Fast approaching its third decade of commercial availability, the internet and its offspring are hurtling us into the next era. Sure, we’ve had fun surfing the internet, sharing on social media and working from home. But much of these initial digital years have revolved around doing the same stuff, except it was online. Indicators from a variety of researchers and pioneering companies are revealing something entirely different in store. Whether it’s called the third platform (IDC), intelligent digital mesh (Gartner), the Fourth Industrial Revolution (World Economic Forum), or any number of monikers by other smart people in various organizations, this next digital era is shaping up as truly revolutionary.

Billions of devices demand governance

Remember when the internet was supposed to be open and free, unfettered by rules of pretty much any kind? As information sharing online has become the communication norm, legal mandates are emerging. For example, social platforms in EU countries will likely have to adhere to tougher electronic evidence regulations for sharing content with law enforcement authorities. Calls for governance are increasing because, let’s face it, with billions of data devices and data points, the internet is all grown up. Before you wax nostalgic for those unbridled, anything is possible early days, take a gander at what trend watchers are saying about the opportunities.

Business model transformation

Cloud computing has forever altered the business landscape, including companies like mine. SAP is full steam ahead bringing our customers the intelligent enterprise. Indeed, researchers can’t say enough positive things about the incredible opportunities for the cloud-based economy at-large. IDC predicted digitally-enhanced offerings, operations and relationship-driving will power almost $7 trillion in IT-related spending between 2019 through 2022. According to a recent World Economic Forum (WEF) study, even a moderately paced roll-out of automation technologies in the coming years will power an investment surge totaling up to $8 trillion in the United States alone. – Read more

2019 is the Year of the Pig, but will it also be the Year of the Cloud?

Social media giant LinkedIn released a blog about “The Skills Companies Need Most in 2019 – And How to Learn Them”. What’s the number one hard skill that companies are eager for in 2019? You guessed it: cloud computing.

Is this is the skill that will set you apart from the crowd in 2019?

In-demand skills

Have you made a New Year’s Resolution? We are already halfway in January, and surely some of us have already given up on our goals. (No shame in that!) However, if your resolution was to add an in-demand skillset to your resume, here’s a suggestion: learn about cloud computing.

From the LinkedIn report, let’s learn why cloud computing is in demand.

Data from 500+ members were looked at, and here are the top skills that were the hardest for companies to fill:  – Read more

Whether enthusiastically or begrudgingly adopted, cloud infrastructure and services are a significant part of the IT fabric at most organizations.

Nevertheless, as business leaders continue to rightfully fret over data security and potentially introducing new risks, it’s reasonable to conclude that critical systems like ERP might be some of the last to move. That’s not necessarily the case.

As other diginomica writers have detailed, there is a healthy and vibrant market in cloud ERP software and as a new independent survey from the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) details, these vendors are vying for a growing customer base as more organizations plan cloud deployments.

Cloud ERP vendors pitch cloud benefits such as rapid access to new features, financial efficiency through avoided capital spending and lower operational overhead coupled with the ease of supporting globally distributed workers and business partners. However, the CSA survey suggests that business and IT executive worry about infrastructure and data security and the complexity of complying with a hodgepodge of global data protection regulations when using third-party infrastructure. The clash between cloud convenience and fiduciary and operational realities will significantly shape how the cloud ERP market evolves and grows.

While data from surveys like that conducted by CSA are useful in helping set vendor and buyer priorities, even more important are concrete guidelines for securely operating and using cloud ERP environments. Moving critical business systems to the cloud without such security and governance measures in place is a recipe for future financial and operational disaster. – Read more

It is important to choose the right cloud service provider to get the best network protection.

 

Cloud4C, a Made in India cloud player is emerging as a preferred choice of Fortune 500 enterprises across 20 countries with 40 locations spread across Americas, Europe, Middle East, APAC.

The company offers differentiated services such as Community Cloud for industries such as banks and manufacturing besides private and public cloud. A total of 3,000 companies globally are using Cloud4C services including 30+ Fortune 500 global multinationals. The company offers a robust cloud platform powered by military grade cloud security managed by 26 security tools and 40+ security controls to ensure data is protected backed by industry best uptime SLA.

Globally, over 80 countries have passed data privacy laws – Cloud4C operates in 20 of those countries and ensures the data is hosted within the country complying with the respective government privacy guidelines. After having met its geographical expansion objectives in India, Cloud4C is now looking to expand its geographical footprint to new geographies, plans to be present in 40 countries.

Cloud4C supports global businesses achieve speed to market through quick deployment of cloud infrastructure, achieve scalability on demand to address the growing business needs. Cloud4C ensures seamless availability of applications through the world’s best end-to-end SLA (application to infrastructure) backed by an uptime guarantee. To help global enterprises sail through the challenges around data protection and security, Cloud4C deploys infrastructure locally in all the locations and compliant to the local data and privacy laws like IRAP, GDPR, RBI, IRDA, MAS etc. The company manages and monitors its customers through its global NOC and SOC. – Read more

Access to cloud computing is way easier and affordable than ever. Although it’s costlier than traditional hosting platforms still has much more benefits over them which made it of high demand and especially for web designers and industry.

Some of the features of cloud have been discussed below that interest web developer to gravitate towards it.

Scalability

Unlike remote server hosting cloud allows developers to scale their website through different geographical locations even without impacting user experience. Cloud hosting provides features such as traffic management without the limitations of speed and delivery which enables users to access the website quickly no matter at which location they are and also cloud hosting minimizes the possibilities of server downtime.

Security

Cloud hosting offers security which in the current digital age is utmost important especially if the website collects personal data. Also, it helps to avoid hackers and operate safely on the website. Cloud data centers are more secure than traditional ones and create three copies of data mitigating the risk of data loss and also provide reliable file sharing. – Read more

HERE Technologies today announced HERE Navigation On Demand, a new one-stop solution for automakers to enable compelling, full-featured and always-fresh navigation experiences in their vehicles, including in the volume segment.

HERE Navigation On Demand is navigation as a service, combining the benefits of embedded navigation with the experience and familiarity of a mobile navigation solution. This fully integrated solution works off the shelf, and offers easy and cost-effective deployment in connected embedded systems as well as on mobile, including mirrored set-ups. Automakers can also take advantage of an out-of-the-box framework enabling them to sell connected services on-demand and generate new sources of recurring revenue.

“HERE Navigation On Demand is the reinvention of in-car navigation for the era of the connected vehicle,” said Edzard Overbeek, CEO of HERE Technologies. – Read more

Efforts to adopt the cloud paved the way for a software as a service era. In 2019, make way for more paving.

The “desktop to desktop” way of working is getting replaced by a cocktail of web, SaaS, mobile and desktop applications, Mark Grilli, VP of product marketing for Adobe, told CIO Dive.

SaaS is dominating the way employees work and vendors effortlessly persuade non-IT employees to adopt their services. This makes IT’s job all the more challenging because software governance is crucial but so is employee productivity.

Walking the line between both is a challenge, but actively rolling with changes will help mitigate employee frustration.

Here are the top software trends leading edge companies have had in their sights and are preparing for: – Read more

Adoption of cloud-based apps will just keep growing in the New Year, experts say. Execs at Cleo, a provider of enterprise integration solutions, say success with SaaS also needs a more agile, cloud-centric integration.   IDN reviews Cleo’s reasons why. 

Adoption of cloud-based apps will just keep growing in the New Year, experts say. Execs at Cleo, a provider of enterprise integration solutions, suggest that success with SaaS also requires  a more agile, cloud-centric integration.

Cleo listed some of the top SaaS challenges in a recent blog. Among them:

• Complex customer integrations,
• Inefficient onboarding,
• Unmanageable costs and
• Moving security targets

The solution to these and others SaaS complexities are to adopt an “embedded integration” approach using iPaaS (cloud-based integration platform-as-a-service), Cleo added.  – Read more

HubSpot today announced the launch of HubSpot Ventures, a $30 million fund to support enterprise startups raising early-stage funding.

The newly formed investment arm of the marketing and sales company will support seed, Series A, and Series B rounds, with limited support for Series C rounds.

HubSpot has previously invested in a collection of marketing startups, like sales funnel automation and chat company Drift and email signature ad company Sigstr, but this is its first venture fund. Its most recent investment was in website design company Lorem in October. HubSpot has invested in a total of 10 startups since it went public in 2014.

The new fund will focus on investments in companies building software-as-a-service (SaaS) products for establishing long-term relationships with customers.

The fund will seek to participate in funding rounds but will not look to lead them, a company spokesperson said. – Read More