two years. It sets the stage for a new approach to IT that enables individuals and businesses to choose how they'll acquire or deliver IT services, with reduced emphasis on the constraints of traditional software and hardware licensing models," said David Cearley, vice president and Gartner Fellow. "Cloud computing has a significant potential impact on every aspect of IT and how users access applications, information and business services."

Gartner has identified five cloud computing sub-trends that will be accelerating, shifting or reaching a tipping point over the next three years and that users must factor into their planning processes.

• Formal decision frameworks facilitate cloud investment optimization: The cloud promises to deliver a range of benefits, including a shift from capital-intensive to operational cost models, lower overall cost, greater agility and reduced complexity. It can also be used to shift the focus of IT resources to higher-value-added activities for the business, or to support business innovation and, potentially, lower risks. However, these prospective benefits need to be examined carefully and mapped against a number of challenges, including security, lack of transparency, concerns about performance and availability, the potential for vendor lock-in, licensing constraints and integration needs. These issues create a complex environment in which to evaluate individual cloud offerings.
  
  
• Hybrid cloud computing is an imperative: Hybrid computing refers to the coordination and combination of external cloud computing services (public or private) and internal infrastructure or application services. Over time, hybrid cloud computing could lead to a unified model in which there is a single "cloud" made up of multiple cloud platforms (internal or external) that can be used, as needed, based on changing business requirements. 
  Gartner recommends that enterprises focus near-term efforts on application and data integration, linking fixed internal and external applications with a hybrid solution. Where public cloud application services or custom applications running on public cloud infrastructures are used, guidelines and standards should be established for how these elements will combine with internal systems to form a hybrid environment.
  
  
• Cloud brokerage will facilitate cloud consumption: As cloud computing adoption proliferates, so does the need for consumption assistance. A cloud services brokerage (CSB) is a service provider that plays an intermediary role in cloud computing. Interest in the CSB concept increased last year, and Gartner expects this trend to accelerate over the next three years as more  individuals, whether they are in IT or a line-of-business unit, consume cloud services without involving IT.
  To address this challenge, Gartner believes that IT departments should explore how they can position themselves as CSBs to the enterprise by establishing a purchasing process that accommodates cloud adoption and encourages business units to come to the IT organization for advice and support. The enterprise CSB approach can be implemented by modifying existing processes and tools such as internal portals and service catalogs.
  
  
• Cloud-centric design becomes a necessity: Many organizations look first for opportunities to migrate existing enterprise workloads to a cloud system or an application infrastructure. This approach may provide benefits where the workload has a highly variable resource requirement, or where the application naturally lends itself to horizontal scalability. However, to fully exploit the potential of a cloud model, applications need to be designed with the unique characteristics, limitations and opportunities of a cloud model in mind. Gartner advises enterprises to look beyond the migration of enterprise workloads to the creation of cloud-optimized applications that fully exploit the potential of the cloud to deliver global-class applications.
  
  
• Cloud computing influences future data center and operational models: In public cloud computing, an enterprise is acting as a consumer of services, with the cloud services provider handling the implementation details, including the data center and related operational models. However, to the extent that the enterprise continues to build its own data centers, they will be influenced by the implementation models used by cloud services providers. Gartner recommends that enterprises apply the concepts of cloud computing to future data center and infrastructure investments to increase agility and efficiency.

"The trend and related technologies continue to evolve and change rapidly, and there is continuing confusion and misunderstanding as vendors increasingly hype 'cloud' as a marketing term," said David Mitchell Smith, vice president and Gartner Fellow.

Reference: www.itbusinessedge.com

Cloud adoption: Concerns and challenges

In pure business terms, cloud is essentially a flexible, scalable, pay-per-use model for the way IT services are delivered and consumed, typically through short-term contracts. With its pay-as-you go model, cloud moves many IT costs from capital expenditure to operating expenditure; its “elastic model” means available IT capability can be flexed to mirror changing business demand; and it enables consumers of IT to have much greater transparency over their costs.

Key benefits of cloud adoption

Financial benefits - Cloud brings benefits across a broad range of financial areas:

• Reduced costs Costs are lower using cloud services compared to bespoke build and maintenance systems
• Reduced total cost of ownership Only the capacity required is paid for, with faster resource availability, providing optimum support to the business
• Reduced capital expenditure IT is purchased as operational rather than capital expenditure
• Costs aligned to business demand Cash flow is improved by spending only when services are required.

Responsiveness benefits

Cloud ensures the organisation is more responsive to business requirements through:

• Instant on Computing resources and systems are available immediately when needed by the business functions
• Universal access Cloud ensures applications and data are available any time, any place, anywhere
• Agile provisioning Cloud provides the ability to react to changing business requirements through the rapid delivery of appropriate IT operational resources.

Cloud adoption has advantages in terms of cost and convenience, it also do have its own concerns and challenges. The adoption of cloud is not just an IT issue; it is of concern to and impacts all parts of the business.

Primary concerns are -

• Security
• Privacy
• Sovereignty

Secondary Concerns are -

• Connectivity
• Reliability
• Contract Lock-in

Although moving to the cloud is not without its difficulties, with careful management these can be mitigated. It is also important to note that the achievable benefits vary for each application or business service that is being migrated to the cloud, depending on several factors, including: the size of the service; service efficiency; the location of the cloud; the cloud variant being migrated to; and the nature of the business itself.

Source/Ref: The White Book Of Cloud adoption By Fujitsu, Cloud Industry Forum.

New survey says 'Affordable Pricing Clears the Cloud of Uncertainty'

Survey reveals cost plays a key role when it comes to Cloud uptake!

Uncertainty around the current economic climate is forcing organizations to look at alternatives to on-site IT infrastructures and resources with one-in-three organizations citing managed services as a more affordable option, according to a survey conducted by hosted services provider Rise.

The research carried out at a recent event, surveyed over 100 IT industry representatives, regarding their willingness to embrace Cloud computing.

The results revealed that over one-third of the respondents stated that 'affordability' was a key driver when looking to move from on-premise to managed services. Cost was also referenced when it came to the demands of end users considering a migration to the Cloud. The potentially huge cost savings that can be realized by such a move was ranked second highest in a list of various demands.

The results also suggest that while firms are starting to gain a better understanding of Cloud computing, there still exists a level of uncertainty when it comes to the actual adoption. Over 50 per cent of respondents highlighted issues such as a lack of understanding, as well as security and complexity concerns as reasons for not migrating.

The results from the survey also include:

• Almost two-third’s of participants are looking to migrate to the Cloud within the next two years
• 63 per cent of participants identified cost and maintenance as the biggest challenge when it comes to managing existing IT systems
• Over 50 per cent of interviewees stated loss of control and security and storage as barriers to Cloud entry

According to Steve Holford, director at Rise, the results suggest that while uncertainty still exists around Cloud uptake, the cost benefits are forcing organizations to take a more serious look at managed services. "The uncertainty hovering over the financial markets has acted as a bit of a wake up call, forcing people to actively go out and see where savings can be made, and Cloud is most certainly one of those areas."

"The financial commitment that goes with maintaining an in-house IT infrastructure is huge, and Cloud computing represents an opportunity to do away with expensive upgrades and maintenance costs."

Steve continued: “The low cost adoption of Cloud can potentially lead to enormous cost savings for a business, and in the current climate these can’t be ignored. Instead of buying additional servers and storage devices that are used only a fraction of the time, employees can have access to Cloud applications and only pay for the amount of time actually used. Also, by outsourcing your IT needs you’ll be able to realign and focus on core business activities. We appreciate that a lot uncertainty still exists, and that us why a hybrid Cloud model offering the benefits of a hosted service while keeping sensitive data on site might also be an attractive option."

For further info: http://uk.rise.co/latest-news/

Google Analytics for Effective Market Research

Google Analytics is a free Web analytics service that provides statistics about the visitors to a website. A premium version is also available for a fee which will majorly helps for search engine optimization (SEO) and marketing purposes. The service is available to anyone with a Google account. Google bought Urchin Software Corporation in April 2005 and used that company’s Urchin on Demand product as the basis for its current service.

Google Analytics is a powerful web page tracking tool that will give you enormous amounts of information regarding who is visiting your site.

Google analytics reports will tell you …

-> How many visits you had.

-> How many were new visitors.-> How many were returning visitors.

-> How many were absolute unique visitors.

-> Which pages were the most popular.

-> The average length of time on a page.

-> How many folks bounced off a page. (Visitor stayed only a few seconds.)

-> The average number of pages people visited.

-> Where your visitors came from. (country, state, city)

-> How people found your website. (direct / search engine / referring site)

-> What kind of browsers they used.

-> Their connection speed.

->Their service provider (Internet service provider).

-> Which keywords they used in search boxes.

-> Which pages they entered your site on. (It’s not always the home page.)

-> Which days of the week you received the most traffic.

-> If you’re getting significant traffic on days you ran other promotions?

-> And, a lot more cool data.

To get started simply type in Google Analytics in your search bar and get going. When signing up, you can add as many other users to your account as you like so long as they have a Google account. This means that other key people can access your data as well.

Google Analytics for Market Research

Google analytics Real-Time is all set to hit the globe with its newest promises.

Assess the effect of social medias- Estimating the immediate effect of social medias can be really easy with this new Analytics, according to some market research experts. Either you update a new blog entry or tweet your new launch, your real-time Analytics will show immediate results against these social media updates.

Evaluate campaign- This is another big advantage of this real-time Analytics. You can get a good idea about the site statistics without any extra need to do any market research. Now, no need to do a thorough keyword research every time you want to launch a new campaign. Just check out the Analytics and find all the details instantly.

Real Time Reports- This new version of Analytics lets you enjoy real time reports anytime you want to check it out, though this facility is available only for the Administrators account or if the account has been given proper access. To get these privileges, you need to upgrade your market research tool, Analytics, to the New Version (look out for the notification at the right top corner). And in the left hand Dashboard tab, you will find the Real time reports.

Google Analytics features:

Analysis Tools

• Real-Time reporting: Measure activity as it happens
• Custom Reports: Define the information you want to analyze
• Custom Variables: Create and analyze your own custom segments
• Advanced Segmentation: Easily analyze specific sections of your traffic
• Dashboards: Organize, monitor, and share KPIs
• Visualization: Learn the path visitors take through your site
• Sharing: Now everyone in your organization can collaborate
• API and Customizations - it's your data, format it the way you want
• Analytics Intelligence which allows to create alerts and custom alerts.
• Annotations which allows users leave shared or private notes right on the graphs.
• Advanced Segments - Segmentation of visits

Content Analytics

• Site Search: Get visitors to their destinations faster
• In-Page Analytics: See how visitors move within your site
• Site Speed Analysis: Uncover problems before your customers do
• Event Tracking: Understand what visitors do on your site
• Make your AdSense program more effective

Mobile Analytics

• Mobile Device Reporting: know which mobile platforms work best
• See where mobile traffic comes from
• Measure mobile app performance

Conversion Suite

• Understand how visitor behavior leads to sales and conversions
• Improve your online sales with Ecommerce Reporting
• See the complete picture of campaign performance with Multi-Channel Funnels
• Follow the different paths that visitors take on your site
• Make better marketing decisions with Attribution Modeling
• Multi-Channel Funnels to see how your marketing channels work together to create sales and conversions.

Social Reports

• Measure the impact of social media on metrics you care about
• Learn which social sources refer engaged visitors
• Discover what your visitors are sharing and where they're sharing it
• Social Conversions - The Conversions report enables social media marketing accountability - and clearly shows how social impacts your business.
• Social Sources - Social Sources reports help you refine where you spend time and move your social tactics from "gut feel" to data-driven.
• Social Sharing - Combining traffic with sharing bridges social and content, enabling informed decisions to build community and increase organic shares of content - on and off your site.

Advertising Analytics

• Make your search engine marketing more effective
• Understand how display advertising contributes to your programs
• Give mobile campaigns the attention they deserve
• See how your advertising campaigns work together with Multi-Channel Funnels
• Campaign measurement provides insights into what works, and what doesn’t

Google Analytics helps in measuring your market, understanding target interest, preference, and helps in determining changes for effective reach.   

Source: http://www.google.com/analytics; http://www.andesandassociates.com/Google_Analytics_Powerfu.html ; http://www.kaizen-digital.com.au/market-research-google-analytics-goes-real-time