Monday, March 30, 2009

Adoption of SaaS Applications Is Significantly Higher in Companies in France and the UK, Compared to Germany

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Egham, UK, March 30, 2009

CRM Is The Most Popular SaaS Application in All Three countries

Companies in France and the UK are significantly ahead of those in Germany in terms of adoption of software as a service (SaaS) applications, according to a recent survey* by Gartner, Inc. However, Gartner said that the responses from German organisations suggest that the difference in adoption levels will shrink if users follow through on their plans for SaaS adoption in 2009.

Seventy one per cent of French survey respondents said that their organisation currently uses SaaS for enterprise applications, compared to 68 per cent in the UK and 45 per cent in Germany. The survey also looked at actual levels of SaaS use compared with the number of employees an organisation could have using SaaS. The results showed higher levels of usage and adoption were indicated in France.

The survey findings on the length of time that SaaS applications have been in use across the three countries further indicated that France has a slight lead in terms of adoption. Only 4 per cent of French respondents said that they had used SaaS applications for less than a year, compared with 17 per cent in the UK and 21 per cent in Germany. This runs slightly counter to the traditional assumption that the UK is more advanced in terms of SaaS adoption.

We believe that North American vendors have enjoyed greater success in the UK because less effort is required to localise products and sales and marketing strategies,” said Chris Pang, principal research analyst at Gartner. “However, other European countries are also willing adopters of SaaS applications and that international vendors not already active in the French and German markets should certainly investigate opportunities for growth here.”

Overall, customer relationship management (CRM) is the most popular SaaS application across the three countries, ahead of enterprise resource planning (ERP); content communications and collaboration (CCC); and supply chain management (SCM). Gartner said that CRM’s popularity is likely a result of the media exposure of high-profile vendors such as salesforce.com. In addition, CRM SaaS applications tend to cover a wider range of functions in common processes, such as sales automation, marketing automation and customer service support whereas SaaS applications such as ERP, CCC and SCM tend to focus on specific areas of business process support such as expense management, talent management, recruitment, web conferencing and procurement.

While there are many more vendors offering SaaS for applications other than CRM, their media exposure has generally been less conspicuous,” said Mr Pang. “Nevertheless, the penetration and use of ERP, CCC and SCM applications should not be underestimated. Many businesses already use some of these applications within a part of their organisation, and vendors looking to sell SaaS applications should find that most businesses are now more open to using SaaS than they were five years ago.”

Regarding motivations for using or considering using SaaS in 2009, respondents were united in choosing SaaS primarily because they considered it more cost-effective than an on-premises application. Other reasons included ease of deployment and internal resource constraints. More than 50 per cent of the survey respondents saw SaaS as a viable alternative to an existing on-premises solution and 40 per cent saw SaaS as a complementary addition to their IT environments.

The survey results clearly indicate that adoption of SaaS application software in three of the largest country markets in Europe continues to evolve and that opportunities for SaaS application software vendors are still present,” said Mr Pang. “End-user organisations will focus even harder on TCO (total cost of ownership), return on investment and rapidity of deployment issues in the current recessionary environment. The good news is that, to varying degrees, SaaS can confer advantages in each of these areas.”

Gartner press release

Worldwide Enterprise Software Market to Experience Flat Growth in 2009

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STAMFORD, Conn., March 30, 2009

Enterprise Software Revenue Forecast for 2009 is $222.6 Billion .

Worldwide enterprise software revenue is forecast to total $222.6 billion in 2009, reflecting a “flat” 0.3 percent growth rate from 2008 revenue of $221.9 billion, according to Gartner, Inc.

Analysts said that despite an unsettled outlook, the enterprise software market has the potential to weather the current economic downturn better than in 2001 and 2002 because market conditions are dramatically different in terms of maturity, penetration, confidence in IT, and the geographical and vertical mix.

The fourth quarter of 2008 was the turning point in creating an uneasy selling environment that may usher in several difficult quarters for the enterprise software markets,” said Tom Eid, research vice president at Gartner. “Current expectations are for a slow economic recovery, mirrored by software spending upturn starting no earlier than the first half of 2010.”

Despite the economic gloom and uncertain future, Garner analysts said that software vendors that have a balanced mix of channel, new license and maintenance revenue streams, and flexibility on contractual terms (such as software as a service [SaaS], open source and outsourcing) have the strongest options for continued growth. Larger vendors may be less vulnerable as they have both a good geographic balance and a sizeable maintenance stream and can bundle and price aggressively to gain a greater share of software budgets.

All geographies felt the impact to some degree of a slowdown in software spending in the fourth quarter of 2008 and will again through 2009,” said Fabrizio Biscotti, research director at Gartner. “Most mature countries will feel the greatest impact, while emerging regions will also have slower growth rates than previously forecast, in particular Eastern Europe whose prospects have been deteriorating remarkably.”

This year, the bulk of enterprise software segments are still anticipated to have mildly positive growth rates. However, some of the largest segments such as operating systems, office suites, middleware, storage and digital content creation are forecast to have negative growth rates. Appliances, an emerging way of combining hardware with essential software functionality, are set to be on the forefront of growth alongside software markets including hierarchical storage management and archive software, Web conferencing, and security information and event management.

In general, we anticipate a wave of interest around technologies that can help cost optimization. This will benefit alternative software acquisition models as organizations will look for ways to shift spending from capital expenditures to operating expenditures,” Mr. Biscotti said. “As a consequence, vendors offering software as a service (SaaS), IT asset management, virtualization capabilities and an ability to leverage open-source software will benefit.”

Partnerships will also become extremely important as the need to be more geographically dispersed and more vertically integrated increases. Aligning with partners that can provide local knowledge or industry insight will be a considerable differentiator.

Mr. Eid said that vendors need to be mindful of the fact that although all regions will experience the economic slowdown, some will still bear more opportunities than others. He advised vendors to consider further diversifying their go-to-market strategy across geographies and vertical industries to mitigate the effects of the economic downturn.

Gartner press release

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Free content is main lure for Western Europeans watching video online

February 26, 2009

Adoption of online video has increased in Europe, but international research firm Parks Associates reports that the vast majority of usage is not generating any direct revenues. The firm, which recently released the white paper 31% of broadband households in Western Europe have downloaded a movie or TV show for free in the last six months while only 8% of households have paid for an Internet download.

See The Impact of Online Video in Europe,

While you always expect free to outpace for-pay offerings, the real problem emerges for content and solution providers when analyzing consumers’ preferred means of watching video,” said John Barrett, director, research, Parks Associates. “Over 80% of broadband households prefer traditional options for viewing video, including going to the cinema or watching a DVD. Since so many users are watching online video only because it is free, they will likely step away from the computer if they have to start paying for it.”

The Impact of Online Video in Europe,

11 Cost Optimisation Options for German CIOs to Consider in 2009

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Egham, UK, March 26, 2009

As German buyers slow their decision-making processes and IT investments, Gartner, Inc. has identified 11 options for German CIOs to optimise their IT investments in 2009.

We expect IT services spending in Germany to slow down to € 33.8 billion total spend in 2009, with growth reducing from 4.4 per cent in 2008 to 2.6 per cent in 2009. German CIOs need to deliver immediate economic value through cost optimisation initiatives in 2009,” said Michael von Uechtritz, research director at Gartner, based in Dusseldorf.

These initiatives include options for IT services, business process improvement and IT technologies.

Three Options for IT Services:

1- Renegotiate Outsourcing of IT Services – Renegotiations often result in cost savings of as much as 20 per cent, according to Gartner. However, CIOs must understand that renegotiations involve concessions, such as less stringent service-level-agreements (SLAs) and that premium service levels will not have a bottom line impact, although lowering service levels and/or pricing can help achieve cost optimisation.

2- Increased use of Offshore Resources – In a recent Gartner user survey, 29 per cent of German buyers stated that they would never consider using offshore services as an option, much higher than the European average of 17 per cent. However, Gartner said that the value of increased use of offshore resources can go beyond cost optimisation by offloading core competencies and allowing German-based experts to concentrate on innovation and customers.

3- Save on IT Consulting Contracts – German CIOs should be considering different alternatives to get more value from IT consulting contracts, which, in turn will boost performance and impact the bottom line. For example, organisations can immediately optimise costs if they procure consulting services differently. Gartner estimates that organisations can optimise costs by 10 per cent, if they bundle outsourcing agreements, ease project refinancing, reduce financial risk, increase economic returns and increase competitive pressures on suppliers through shorter-term, rather than longer-term, commitments made by the consulting service provider.

Two Options for Business Process Improvement:

1- Finance and Accounting Business Process Outsourcing – Business process outsourcing (BPO) of finance and accounting (F&A) services represents a significant cost saving opportunity for business and IT buyers. Gartner estimates that around half of Western European buyers of F&A BPO services saved up to 20 per cent in costs, illustrating the value that CIOs in Germany could achieve through outsourcing these business processes.

2- HR BPO – Seventy-eight per cent of global buyers of HR BPO achieved up to 10 per cent cost savings.

Six Options for IT technologies:

1- Cloud Computing – Through cloud computing, German CIOs can quickly leverage highly scalable IT-based competencies and capabilities as a service. Cloud computing also offers CIOs the opportunity to optimise costs in server procurement, licensing and data centre energy supply.

2- Multicore Server – The integration of several processors with generally the same clock speed in a single server unit offers additional value. As such, German CIOs can rapidly change their IT performance approach from capacity-based cost calculations to a per-thread basis and shrink the application lifecycle.

3- User Interface – Although it is difficult to evaluate the economic advantages of introducing innovative user interface technologies, businesses will benefit from improved Web presence, social values and the cost advantages associated with improved efficiencies and lower support costs.

4- Virtualisation – German CIOs will find value from virtualisation as it delivers innovative IT infrastructures with enhanced flexibility and additional cost-saving opportunities in energy and facilities. It can also boost corporate social responsibility efforts through reduced CO2 emissions.

5- Communications and Mobility – German CIOs could optimise costs by investing in technologies that improve the efficiency of fixed and mobile communications technologies. For example, the introduction of thin client mobile applications for various types of mobile devices helps to make the mobile Web cost-effective. This will be the key business-to-employee and business-to-consumer technology in the future.

6- Open-Source Business Intelligence - German CIOs are advised to always subscribe to the fee-based service agreements to guarantee product support. Larger vendors have reasonable support structures, while some open-source BI projects are solely supported by the open-source community. Open-source BI delivers German CIOs an immediate cost advantage through optimised software licensing costs.

Cost optimisation options are not expense-free and usually require an upfront investment to realise the economic benefits,” said Mr von Uechtritz. “Overall German CIOs should think long term, even when they plan tactical moves to optimise costs during the current downturn. Any tactical changes should strengthen an overall plan for long-term strategic business growth and improve market competitiveness so that the organisation emerges from recession even stronger.”

German Perspective: 11 Options to Optimize IT Costs in 2009.

Worldwide Cloud Services Revenue Will Grow 21.3 Percent in 2009

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STAMFORD, Conn., March 26, 2009

Cloud Services to Be Discussed at Gartner Outsourcing Summits Being Held in Las Vegas, London and Tokyo. Worldwide cloud services revenue is on pace to surpass $56.3 billion in 2009, a 21.3 percent increase from 2008 revenue of $46.4 billion, according to Gartner, Inc. The market is expected to reach $150.1 billion in 2013.

“Cloud computing is a broad and diverse phenomenon. Much of the growth represents a transfer of traditional IT services to the new cloud model, but there is also scope for creation of substantial new businesses and revenue streams,” said Ben Pring, research vice president for Gartner. “Cloud computing enables a shift in IT provision from direct purchase and payment for services to provision of services which are free at point of use and where revenue is derived from advertising. Services supported by advertising are currently, and will remain, the largest component of the overall cloud services market through 2013.”

Cloud computing is a style of computing where scalable and elastic IT-enabled capabilities are provided “as a service” to external customers using Internet technologies.

Business processes delivered as cloud services are the largest segment of the overall cloud services market, accounting for 83 percent of the overall market in 2008. The segment, consisting of cloud-based advertising, e-commerce, human resources and payments processing, is forecast to grow 19.8 percent in 2009 to $46.6 billion, up from $38.9 billion in 2008.

The largest component of the overall cloud services market is cloud-based advertising. This component represented 60 percent of the market in 2008 with revenue of $28 billion and is forecast to reach $33 billion, and make up 58 percent of the overall market in 2009. This reflects the success of Google in creating a new business and delivery model for IT-based services, which is being emulated by Yahoo, Microsoft and others.

“Advertising as a cloud service is the capability to deliver advertising where the content and the fee charged are determined at the time of end-user access, usually by an auction mechanism that matches bidders with spots as they become available,” said Mr. Pring. “We expect cloud-based advertising to continue to reshape and redefine the advertising and media markets over the next few years.”

While much of the publicity for cloud computing currently centers on systems infrastructure delivered as a service, this is still an early-stage market. In 2008, such services accounted for only 5.5 percent of the overall cloud services market and are expected to account for 6 percent of the market in 2009. Infrastructure services revenue was $2.5 billion in 2008 and is forecast to reach $3.2 billion in 2009.

Cloud-based infrastructure services are expected to see significant adoption through 2013,” said Mr. Pring. “This segment probably has the largest range of possible outcomes, depending on how aggressively cloud computing is embraced by the major outsourcing vendors and their customers.”

Cloud application services, evolving from software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings, were almost twice as large as the market for systems infrastructure and will continue to show strong growth. Not all current SaaS offerings qualify as cloud services based on scaling constraints and lack of true multitenancy capability. Over the next five years an increasing array of application functionality will become available as cloud services to supplement those from current cloud application vendors.

“The IT market trends for the next couple of years remain highly uncertain. While short-term growth is expected to be inhibited, the potentially lower cost of cloud services is attractive to customers and will drive growth for these offerings,” said Mr. Pring. “While that growth for many of these cloud services will be relatively modest through the next two years, we expect it to accelerate as these approaches prove themselves and then benefit from increased spending levels as macroeconomic conditions improve.”

Forecast: Sizing the Cloud; Understanding the Opportunities in Cloud Services

Four Ways in Which Enterprises Are Using Twitter. By 2011, Enterprise Microblogging Will Be a Standard Feature on 80 Percent of Social Software Platfo

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STAMFORD, Conn., March 26, 2009

As businesses struggle to consider the uses of microblogging platforms such as Twitter in the workplace, Gartner, Inc. has highlighted the four ways in which organizations are using Twitter.

“Despite the fact that Twitter is primarily aimed at individual users in the consumer market, many of those individuals work for companies and ‘tweet’ about business issues, leading businesses to explore how they could best use it,” said Jeffrey Mann, research vice president at Gartner.

“In general, Twitter usage by employees should be covered by existing Web participation guidelines,” Mr. Mann said. “As Twitter is a public forum, employees should understand the limits of what is acceptable and desirable. It is good practice to remind employees that the policies already in place apply to this new communication forum, as well. If organizations have not defined a public Web participation policy, they should do so as quickly as possible.”

Twitter allows users to post short, 140 character updates, on what they are doing right now. Users distribute quick thoughts, news and ideas, and this broadcast element of Twitter has led this type of service to be called microblogging, as each individual message (called a “tweet”) can be considered a very small blog post. Users select other “Twitterers” to follow or receive their messages in close to real time.

Gartner analysts predict that by 2011, enterprise microblogging will be a standard feature of 80 percent of social software platforms on the market. While other consumer microblogging platforms exist (such as Plurk, Jaiku, and Identi.ca), Twitter is the most popular.

Twitter is primarily aimed at individuals, so it is not imperative for every corporation to be actively participating at an official level. However, the popular impact of microblogging is leading many companies to explore how they could use it. In addition to the individual use of Twitter, Gartner has identified four different ways in which companies are making use of the Twitter application: direct, indirect, internal, and signaling.

Direct — The company uses Twitter as a marketing or public relations channel Many companies have established Twitter identities as part of their corporate communications strategies, much like corporate blogs. They Tweet about corporate accomplishments, distributing links to press releases or promotional Web sites, and respond to other Twitterers’ comments about the brand. Gartner maintains that this approach should be used with caution because uninteresting or self-serving Tweets could hinder the brand image as much as it could help. Responding to comments can be particularly risky, as the anonymous nature of Twitter can easily descend into a negative spiral. Gartner recommends that at a minimum, companies should register Twitter IDs for their major brand names to prevent others claiming them and using them inappropriately.

Indirect — The company’s employees use Twitter to enhance and extend their personal reputations, thereby enhancing the company’s reputation Good Twitterers enhance their personal reputation by saying clever, interesting things, attracting many followers who go on to read their blogs. As people enhance their personal brands, some of this inevitably rubs off on their employers. Twitter provides a way of raising the profile of both individuals and the organizations they work for, which elevates these companies that want to be seen to employ influential leaders.

Internal — Employees use the platform to communicate about what they are doing, projects they are working on and ideas that occur to them In most cases, Gartner does not recommend using Twitter or any other consumer microblogging service in this way, because there is no guarantee of security. It is crucial that employees understand the limitations of the platform and never discuss confidential matters, because as a seemingly innocuous Tweet about going to see a particular client can tip off a competitor. Other providers, such as Yammer and Present.ly, provide Twitter-like functions targeted at enterprise microblogging with more security and corporate control.

Inbound Signaling Twitter streams provide a rich source of information about what customers, competitors and others are saying about a company. Search tools like search.twitter.com or the twhirl application can scan for references to particular company or product names. Savvy companies use these signals to get early warnings of problems and collect feedback about product issues and new product ideas.

Four Ways in Which Enterprises are Using Twitter

Worldwide Hosted Virtual Desktop Market to Surpass $65 Billion in 2013

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STAMFORD, Conn., March 26, 2009

The worldwide hosted virtual desktop (HVD) market will accelerate through 2013 to reach 49 million units, up from more than 500,000 units in 2009, according to Gartner Inc. Worldwide HVD revenue will grow from about $1.3 billion to $1.5 billion in 2009, which is less than 1 percent of the worldwide professional PC market, to $65.7 billion in 2013, which will be equal to more than 40 percent of the worldwide professional PC market.

“PC vendors must prepare for the growth in demand for this client computing architecture by adjusting sales strategies and compensation models or they risk losing expenditure share with enterprise customers,” said Annette Jump, research director at Gartner. “Distributed computing has been the dominant client computing architecture for the past 15 to 20 years, but a number of changes in the way users can access applications and client computing capabilities are bringing a number of alternative architectures to the fore.

“Hosted virtual desktops are currently the most visible of these alternative architectures and HVD adoption is likely to be rapid during the next three to five years, particularly in mature markets where existing data center and network infrastructures will be used to offset the cost of entry,” said Brian Gammage, vice president and Gartner fellow.

This trend will have a major impact on the PC industry where enterprises that previously purchased high volumes of desktop PCs on a regular basis will now look to replace some desktop PCs with less-expensive devices and replace them less frequently. However, while PC hardware expenditure will fall in this scenario, these enterprises will require more servers, network bandwidth and software to support the new architectures.

Gartner estimates that approximately 15 percent of current worldwide traditional professional desktop PCs will migrate to HVDs by 2014, equal to about 66 million connected devices. The U.S. will reach double that of the worldwide average with over 18 million connected devices. After an initial slow start, the HVD market will rally in 2010 and 2011.

“Despite the further improvements in performance and manageability that are expected of HVDs in 2009, the current economic downturn is expected to inhibit the adoption of HVDs in the short term because HVD deployments require large upfront investments in server and network infrastructure,” Ms. Jump said. “Because of IT budget cuts, we expect many planned HVD implementations to be delayed from 2009 into 2010 and 2011.”

The current players in the HVD market come mainly from thin-client and virtualization IT areas. The largest PC vendors currently do not offer HVDs; however, some of them, such as HP and Dell, are looking to expand their presence in the segment beyond acting as hardware OEMs. Gartner expects that the HVD market will be heavily influenced by market leader VMware through 2012 and also predicts that Microsoft will become a HVD supplier in the next 18 to 24 months through its partnership with Citrix, which has the ability to offer a growing number of HVD components.

Ms Jump advised PC vendors looking to maintain their share in the professional desktop market to become solution providers and understand that the HVD solution goes beyond hardware sales. She said that to become a HVD supplier, PC vendors need to offer multiple components such as server virtualization software to host desktop software, session management software to connect users with their desktop environment and tools for managing the provision of virtual desktops.

“HVDs are part of a bigger shift in client computing from traditional thick-client distributed PCs toward more manageable, secure and centralized client computing environments among many large and midsize companies,” Mr. Gammage said. “To benefit from this shift, PC vendors don’t need to create or even own all the components themselves, but they do need to be able to sell solutions and not just a ‘bag of bits’.”

Gartner analysts said once PC vendors have the HVD solutions in place, they need to ensure that their direct sales force is fully briefed about HVD technology and the difference in value propositions versus traditional desktop PC sales as HVDs may not ultimately be appropriate for all business applications and/or users. At the same time, the channel will also need re-educating about components of HVD and selling HVD solutions. Alliances to promote and provide proper education about HVD solutions will help drive demand and growth for those solutions among business organizations.

Emerging Technology Analysis: Hosted Virtual Desktops

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Newspaper Publishers Are Not Doing Enough to Take Advantage of the Social Power of Their Readers. Publishers Should Do More to Empower Brand Stewards

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STAMFORD, Conn., March 25, 2009

Newspapers are not doing enough to take advantage of the social power of their readers, according to a recent survey by Gartner Inc. Analysts said that newspapers are faced with declining circulations, falling offline and online revenue, and competition from digital sources, but are failing to capitalize on their biggest supporters, their readers.

“In the wake of the economic challenges facing the U.S. newspaper industry, publishers are losing focus on the crucial imperative of how to capitalize on those consumers who remain loyal, engaged online and print readers,” said Allen Weiner, research vice president at Gartner. “Brand-loyal news consumers need to be turned into brand stewards who can wield their influence to two parts of their social graph — those who know them personally, and those who regard the brand stewards as tastemakers with similar points of view.”

In November and December of 2008, Gartner surveyed 989 Internet users in the U.S., U.K., and Italy to understand how consumers discover and share different types of content. The survey looked at the main influences on media consumption, the main factors that prompt people to look for content, the main tools people use to search, what they do when they find interesting content and whether they share this content.

Findings from the Gartner survey suggest that newspapers are not providing brand stewards with the necessary tools they need to optimize their role as influencers. This starts with a failure to optimize the search experiences at their Web sites and then carries on to a lack of integration between content and social media functionality.

Key findings from the survey include:

- Approximately 49 percent of respondents use general search engines (such as Google and Yahoo) once a week or more to find content, but only 20 percent use search tools built into a newspaper or magazine site.

- Only 24 percent of those surveyed share good content “finds” with friends or others via personal communications — such as e-mail and instant messaging (IM), and a mere 7 percent said they usually or often share content via embedding into social network sites.

- Although many newspapers list their staffers who are on Twitter, an influential microblogging social network, few offer Twitter users the ability to “tweet” stories from their Web sites.

- When asked what they do when they find interesting content online, more than half of respondents (52 percent) said that they usually read it immediately. Only 9 percent said that they bookmark it to read later.

“Although it’s easy to criticize the newspaper companies for falling behind the digital curve and not thinking innovatively about their future, some of the industry’s current failures fall under the category of looking past the basics,” Mr. Weiner said. “One of those basics is turning those who are fans of your product or service into your best and lowest-cost marketing channel. Even simple social media tools not only allow sharing and recommendations, but also provide a level of identity and reputation management to give others a snapshot of a content curator’s credentials.”

Mr. Weiner said that while the newspapers have incorporated social media content, they just haven’t taken the step of integrating social media tools into their content management “ecosystem” to provide pervasive deployment of important social features. The task at hand is now to prioritize the integration of social media into a current or future content management system.

Newspaper Publishers Must Do More to Empower Brand Stewards

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Too Many Enterprises Are in Denial About Carbon Management

Egham, UK, March 24, 2009 —

. A high proportion of IT professionals responsible for “green IT” programs are unsure whether their enterprises are considering carbon pricing, according to Gartner, Inc. A recent Gartner survey found that 36 per cent of respondents that were responsible for green IT programs in enterprises said it was possible, or they didn’t know, if carbon pricing was influencing their organization’s planning for the next 24 months.

A total of 45.7 per cent of respondents said that carbon pricing was not influencing their organizations planning, while 18.3 per cent said it was influencing their organization’s planning for the next 24 months.

The survey results indicate that for most countries, the percentage of enterprises planning ahead for carbon pricing goes beyond those obliged to consider it under established regulations. However, Gartner advised IT management teams that haven’t already done so, to start building the processes and information systems to gather the necessary data as this can be time-consuming and organizations are likely to be subject to carbon reporting and pricing in the future.

In an international survey completed in December 2008, Gartner asked 626 enterprises about their plans for carbon reporting and pricing, and current and future implementation of carbon reporting, tracking or management systems. The respondents represented an even spread of sectors and company sizes from 1,000 to more than 10,000 employees.

“While the number of enterprises using or planning to use carbon tracking systems exceeds those legally required to do so, given the inevitable requirements to support carbon reporting in the future, the percentage of enterprises preparing is low,” said Simon Mingay, research vice president at Gartner. “Regardless of actual or anticipated regulations, midsize and large enterprises should at least be building carbon information systems, because, whether in a developed or developing economy, pressure will come down the supply chain to be transparent about carbon emissions.”

The Obama administration is now talking about a carbon cap and trade scheme, along the lines of the EU ETC and Australian CPRS in which enterprises are obliged to buy and/or sell tradable carbon certificates —– trading at €12/metric tones as of March 2009, but anticipated to rise as carbon allowances get squeezed. This kind of scheme and others such as the U.K.’s Carbon Reduction Commitment result in a price being placed on a metric tones of carbon.

The survey provided some noteworthy responses from individual countries when respondents asked if the possibility of carbon pricing is influencing their organization’s planning for the next 24 months. The U.K. and France recorded some of the lowest percentages at 7.9 per cent and 10.5 per cent, respectively, while in India and China, 21.1 per cent and 20 per cent of enterprises, respectively, indicated that carbon pricing was influencing planning. Gartner analyst said this is particularly surprising for the U.K. given that the country’s Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) goes into effect in 2010 and is estimated to affect 5,000 enterprises.

Gartner also asked the same respondents about their carbon reporting, tracking and management systems, as well as their intentions to implement or extend such systems. The results showed that, as a region, Western Europe is best prepared, with 32 per cent saying that they have some kind of system in place — twice as many as the Asia/Pacific region or the U.S. However, there were some stark contrasts with 2.6 per cent of French enterprises, compared with 74.4 per cent of German enterprises having such systems in place. Most of those enterprises with systems in place had in-house developments (mostly spreadsheets).

A further question asked of the respondents was whether they would be implementing or extending carbon reporting, tracking or management software during the next 18 months. The results showed that most enterprises are not yet thinking about how carbon pricing or reporting requirements will affect their business and have no plans to implement a carbon reporting, tracking or management system to give them visibility of their greenhouse gas emissions in this period.

“This apparent lack of preparation, and the inevitability that most enterprises will come under increased scrutiny from customers, investors, partners, key stakeholders and, eventually, regulators, should come as a wake-up call to policymakers, boards, senior leadership teams and CIOs,” said Mr. Mingay.

Australia has made the most rapid progress overall in this area in the last 15 months, and Gartner expects that to continue during the next 18 months. The proportion of enterprises anticipating implementing carbon management tools during the next 18 months in the Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region was low at 17 per cent and the U.S. was slightly more than 18 per cent.

“Enterprises all over the world need to get more serious about greenhouse gas reporting,” Mr. Mingay said. “Despite the lack of specific regulations, midsize and large enterprises in developed economies need to recognize that they will be paying for their emissions at some point — it’s just a matter of when, how much and through what kind of mechanism. Regardless of the recession, enterprises will find themselves under increasing pressure from stakeholders, including investors and customers, to be more transparent about emissions and reduction programs.”

Additional information is available in the Gartner report “Too Many Enterprises Are in Denial About Carbon Management.

Monday, March 23, 2009

CIOs Can Cut 50 to 80 Percent of Communications Costs by Moving to an Anywhere IT Environment. Immense Savings for a Small/Medium Model Business over

Boston, MA, March 23, 2009 —

Yankee Group has demonstrated that CIOs and corporate IT departments of small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) can save more than 50 to 80 percent on costs related to corporate wireless, e-mail and messaging by moving to an Anywhere IT environment.

  • Move to the cloud: Moving from traditional Lotus or Microsoft premises-based e-mail application to a cloud-based messaging solution will save a staggering 83 percent (about $64,000) in the first year. During a three-year period, the savings amounts to 88 percent and can total more than $200,000.

  • Stop reimbursing individual-liable cell phone bills With corporate wireless phone plans, SMBs stand to save $96,000, or 47 percent in the first year by replacing unwieldy individual-liable plans with a single new corporate liable plan.

As defined in the January 2009 “Introducing Anywhere IT” report, Anywhere IT is information technology that allows any user to work from any location, over any device, with the best possible experience that the device and network allow. Anywhere IT moves complexity into the cloud and expands IT into non-traditional areas, driving dramatic growth of the information communications and technology marketplace from $2.2 trillion worldwide today to $4 trillion in just seven years.

Hilton reinforced that moving to an Anywhere IT environment means getting more, not less, for users. “Features and functionality only increased with the new cloud–based e–mail and messaging solution compared to the legacy premises–based solution.” Hilton said. “You can maintain BlackBerry access to e–mail and add support for other devices, including Apple’s iPhone and phones running Java, Android, Windows Mobile, Symbian and others.” Guide to Cost Cutting

Friday, March 20, 2009

Cloud kommer frigöra över 18 miljarder ur de svenska IT-budgetarna inom tre år.

Publ. by www.redviking.se

Stockholm 2009-03-20. Swedish language.

Radar Group släpper nu sin stora rapport om hur Cloud tekniken kommer att påverka de svenska IT budgetarna och användarmöjligheterna samt hur IT marknaden och dess leverantörer kommer att påverkas. Rapporten visar att över 29 miljarder av de traditionella IT affärer kommer att ersättas av över 13 miljarder nya Cloud tjänster inom tre år.

-” Cloud är en mogen teknik, de stora aktörerna har intäktskrav på sig inom området redan nu och slutligen kunderna är mogna när nu över 15 % utvärderar Cloud affärer i någon form under 2009” säger rapportens författare Lars Backhans, konsult på Radar Group. Cloud tjänster tillväxer starkt de kommande tre åren och tar intäkter från traditionell affärsmodell inom hårdvara, mjukvara och tjänster. Även outsourcing området drabbas fr.o.m. 2011:

- Över 12 procent av kostnaderna ur en IT budget kan sparas genom Cloud teknik redan vid konservativt utnyttjande. Totalt handlar det om över 18 miljarder kronor som kommer att frigöras i Sverige om tre år” säger Hans Werner VD för Radar Group International AB

Radar Group press release

Thursday, March 19, 2009

High-Speed Networking is Bright Spot in Declining Markets. Enterprises Adopting More 10 Gbps While Service Providers Drive 40 Gbps Growth

Publ. by www.redviking.se

March 19, 2009 –

The trusted source for market information about the networking and telecommunications industries, 10 Gbps and 40 Gbps technologies are forecasted to grow in 2009 despite broader market declines.

The reports indicate that while enterprise and service provider markets will both see annual declines of close to 10 percent in 2009, high-speed networking will continue to grow. Within enterprise markets, 10 Gbps is gaining hold not only on infrastructure equipment, but also more recently on the client side with server adoption. Within service provider markets, 40 Gbps technologies are gaining traction on routers and optical transport platforms.

The reports also show that many vendors have benefited from this trend toward higher-speed networking adoption. Cisco held top share positions in 10 Gbps Switching and 40 Gbps Routing shipments, while Nokia Siemens held the leadership position in 40 Gbps Optical DWDM long-haul terrestrial shipments during 2008. Over the same time period, Broadcom attained the number one share position for 10 Gbps silicon controllers deployed in servers.

The Dell’Oro Group Quarterly Reports

Seven Great Concerns for CEOs in 2009. Today’s CEO Priorities Will Become CIO Priorities in 6 to 18 Months

STAMFORD, Conn., March 19, 2009

With CEOs facing unprecedented challenges ahead as businesses struggle with the realities of dealing with the economic downturn, Gartner, Inc. has identified the seven greatest concerns for CEOs in 2009.

“The tumultuous events of the past 12 months have shocked the world. CEOs are confronting reduced revenues and profits and need to restructure their businesses accordingly,” said Mark Raskino, vice president and Gartner fellow. “As a consequence, CIOs should plan for extraordinary requests in 2009 for work and changes.”

“Today’s CEO concerns provide an advanced look at what will become CIO priorities in six to 18 months,” said Jorge Lopez, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner. “We’ve identified these conclusions based on more than a dozen sources of CEO insights, our own analysis of business and economic trends, and changes in the IT landscape.”

CEO Issue One: Restructuring Restructuring is impacting companies in a number of ways from organizational restructuring in the form of layoffs, financial restructuring through deleveraging of financial structure, corporate restructuring via entity consolidation, and finally industry restructuring through the failure and survival of different players and business models.

As the restructuring plan unfolds, CIOs must be prepared to clear the table of current plans and start again, deliver significant cost reduction, deliver significant headcount reduction, cancel some major projects no longer aligned with survival and ensure that all outsourcing partners are viable. At the same time, they will need to deal with unexpected acquisitions and divestitures, manage higher risk taking on projects, work with lower procedural obstacles and stronger CIO powers, and build contingency plans for significant suppliers.

CEO Issue Two: Can’t Write Off Fast Enough The urgent issue of the CEO is to pare the corporate efforts down to those that are central to the company’s short-term survival while not killing off its future. CIOs should expect to support peaks of public-relations activity in response to press interest in the condition of the company, as well as travel at short notice to perform due diligence on potential acquisitions. Both talent raids and layoffs will place more pressure on the human resources department and its systems, as will sourcing based on financial reengineering, both of which will add to the IT workload. Above all, CIOs should be aware that restructuring may not be readily apparent, but when it is ready, it will proceed quickly, and a “SWAT team” should be identified to react and respond swiftly.

CEO Issue Three: Loss of Business and Governmental Trust The institutions that were once counted on to safeguard the economy seem to have failed, and the lack of transparency in the economic system has been exposed. There has been a subsequent loss of trust, as well, amid fears that other unknowns are awaiting. Trust is an intangible element in business but is crucial to transact business. IT can help improve transparency in the way business is done through reputation management, e-discovery and business intelligence. Gartner also expects a strengthening of “data driven” management culture as the risks of moving forward with insufficient data become far less acceptable.

CEO Issue Four: Globalization Instability Until recently, the onward advance of globalization has been unquestionable. However, the disparity of growth between developed and emerging nations is driving tensions as policy differences become more apparent. At the same time, rapid and large changes in strategies for growth, risk and currency are in need of reappraisal as long-term assumptions about fuel prices and supply logistics change. The keyword for the IT agenda in the face of this high level of uncertainty and risk is flexibility. CIOs need to ensure that their IT operations are ready for the challenges and shifts that are sure to emerge.

CEO Issue Five: New Major Regulation Coming With the current recession and the crisis of business confidence, CEOs should expect new governmental oversight of their business dealings. Although it is too early to tell where major regulation will be headed, there are some actions that CIOs need to take to ensure they are not caught behind the curve in their industry. These include staying deeply connected to the ebbs and flows of industry regulation and paying attention to tax policy as taxes are another form of regulatory control.

CEO Issue Six: Government as the New Emerging Market The recession has shifted the growth dynamics of the global economy away from private industry to government. For example, the U.S. Congress recently passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which commits $787 billion to the U.S. economy. This has implications for business and IT, not only in major shifts in key industries, but also in how IT is managed. CIOs should expect their organizations, which may never have sold products or services to a government agency, to retune processes for the sensitivities of government with detailed procedures to avoid fraud and unfairness in bidding for contracts.

CEO Issue Seven: Green Is Not Going Away While Gartner does not expect green to necessarily be “top of mind” in 2009, it will still have a place at the table as long as CEOs believe it is a useful part of reducing the break-even point of the business. IT vendors and CIOs need to review policies and practices to reflect changing views and to focus on improving environmental sustainability. IT operations probably represent the biggest environmental impact for enterprises that have low total environmental impact, so the CIO may well take the lead on this issue.

CEO Concerns 2009: Dealing with the Downturnner report

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Citizen Social Networks Will Complement, and May Replace, Some Government Functions

October 23, 2008 By 2011, 70 per cent of social computing deployments in government that achieve business benefits will do so in unplanned or unexpected ways, according to Gartner, Inc. Government organisations around the world are showing great interest in social computing, yet deployment so far is relatively limited."The current global financial turmoil bolsters the case for government adoption of social networks as technology-budget cuts make tapping into societal resources, such as voluntary groups, philanthropists, associations and social network groups essential to complement weaker government action in some critical areas," said Andrea Di Maio, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner.According to Mr Di Maio, there are plenty of government-initiated networks and – like any such network – they succeed only when they have a clear and magnetic purpose such as Diplopedia, a wiki created by the US State Department that supports collaboration across intelligence and foreign affairs agencies. “However, the most promising, and yet, most disruptive, communities are those created outside government. Examples in the UK include Netmums, a community of parents dealing with child-care issues, and PledgeBank, which allows users to set up pledges and then encourages other people to sign up to them,” he said.Today, the primary role of social networks for governments is to facilitate the exchange of information and to establish novel collaboration patterns, often across organisational boundaries. “For example, a case manager in human services is responsible for identifying clients in need through outreach or referral, and conducting a comprehensive social and financial assessment. In the future, he or she will be part of a more complex socio-ecosystem, including a voluntary sector, online communities and individuals who play a fundamental role through all the different phases. Their role will shift from managing a case to ensuring that community resources are complemented where needed,” said Mr Di Maio.Boundaries in government are blurring at every level and driving the uptake of social computing. Horizontal business processes such as financial management, HR and procurement are subject to increased sharing across agencies and even jurisdictions. This means that government organisations no longer own or control them. Instead they are becoming clients to other organisations leading to increased adoption of social media. In addition, government IT infrastructure is subject to consolidation efforts and will be progressively commoditised and challenged by cloud-computing solutions.Gartner points out that the benefits of social computing — when accrued — will rarely occur in the context of government-driven initiatives. For example, governments’ desire to retain ownership and control of the network, through restrictive participation policies, will be detriment to magnetism.Gartner recommends that governments engage selected employees in finding external social networks relevant to the agency and its domain of government. They should also ensure that the use of social computing inside and between government organisations is based on a clear and compelling purpose – which is likely to be something that they cannot ‘engineer’. “Instead, they should recognise that spontaneity is needed for success,” said Mr Di Maio.Mr Di Maio added that social networks require little investment to start so, at a time when budgets are increasingly tight, such technology is welcome. Social networks have worked well to aggregate people and information to face natural disasters. People look both for peer support and for government when times are tough.Gartner predicts the execution of many government processes in human services, tax and revenue, health care and education will involve individuals who are neither employees nor contractors. Examples include replacement of some human services functions such as online collection of charitable donations to be directed to people in need combined with online ‘time banks’ through which citizens provide time to help others. “The future of government is a very different government and, in some cases, no government at all,” concluded Mr Di Maio.The Business Impact of Social Computing on Government

Friday, March 13, 2009

The Future Of Software-As-A-Service Technologies. As Market Grows, Forrester Projects Applications

Publ. by www.redviking.se

March 13, 2009

Software-as-a-service (SaaS) has evolved beyond its early roots in customer relationship management (CRM) and human capital management (HCM) applications — though both applications continue to demonstrate high potential for growth in the enterprise — and is now gaining traction in areas such as Web conferencing, collaboration, and IT service management (ITSM). These categories will experience significant SaaS success over the next decade, according to research published today by Forrester Research, Inc. .

“SaaS applications have advanced beyond early market applications in human resources and CRM to become a game changer in the enterprise software market,” said Liz Herbert, senior analyst, Forrester Research. “SaaS adoption continues to increase, and it is now relevant for a wide array of applications. This new research provides strategic direction to end users evaluating SaaS technologies and planning their next decade of investments.”

Forrester predicts that the following technologies are poised to experience significant success in the enterprise market:

  • Collaboration. Although its long-term future is unproven, Forrester’s market data has shown SaaS collaboration to be one of the hotter areas of SaaS adoption, with the potential to significantly impact the collaboration market.

  • Web conferencing. Already heavily SaaS-based, Web conferencing technologies continue to move in that direction. It is an ideal candidate for SaaS, and many companies are comfortable using this technology as SaaS.

  • CRM. One of the earliest categories where SaaS adoption took off, this category is already mature; however, some companies with established on-premise CRM strategies will be slow to — or in many cases will never — switch over.

  • HCM. SaaS deployment of HCM/HR solutions has been popular, however many of them have been niche solutions by small vendors. Consolidation in this space has started to create broader suite offerings, increasing the potential growth of these technologies.

  • ITSM. These solutions in the SaaS model are growing in popularity, but many of the larger vendors have yet to enter this space. As established vendors continue to enter the market, SaaS has the potential to transform the world of IT applications.

  • Online backup. Particularly for small and medium-size businesses (SMBs), PCs, and remote location, online backup has already attracted strong interest. One area of concern is recovering large quantities of data in a short time frame.

Forrester predicts the following technologies will have minimal success using the SaaS model:

  • Business intelligence (BI). The SaaS BI space is largely unproven. Though there are early adopters, many are still skeptical as to its potential, particularly where large volumes and real-time data transfer are concerned.

  • Integration. As SaaS solutions flourish in the enterprise, SaaS-specific integration solutions will naturally rise, too. However, firms should not expect any magic integration solutions, SaaS or otherwise.

“TechRadar™ For Sourcing & Vendor Management Professionals: Software-As-A-Service”

Monday, March 09, 2009

SOCIAL NETWORKS & BLOGS NOW 4TH MOST POPULAR ONLINE ACTIVITY, AHEAD OF PERSONAL EMAIL,

Publ. by www.redviking.se

March 9, 2009

Time Spent” on These Sites Growing Three Times Faster than Overall Internet Rate, Now

Accounting for Almost 10 Percent of all Internet Time. Now visited by over two-thirds (67 percent) of the global* online population, “Member Communities,” which includes both social networks and blogs, has become the fourth most popular online category – ahead of personal email. It is growing twice as fast as any of the other four largest sectors (search, portals, PC software and email),

Social networking has become a fundamental part of the global online experience.

While two-thirds of the global online population already accesses member community sites, their vigorous adoption and the migration of time show no signs of slowing.

Social networking will continue to alter not just the global online landscape, but the consumer experience at large. This study explains why.”

Facebook - the world’s most popular social network - is visited monthly by three in every 10 people online across the nine markets in which Nielsen tracks social networking use. Orkut in Brazil has the largest domestic online reach (70 percent) of any social network in these markets.

Other key findings include:

- One in every 11 minutes online globally is accounted for by social network and blogging sites.

- The social network and blogging audience is becoming more diverse in terms of age: the biggest increase in visitors during 2008 to “Member Community” Web sites globally came from the 35-49 year old age group (+11.3 million).

- Mobile is playing an increasingly important role in social networking. Nielsen found UK mobile Web users have the greatest propensity to visit a social network through their handset, with 23 percent (2 million people) doing so, compared to 19 percent in the US (10.6 million people). These numbers are a big increase over last year – up 249 percent in the UK and 156 percent in the US.

Social networking isn’t just growing rapidly, it’s evolving - both in terms of a broader audience and compelling new functionality, We felt compelled to analyze the state of the social networkingmarket globally and consider what implications this has for our publisher and advertiser clients.”

Among the markets penetration of visits to social networks and blogs was highest in Brazil, where 80 percent of the online audience visits such sites (see Chart 1). The share of overall Internet time for which social networks and blogs account is also highest in Brazil, where nearly one in four (23 percent) of minutes spent online is spent on these sites (see Chart 2).

Germany saw the greatest increase in penetration of social networks and blogs across 2008, from 39

percent of the online audience in December 2007 to 51 percent in December 2008 – a relative growth of 39 percent. Global Faces and Networked Places

Publ. by www.redviking.se

March 6, 2009 Expanding population creates new opportunities for advertising and connected TV

Social networking is moving to the television, driven by a young audience interested in video features such as multiplayer games, chat, and content discovery. This trend will help increase U.S. ad spending in social media to almost $3 billion by 2013, according to Parks Associates.

Over one-fourth of broadband users ages 18-24 are interested in social media features on the TV. Key applications include multiplayer gaming, in-program chat, and “most watched” lists. At the same time, 23% of U.S. broadband households want to view content from sites like YouTube and Flickr on their TVs.

See The Impact of Online Video in Europe,

For younger consumers in particular, their appetite for social experiences don’t end on the computer screen but are enhanced via their access on TVs and mobile phones,. “This expansion of social media has implications for service providers, advertisers, and CE manufacturers as well as the networking sites.”

Parks Associates forecasts 95 million social networking users by 2013. This diverse population will have a variety of different needs and wants. For example, threats like the Koobface worm, which targets Facebook users, underscore the need for integrated customer support solutions that can address social networking security issues. Service providers could combine these offerings with their network support services to sell a complete protection package.

Social media & user-generated content

Free content is main lure for Western Europeans watching video online

February 26, 2009

Adoption of online video has increased in Europe, but international research firm Parks Associates reports that the vast majority of usage is not generating any direct revenues. The firm, which recently released the white paper 31% of broadband households in Western Europe have downloaded a movie or TV show for free in the last six months while only 8% of households have paid for an Internet download.

See The Impact of Online Video in Europe,

While you always expect free to outpace for-pay offerings, the real problem emerges for content and solution providers when analyzing consumers’ preferred means of watching video,” said John Barrett, director, research, Parks Associates. “Over 80% of broadband households prefer traditional options for viewing video, including going to the cinema or watching a DVD. Since so many users are watching online video only because it is free, they will likely step away from the computer if they have to start paying for it.”

The Impact of Online Video in Europe,

Publ. by www.redviking.se

March 6, 2009

Worldwide IT spending on cloud services will grow almost threefold, reaching US$42 billion, by 2012. As the cloud computing model offers a much cheaper way for businesses to acquire and use IT, its adoption to be amplified by the cost-cutting mantra of most organizations today.

In a recent IDC survey conducted with 696 IT executives and CIOs across Asia/Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ) to gather their views, understanding, current usage and planned usage of cloud computing, it was found that 11% of the respondents are already using cloud-based solutions. A further 41% of the respondents indicated that they are either evaluating cloud solutions for use in their businesses, or already piloting cloud solutions. When asked about their opinion of the current state of cloud computing, 17% of the respondents stated that although cloud computing is very promising, there are currently not enough services available to make it compelling. (See Figure 1) See http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prMY21726709

Figure 1

Figure 1: What is your opinion of the current state of clouding computing? (N=696 IT executives and CIOs in APEJ, January 2009)

Future uptake of cloud computing looks strong. Over the next three years, as the use of cloud services expand from the domain of early adopters to that of the early majority, it becomes critical for IT vendors to develop strong cloud offerings, and play a leadership role in aligning their new cloud products and services with their organization, their traditional offerings, partner ecosystem, and customer and market requirements. IT vendors who fail to seriously contend for a leadership role will be left with a minority share of the lucrative pie.”

For IT vendors to be successful in the cloud market, they will have to address users’ cost concerns. The survey also revealed that more than 50% of the respondents indicated cost cutting as the key driver behind the adoption of cloud computing. (See Figure 2)

Figure 2 http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prMY21726709

Figure 2: What drove your organization towards using or considering cloud services? (N=696 IT executives and CIOs in APEJ, January 2009)

However, it is also important to note that supplying low-cost services alone will not guarantee success, as users are also indicating that any cloud solution they buy must offer competitive pricing, offer Service Level Agreement (SLAs) and offer complete solutions.

Some IT vendors are well positioned to do this but others who are focused on a single solution will need to build strong partner ecosystems to bring broad solutions to their customers. The time to do that is now, as our survey respondents have indicated that in three years time, their use of cloud-based services will be very different as compared to what we see today. (See Figure 3)

Figure 3: How important is it to your organization that a cloud services supplier or vendor have the following characteristics? (N=696 IT executives and CIOs in APEJ, January 2009)

cloud computing in Wikipedia

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