On September 30th Gartner released a report on the current landscape of BI vendors. Gartner analysts James Richardson and Neil Chandler were assigned to position the main actors offering Interactive Visualization Solutions for Data Analysis and Creation of Dashboards. Bime is recognized among the main actors in the world.

 

Gartner recently announced its top 10 strategic technology trends for 2012, at the Gartner Symposium currently being held in Orlando. Included in the list were in-memory computing, big data and cloud computing. The list reveals a mix of both technologies which are already making a lot of disruption in 2011, such as cloud computing and some lesser talked about technologies such as in-memory computing.

Cloud Computing – Perhaps the most talked about technology of the moment, Gartner predict that the cloud has the potential to make a “long term and broad” impact. Despite the amount of hype currently surrounding the technology, it is still in its infancy, with Gartner predicting the market will continue to develop in 2012 as enterprises move from trying to understand the cloud, to making decisions on selected workloads to implement on cloud services and where they need to build out private clouds.

Big Data – Again, another term which has become widely used in 2011. Gartner notes that the size, complexity and speed of delivery of data has now exceeded the amount traditional data centres can deal with. Thus, this new data requires the development of new “exotic” technologies just to manage the volume of data alone and Gartner believes a range of new technologies to deal with the ‘big data’ problem will cause disruption in 2012.

It’s that time of year again: Gartner is looking at the “hype cycle” for emerging technologies and trying to decide where technologies should lie in terms of their maturity. It was interesting to see that this year, Gartner is finally adding big data to the Hype Cycle.

What is the hype cycle and how do you use it?
“Gartner Hype Cycles provide a graphic representation of the maturity and adoption of technologies and applications, and how they are potentially relevant to solving real business problems and exploiting new opportunities. Gartner Hype Cycle methodology gives you a view of how a technology or application will evolve over time, providing a sound source of insight to manage its deployment within the context of your specific business goals.”. See Gartner’s page dedicated to Hype Cycles for more detail.

Read "Gartner Says New Relationships Will Change Business Intelligence and Analytics" here!

If your not familiar with Gartner's Hype Cycle this is a great read. 

 The annual 2010 Gartner technology hype-cycle report is out - and wouldn't you know cloud computing, cloud-web platforms and private clouds are all at or near the top of the peak of expectations section of the curve.

Now to be clear - Gartner, which is focused on large enterprise IT departments , uses the term cloud computing a bit differently than I do on this blog - they generally mean the idea of large IT CIOs using "iron in the sky" like Amazon EC2 as a place to run their computing workloads instead of on servers in their own data centers. Gartner rates Software as a Service applications like Intact and Salesforce much closer to the plateau of productivity.

What is interesting to me in this is the speed of adoption that Gartner are predicting for cloud computing - note that most of the other dots for technologies at the top of the "peak of expectations" are dark blue, meaning it will take 5 to 10 years for them to become mainstream (Remember - to Gartner mainstream means even information technology laggards will adopt - so mainstream really does mean ubiquitous). But all the various permutations of cloud computing carry light blue dots - mainstream in 2 to 5 years.



Now remember that all of this is for large enterprises - the benefits of Software as a Service and cloud computing are far larger for small and midsized businesses than they are for giant corporations. This is because large corporates operate at sufficient scale that they can gain some of the operating efficiencies that the large cloud vendors accrue. The beauty of cloud computing for small and midsized businesses is that they can tap into those very same efficiencies - that's why I call cloud computing the great democratizer - offering SMBs cost and operational benefits formerly only available to large enterprises.

What's the bottom line - Gartner is predicting cloud computing will be mainstream in the large enterprise in 2 to 5 years. That says you should come in with a skeptical eye and beware the hype - but at the same time you should start piloting now or risk getting left behind your peer companies that are already jumping in with both feet.

Where would I be the most skeptical - with legacy software vendors that are offering up hosted versions of their old on-premises applications on Amazon or Rackspace that you access via Citrix - and calling this cloud computing to try to take advantage of the cloud computing buzz. Going this route will put you right into the trough of disillusionment...

For the orignal article by Daniel Druker - click here

NEW DELHI: Fifty-three percent of organizations in Europe said they will outsource more in 2010, and 40 percent of organizations are planning to increase their external IT services spending, according to a recent survey from Gartner Inc.

The survey found that the percentage of organizations spending 50 percent to more than 75 percent of their IT spending on external service providers is on the rise. "However, the results also showed that the pressure on capital and IT operating expenditure is still strong, and European organizations expect providers to deliver further cost reductions," said Claudio Da Rold, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner. "Although 40 percent of respondents said that they will increase the external share of their budget, only 24 percent said that they will increase the budget for providers, and almost a quarter of organizations still expect that their IT services budget will continue to decrease in 2010."
The online survey was conducted among 206 organizations in Europe during in the first quarter of 2010. The survey was directed at individuals who were involved in decision making on outsourcing and IT services in 2010.
The survey also showed that organizations of all sizes and with IT budgets of various magnitude are now showing an interest in outsourcing. It found that 14.7 percent of organizations with IT budgets of less than €1 million expressed interest in outsourcing, which compares to only 6.1 percent of organizations in this category in 2009.
In times of recession, organizations usually concentrate on cost cutting and optimization, followed by a recovery period with a clear focus on business growth and operating competitively. In Europe, things appear to be more complex. Although respondents in Europe are still focusing on cost control when defining their goals for outsourcing and service provider relationships, they increasingly require access to resources and capabilities, flexibility and scalability. "This means that 2010 is bringing sourcing strategists in Europe a more complex set of business requirements that aren't easier to address," said Da Rold.
After a few years of continuously increasing interest in industrialized services based on alternative delivery models, such as software as a service (SaaS), cloud computing and infrastructure utility (IU), interest among European organizations has peaked, while adoption is on the rise. For example, SaaS and IUs' implementations were up 6.1 percent and 5.1 percent in 2010, respectively.
"Organizations in Europe are expecting — or are in need of — growth, but they are also still highly cautious," said Mr. Da Rold. "Although we conducted this survey in the first quarter of 2010, before the start of the Greek financial crisis, we believe that the cautious expectation of growth will continue in Europe beyond 2010. Regardless of the future direction of the economy, European businesses and their service providers need to optimize their multisourced environments, while increasingly adopting industrialized IT services."

Read more: 40% European cos to increase outsourcing in 2010 - The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/news/outsourcing/40-European-cos-to-increase-outsourcing-in-2010/articleshow/6512698.cms#ixzz0yrndg1Sq

 

BigMachines, Inc., the leader in sales configurator, pricing and quoting, proposal generator and B2B ecommerce software-as-a-service (SaaS), today announced the selection of featured speakers for its BigIdeas Chicago 2010 conference. BigIdeas Chicago is BigMachines’ annual customer and industry forum to be held October 24-26, 2010 at the Swissôtel Chicago. BigIdeas has become one of the largest SaaS innovation conferences where attendees discover best practices for deploying SaaS solutions to streamline their sales processes and enable B2B eCommerce.

“BigMachines will launch a new era in B2B multi-channel sales at BigIdeas Chicago”

We attended Gartner's recent webinar entitled "Emerging Technology Hype Cycle 2010: What's Hot and What's Not", presented by Jackie Fenn. Gartner's Hype Cycles are considered to be some of the most respected forms of research in the field of technology. Here's a quick overview of some of the points covered during the webinar.

The webinar started off with a quick description of how what a Hype Cycle is all about. To remind you, Hype Cycles are management models that help organizations understand the landscape of technology maturity and markets, and to decide which technology innovations to adopt, postpone or ignore, and when is an appropriate time to adopt. The Gartner Hype Cycle model was first published 15 years ago, and has grown to an annual release of between 70 and 80 Hype Cycles per year.

See the Hype Cycle explained below.

Today's cloud computing environment is relatively complex - so complex in fact, that it has motivated Gartner’s Global IT Council for Cloud Services to identify the six key rights (and one responsibility) to serve as a best-practices guideline for enterprises looking to deploy cloud-based solutions. The ultimate goal: to help cloud providers and their customers establish successful business relationships.

The recent report released by Gartner says all cloud services customers should have some basic rights to protect their interests. We’ll briefly outline their ideas :

 

The Council Defines Six Rights and One Responsibility of Service Consumers That Will Help Providers and Consumers Establish and Maintain Successful Business Relationships

STAMFORD, Conn., July 12, 2010 — All cloud services customers should have some basic rights to protect their interests, and Gartner, Inc.'s Global IT Council for Cloud Services has defined six rights and one responsibility of service customers that will help providers and consumers establish and maintain successful business relationships.

Gartner has established the Global IT Council for Cloud Services to facilitate successful business relationships between cloud service providers and consumers. The Council, which consists of CIOs of large enterprises that consume cloud services and Gartner analysts, has made identifying key rights of service consumers and how they might be upheld, a key priority.