Of the remaining 59% of IT professionals who profess to know what cloud computing is, 17% of these understand cloud computing to be internet-based computing while 11% believe it is a combination of internet-based computing, software as a service (SAAS), software on demand, an outsourced or managed service and a hosted software service. The remaining respondents understand cloud computing to be a mixture of the above.

Despite cloud computing being in the media spotlight, only a minority of respondents (5%) say that they use it “a lot” and less than a quarter of those surveyed (19%) reveal that they only use cloud computing sparingly. Almost half of respondents (47%) admit that their company doesn’t use cloud computing with the remaining 29% conceding that they “don’t know” whether their organisation uses it or not.

Julian Buck, General Manager of Version One, says, “Although this is only a small survey of IT professionals, the results are nonetheless very alarming, especially as IT professionals are the very people that need to understand cloud computing so that they can explain its benefits to management.”

Buck continues, “It is clear from the survey results that there are a number of contrasting views as to what cloud computing really is, which is hardly surprising in light of the many different cloud computing definitions in the public arena. For instance, Wikipedia defines it as ‘Internet-based computing’ while Gartner refers to it ‘as a service’ using Internet technologies. IT expert, John Willis, writing in his cloud blog says that ‘virtualisation is the secret sauce of a cloud’ and provides different levels of cloud computing. With so many definitions circulating, clarity is urgently needed.”

Only 2% of respondents say that their company is “definitely” going to invest in cloud computing within the next twelve months whilst 30% state that their organisations “may” invest in this technology. 45% admit that they “don’t know” whether their organisations will be investing in it or not with the remaining 23% stating that they currently have no investment plans. For those who definitely or maybe have plans to invest in cloud computing, some of the key business drivers cited include reduction in overheads and paper, ease of use, cost savings and the ability to provide collaborative tools for teaching and learning.

Buck adds, “If organisations are going to embrace cloud computing in the future it’s essential that a single, simplified explanation is adopted by everyone. Failure to cut through the confusion could result in organisations rejecting this technology and missing out on the benefits it provides.”

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I just came across this useful collection of articles on Social Media on Business week – ‘An executive guide to social media’

link…

Quebec’s open-source software association is suing the provincial government, saying it is giving preferential treatment to Microsoft Corp. by buying the company’s products rather than using free alternatives.

The lawsuit by Facil was lodged with the Quebec Superior Court on July 15 and made public on Wednesday. In it, the group says the provincial government has refused to entertain competing bids from all software providers, opting instead to supply public-sector departments with products bought from proprietary vendors such as Microsoft and Oracle Corp.

Government buyers are using an exception in provincial law that allows them to buy directly from a proprietary vendor when there are no options available, but Facil said that loophole is being abused and goes against other legal requirements to buy locally.

“It shouldn’t be the rule,” Facil president Mathieu Lutfy told CBC News. “It goes against the public markets policy of the government, which requires them to stimulate competition and look for local alternatives. It’s really an absurdity.”

Between February and June, the Quebec government spent $25 million on software from Microsoft, Facil said. The group estimates the government is spending more than $80 million a year on licences for Microsoft’s Windows Vista operating system alone…

…Facil said the provincial government, as well as its federal counterpart, is woefully behind the rest of the world in terms of adopting open-source software in the public sector. Governments around the world are looking to lower their costs and reliance on specific software makers. France, for example, migrated more than 400,000 public-sector employees to open-source software in 2006, while the Netherlands recently banned the use of proprietary products in government.

“A strategic free software utilization in public administration could create thousands of jobs as well as a significant decrease in software licensing costs,” Facil said in a press release. “However, Quebec’s public administration refuses to even consider and evaluate these options.”

Read entire article..

The Commission must do its part. It must not rely on one vendor, it must not accept closed standards, and it must refuse to become locked into a particular technology – jeopardizing maintenance of full control over the information in its possession.

This view is born from a hard headed understanding of how markets work – it is not a call for revolution, but for an intelligent and achievable evolution.
But there is more to this than ensuring our commercial decisions are taken in full knowledge of their long term effects. There is a democratic issue as well.
When open alternatives are available, no citizen or company should be forced or encouraged to use a particular company’s technology to access government information.
No citizen or company should be forced or encouraged to choose a closed technology over an open one, through a government having made that choice first.

These democratic principles are important. And an argument is particularly compelling when it is supported both by democratic principles and by sound economics.

I know a smart business decision when I see one – choosing open standards is a very smart business decision indeed.

Read the full text of the commissioner’s speech..

“Organizations are recognizing the clear advantages of Web 2.0, even though there has been some hesitation among IT decision makers to adopt these tools,” said CDW Vice President Mark Gambill, the company’s executive responsible for market insights. “With the increased use of Web 2.0 functions like social networking and blogging as business tools, corporations are starting to re-evaluate tried and true ways of communicating.”

According to CDW, Web 2.0 has gained momentum in some places. Fifty-three percent of IT decision makers across all sectors believe that Web 2.0 applications will substantially improve employee performance in the next five years. Web 2.0 is also seen as important in attracting and retaining the next generation of workers, with 68 percent and 61 percent of corporate and government IT decision makers, respectively, agreeing with that sentiment.

Additionally, the adoption curve for Web 2.0 applications currently has a trickle-down pattern. While 67 percent of large businesses have already implemented some form of Web 2.0 applications or tools, IT decision makers in medium-sized businesses fall slightly behind with 53 percent currently using Web 2.0. Only 27 percent of small businesses and 30 percent of government organizations have adopted Web 2.0.

More…

IBM announced new technology to secure “mashups,” web applications that pull information from multiple sources, such as Web sites, enterprise databases or emails, to create one unified view. Mashups are attractive for business use, as they allow non-technical users to gain insight on complex situations in minutes, but as with all Web-based initiatives, security has been a concern.IBM is helping businesses realize the value of these situational applications without all the risk, through a new technology created by IBM researchers, codenamed “SMash.” Short for secure mashup, this technology allows information from different sources to talk to each other, but keeps them separate so malicious code cannot creep into enterprise systems.

In order to give consumer and business users the opportunity to take advantage of mashup technology, IBM is contributing the SMash technology to the OpenAjax Alliance. The OpenAjax Alliance is an organization of vendors, open source projects and companies using Ajax that are dedicated to the successful adoption of open and interoperable Ajax-based Web technologies. A founding member of the OpenAjax Alliance, IBM continues to work with the industry to create standards that will support innovation and wide-spread adoption of Web 2.0 technologies.

“Web 2.0 is fundamentally about empowering people, and has created a societal shift in the way we organize, access and use information,” said Rod Smith, IBM Fellow & Vice President. “Security concerns can’t be a complete inhibitor or clients lose out on the immense benefit mashups bring. The same way you wouldn’t buy a car and then later decide to have the seatbelts or airbags installed, as an industry we’ve learned how to build security into business operations from the ground up instead of tacking it on after the fact.”

Read more on http://java.sys-con.com/read/518524.htm

This is an early example of Cloud Computing, an entire web based operating system. I’d guess that within 10 years most people will be accessing their OS and apps across the public web from similar systems and it seems to make sense for Enterprise and other large organisations to follow. Such an approach would undoubtedly make security easier to monitor, and ultimately, I believe, easier to manage. Infrastructure would also be much easier to manage with users requiring only a thin client with all the processing taking place on the server and with software and processing resources being served up on demand to a shared user base, upgrades taking place entirely on the server.

Sign up for an account at http://g.ho.st/ (but read the Terms and conditions first…)

see also DesktopTwo https://desktoptwo.com/

($1,295.00 USD) …so unfortunately I won’t be reading it but Joe McKendrick at the Fastforward Blog has…

A new report out of Saugatuck Research, for example, declares that “SaaS is now beyond the ‘tipping point .’” The firm’s latest survey of 250 IT executives shows that not only have more than 26 percent of companies installed at least one SaaS application, representing nearly 150 percent year-over-year growth, but resistance has plunged dramatically, in terms of firms that are not planning to deploy SaaS.”…

…Saugatuck calculates that on average, the typical large enterprise now taps into at least three SaaS applications, with one in seven having greater than 10 SaaS applications.”

Read Joe’s full blog entry here:
http://www.fastforwardblog.com/2007/04/03/software-as-a-service-passes-the-tipping-point/

The Report is available for purchase here:
http://www.saugatech.com/342order.htm

The Irish government has dipped a toe into the free data market, making a group of datasets for boreholes around the country available online so that professional users – in particular those engaging in major construction or infrastructure planning – will be able to visualise subterranean structures.

The Irish data (which can be viewed using an interactive viewer)  are not yet in the sort of form that could be used to build mashups, by connecting to an online web interface that could be queried by someone building, say, a Google, Yahoo! or Live Maps interface. At present, navigating to the borehole locations is a slow process that requires clicking on more and more detailed map views, or searching for known sites or towns.

But in principle it is widening the availability of data to anyone on the net, including Ireland’s citizens, which must be useful – and the possibility of a web API (applications programming interface) that would let people build their own mashups by querying the GSI’s servers in real time must exist.

Link to full Guardian article

Link to OSI Borehole website