Recently Launched Software-as-a-Service Offering Benefits from Scalability, Efficiency Provided by Terremark’s Industry-Leading Infrastructure-as-a-Service Solution

MIAMI, Jun 28, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Terremark Worldwide, Inc. (TMRK 8.32, -0.02, -0.24%) , a leading global provider of managed IT infrastructure services, today announced that Pitney Bowes Business Insight has selected Terremark’s Enterprise Cloud as the underlying infrastructure for its recently launched MapInfo(R) Stratus(TM) solution. Pitney Bowes MapInfo Stratus is a SaaS-based solution for publishing and sharing location-based data and services, providing government and enterprise customers with instant access to location intelligence analysis.

By leveraging the flexibility and scalability of Terremark’s Enterprise Cloud, Pitney Bowes Business Insight is able to quickly respond to customer demand and deliver leading-edge solutions while minimizing their overall IT infrastructure costs. Like many other providers of SaaS services, Pitney Bowes Business Insight continues to develop and launch new cloud-based offerings and Terremark’s highly reliable and fully secure Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) offering offers the ideal foundation to deliver these services to private and public-sector organizations.

“The ability to rapidly respond to our customers’ evolving demands is a key driver for our continued business growth, and leveraging Terremark’s IaaS offering enables us to deliver our innovative products and services in the most cost-effective and timely fashion,” said Kurt Jackson, managing director for OnDemand at Pitney Bowes Business Insight. “With a proven track record of powering mission-critical applications across government agencies and large enterprises, the Terremark Enterprise Cloud was the ideal choice to support our SaaS-based MapInfo Stratus solution. We look forward to continuing our strategic relationship with Terremark as we bring more SaaS-based solutions to market.”

Widely recognized as a leading IaaS service, Terremark’s Enterprise Cloud offers government and enterprise customers the ability to provision, configure, deploy and manage computing resources for their most essential applications in minutes, giving customers control over a flexible pool of computing resources with a web-based console for deploying server capacity on demand. Along with the ability to dynamically provision and deploy IT resources in real-time, the platform is secured by a suite of managed security services that includes comprehensive vulnerability assessments, log aggregation and event correlation, network session flow analysis, attack replay, and application firewall management.

“SaaS and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) providers are increasingly turning to Terremark for the cloud-based infrastructure needed to deliver their solutions because of the security, performance and comprehensive feature set we’re able to offer through our IaaS offerings. The powerful combination of our industry-leading cloud computing solutions, full suite of information security services and world-class datacenter and network infrastructure continues to resonate with leading providers,” said Barry Field, Terremark’s Senior Vice President for U.S. Commercial Sales. “Pitney Bowes Business Insight’s selection of our Enterprise Cloud underscores the highly compelling value enterprise-class IaaS offerings provide to companies that are building services designed to deliver the power and efficiency of cloud computing.”

About Terremark Worldwide, Inc.

Terremark Worldwide /quotes/comstock/15*!tmrk/quotes/nls/tmrk (TMRK 8.32, -0.02, -0.24%) is a leading global provider of IT infrastructure services delivered on the industry’s most robust and advanced technology platform. Leveraging data centers in the United States, Europe and Latin America with access to massive and diverse network connectivity, Terremark delivers government and enterprise customers a comprehensive suite of managed solutions including managed hosting, colocation, disaster recovery, security, data storage and cloud computing services. Terremark’s Enterprise Cloud computing architecture delivers the agility, scale and economic benefits of cloud computing to mission-critical enterprise and Web 2.0 applications and its DigitalOps(R) service platform combines end-to-end systems management workflow with a comprehensive customer portal.

More information about Terremark Worldwide can be found at http://www.terremark.com.

Check out the business hosting that suits you.

About Pitney Bowes Business Insight

Pitney Bowes Business Insight, a division of Pitney Bowes Software Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Pitney Bowes Inc., provides leading enterprises with solutions to acquire, serve and grow customer relationships. Our software and services enable organizations to turn data into critical customer insight that provides the competitive advantage required to succeed in today’s global markets. With a deeper understanding of its customers, organizations can establish meaningful connections and build more profitable customer relationships. Visit http://www.pbinsight.com and http://www.pb.com for more information.

Who would have thought that you can also maximize the power of cloud servers for file sharing?  File sharing in the cloud using Amazon Web Services Cloud.

This giant leap in file sharing is miles better than the over-hyped Dropbox and the costly Box.net services available today. File sharing has never been this good. In fact, it’s blazing fast and you could see that files are being transferred in just a blink of an eye.

I’ve tried it myself and it was definitely amazing. You’ll love it. Want some more?

HostedFTP is a privately owned corporation based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada which provides businesses with reliable, secure and easy-to-use file sharing services hosted purely in the cloud.

Powered by Amazon Web Services Cloud servers, HostedFTP is going to knock you down with its speed which no other file sharing services can match.

An account with HostedFTP includes a FTP server hosting in the cloud as mentioned above, a file sharing plugin which you can brand, customize and implement to your website, and finally, the cloud storage which you can assign with specific drivers or folders with prior privacy protection and added security such as TLS/SSL connections.

A personal account with HostedFTP usually costs $10 per month for 10GB storage; group or multi-user account costs $40 per month while enterprise or multi-user/group accounts costs 80 per month.

These prices are fairly understandable because of the cost of cloud servers which were also evident on Cloud Web Hosting.

HostedFTP wouldn’t want you to just buy without trying their service so they are offering a 30-day free trial. You can sign-up here for your 30-day trial.

Visit the rest of the review at: SoftwareCritics

GE’s Healthcare division today announced its first electronic medical record (EMR) product in a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform aimed at small or remote physician practices with a lower-cost, monthly fee model.

GE Healthcare’s Centricity Advance product offers a combination of EMR, physician administrative management and patient portals.

GE said the SaaS offering differs from a traditional hosted or application service provider model in that after a start-up fee of $4,000 to $9,000, customers are charged a monthly subscription fee, said Chittaranjan Mallipeddi, vice president and general manager of GE Healthcare IT’s newly launched SaaS business unit.

“Most ASP models charge the customer a large upfront fee for the software purchase, followed by indefinite recurring hosting fees,” Mallipeddi said. “The differences are subtle but critical.”

The subscription-based EMR service generally runs between $300 and $800 per month, according to GE. The average cost to install an in-house EMR system is around $20,000 to $30,000, according to industry experts.

According to Mallipeddi, Centricity Advance can be deployed in under a month, including clinician training, which is conducted via a Web portal. Once deployed, physicians will be able to demonstrate “meaningful use” of their EMR in order to receive reimbursements under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, he said.

The new software service also offers a patient self-service portal, that allows patients to access their own personal medical records (PMR) through their own secure password in order to schedule their own appointments, request prescription refills or access billing statements, lab results and private messages from their clinicians.

GE’s new SaaS-based EMR is based on software from recently acquired MedPlexus Inc., a vendor of Web-based administrative, financial and clinical software and services for physician practices.

Read More at: http://www.businessweek.com/idg/2010-06-15/ge-offers-e-health-records-as-saas-offering.html

(Reuters) -With sales of web-based business software soaring, companies that focus on cloud computing are slipping into a sweet spot as technology giants look to bolster their presence in this fast-growing segment.

Cloud computing, or software as a service, allows businesses to cut back on hardware and space by having their software hosted in remote datacenters they access over the Web.

Deep-pocketed technology firms like IBM (IBM.N) or Oracle Corp (ORCL.O) might be looking to snag deals in this area to complement their own traditional, mostly on-premise services.

Human resource management software makers SuccessFactors Inc (SFSF.O) and Taleo Corp (TLEO.O) and retail-focused software firm DemandTec Inc (DMAN.O) could be the early targets, according to analysts.

“The themes of cloud computing and software as service (SaaS) are so real, and it’s still so early, that I think there should be lot of activity,” said Raymond James analyst Terry Tillman.

Janney Montgomery Scott analyst Sasa Zorovic believes companies like NetSuite Inc (N.N), Rightnow Inc (RNOW.O), Kenexa Corp (KNXA.O) and Constant Contact (CTCT.O) could all be attractive takeover targets.

Most big players delayed entering the cloud space and now want the scalable platforms provided by these SaaS companies to build efficient applications.

“With the growth of software as a service, companies have an increasing need to integrate data and business processes across on-premise and cloud systems,” IBM said in a recent statement.

Customer relationship management (CRM) software provider Salesforce.com Inc (CRM.N), which helped pioneer software as a service and is one of the fastest-growing software stocks, might also be considered as a takeout target. However, its size and rich valuation might not make for an easily digestible deal.

Since these companies deliver their software products over the Internet, it saves clients the cost of buying licenses in advance and running programs on their own computers.

The adoption of software as a service is expected to far outpace market growth through 2013, a Gartner report shows.

Currently, Salesforce.com accounts for about half of overall web-based CRM software sales, according to the report.

NICHE SELLS

However, firms with niche products like SuccessFactors and Taleo are also seeing explosive growth, as smaller companies queue up to vie for a share of the pie.

“SuccessFactors is adding a lot of potential total addressable market to the mix with all the stuff they are getting into,” said Tillman.

The company, which makes software that helps firms manage staff performance, posted a 37 percent jump in 2009 revenue. Revenue for 2010 is expected to grow 18 percent to 19 percent.

The company trades at a whopping multiple of 1,138 times forward earnings — 25 times the sector average. Its shares have risen more than two and a half times in the last one year.

In contrast, Oracle trades at 14 times forward earnings and SAP at 17.

DemanTec, another possible target, provides pricing and merchandise optimization for retailers. Its largest customer is Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT.N).

“For DemandTec, it was initially about fitting large global retailers like Target Corp (TGT.N) or Walmart to buy the best buy, but then they started selling software to their suppliers,” Tillman said.

The company’s products manage the same stores sales environment and help improve gross margins, he said, which could make it a valuable addition to large systems integrators that these retailers rely on, or even large enterprise companies.

Shares of the company have, however, dropped about 40 percent in the last one year.

RECENT CONSOLIDATION

The software sector has recently seen a flurry of activity with SAP AG’s (SAPG.DE) offer to buy Sybase Inc (SY.N) and IBM’s move to acquire AT&T Inc’s (T.N) business-to-business software unit.

Analysts believe these buyouts could accelerate the pace of consolidation in the tech industry in the next 12 months to 18 months.

“Just the fact that a large application vendor like SAP could become more aggressive increases the urgency of what other players like Oracle, IBM, Hewlett Packard Co (HPQ.N) or Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) feel about M&A,” said Tom Roderick, analyst at Thomas Weisel.

Roderick’s pick in the SaaS space is Salesforce.com, but he said the company did not look like an immediate target.

“It is the property that has the most strategic value. It is the market leader in SaaS by a long shot and CRM technology is certainly one, if not the hottest, application sectors in the marketplace right now,” he said.

The company’s revenue grew 21 percent in fiscal 2010, compared with fiscal 2009 and is expected to grow 18 percent to 19 percent in fiscal 2011 to between $1.55 billion and $1.56 billion.

The company trades at 75 times forward earnings and its shares have more than doubled in value in the last 12 months.

Google has its head in a federal government cloud.

The search engine giant wants to shift federal agencies from traditional desktop and server-based computing to so-called cloud computing, which relies on the web and outsourced remote file servers to deliver email, send instant messages and share files. That ranges from software as a service and suites of applications — like Google Apps — to remote data storage.

Google hopes to win certification within weeks for its suite of products, a General Services Administration blessing of Google’s cloud computing security. That has huge implications: With its $75 billion IT budget — roughly 10 percent to 20 percent of all IT spending nationally — the federal government is the cumulonimbus of the cloud computing world.

The GSA’s stamp of approval could put Google ahead of competitors like Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard and IBM, all of which want to capture portions of the federal government cloud.

“The government is very, very attracted to this technology,” said David Mihalchik, business development manager on Google’s federal team. “It is a new, cheaper platform with new capabilities.”

What Google is selling is cost savings of up to 75 percent from agencies’ current IT outlay, Mihalchik said. Much of those savings comes from eliminating hardware upgrades and software relicensing.

Google’s price: $50 per user per year.

“Agencies now have an option available to them with much lower costs upfront,” Mihalchik said. “They’re not paying up front to run their own infrastructure.”

Winning that business isn’t easy, however, especially when facing heavy hitters like Microsoft, Amazon and Terremark, which hosts the Data.gov and USA.gov sites.

But Google may have an important advocate: federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra, who was Washington, D.C.’s chief technology officer when the district opted to buy a Google Apps license.

Kundra’s push to move much of the federal information technology infrastructure from 1,100 data centers to cloud computing is part of a perfect storm that Google and other potential vendors look to ride.

“This is about good government. This is about cutting waste. This is about delivering better service,” Kundra said.

Yet, questions remain about the safety of cloud-covered data, especially as more sensitive information moves to the cloud.

Unidentified hackers tapped Google’s source code last year and reportedly came away with software that supports its system that allows a single sign-on password.

Greater security, however, translates into higher costs — and fewer savings.

Source: www.bizjournals.com

Security practitioners have learned the hard way that contract negotiations are critical if their SaaS, cloud and security goals are to work. A report from CSO Perspectives and SaaScon 2010.

The term Software as a Service (SaaS) has been around a long time. The term cloud is still relatively new for many. Putting them together has meant a world of hurt for many enterprises, especially when trying to integrate security into the mix.

During a joint panel discussion hosted by CSO Perspectives 2010 and SaaScon 2010 Wednesday, five guys who’ve been there sought to help attendees avoid the same ordeal. Perhaps the most important lesson is that contract negotiations between providers is everything. The problem is that you don’t always know which questions to ask when the paperwork is being written.

Panelists cited key problems in making the SaaS-Cloud-Security formula work: SaaS contracts often lack contingency plans for what would happen if one or more of the companies involved suffer a disruption or data breach. The partners — the enterprise customer and the vendors — rarely find it easy getting on the same page in terms of who is responsible for what in the event of trouble. Meanwhile, they say, there’s a lack of clear standards on how to proceed, especially when it comes to doing things in the cloud.

Add to that the basic misunderstandings companies have on just what the cloud is all about, said Jim Reavis, co-founder of the Cloud Security Alliance.

“It’s important we understand there isn’t just one cloud out there. It’s about layers of services,” Reavis said. “We’ve seen an evolution where SaaS providers ride atop the other layers, delivered in public and private clouds.”

Somewhere in the mix, plenty can go wrong.

“If you’re in a public cloud situation and Company B is breached, a lot of finger pointing between that company and different partners will ensue,” Reavis said. “If this isn’t covered in the terms of agreement up front, you have no hope of recovering data (or damages).”

Security vendors can be part of the problem as well. In a recent CSO article about five mistakes one such vendor made in the cloud, Nils Puhlmann, co-founder of the Cloud Security Alliance and previously CISO for such entities as Electronic Arts and Robert Half International, noted that the vendor — who was not named — did “everything you can possibly do wrong” when rolling out the latest version of its SaaS product, leading to users uninstalling their solution in large numbers.

Customers using a particular version of the SaaS product were caught unaware when the vendor decided to roll out a new version through the cloud. It was done in a way where, at the moment of the upgrade, any new endpoint that was added to be managed automatically got the new version. Customers were not asked or notified, and were forced into a mixed-version environment as a result. “In the past, I as a customer was able to choose if I wanted to do this, and I could choose the timing,” he said at the time. “Here, there was no control, no timing or notification.”

Keith Waldorf, VP of operations at Doctor Dispense, a point-of-care medication and e-prescription dispensing provider, said one of his company’s most painful experiences in this area was on the contract side. “The lack of common standards really surprised us,” he said.

Around 2005-06, Doctor Dispense started running its own virtual environment. The company knew it couldn’t manage it alone, but had to burn through five service providers before finding the right one. One challenge, he said, is that every vendor seems to do things differently with no common framework. “We thought the fine print in the contracts had no real relevance, but that thinking ultimately came back to bite us,” he said. The company ran into trouble migrating to a new platform. When switching from one service provider to the next, the company would find the old provider still trying to attempt network log-ins.

Another challenge, Reavis said, is that cloud providers aren’t always good at providing log information that’s critical during a data breach investigation. “A contract with very clear provisions on the level of logging required of the provider is very important,” he said.

Ed Bellis, CISO of Orbitz, said his company is just starting to use a virtual development grid and build its own cloud. If it uses SaaS externally within the cloud, it needs to federate all the identity information between partners. “It’s a challenge, working with partners to get on same page,” he said. “Early on there were many things we didn’t expect. Federation of identities in our internal systems became a challenge because of differences between our internal procedures and those of the SaaS provider.”

One thing that has helped is that his organization developed internal baseline questions to ask of itself in terms of whether a service really fits the need and if it makes sense to have A and B in cloud. That self-questioning can help a company avoid the pain that comes with rushing in, he said.

“In your SLAs, you need to have clear language for how data will be handled and encrypted and, in the event of a security breach, the contract must have clear language on who is responsible for specific aspects of the investigation,” Bellis said. “Build these considerations into the contract side.”

Jeff Spivey, president of Security Risk Management, noted that with SaaS there can be many hidden third-party relationships, and a good contract must account for that.

“Build data portability into your contracts,” he said. “Remember that one business relationship is actually 10 and you may even need multiple contracts with multiple assurances.”

CSO Online

he software-as-a-service (SaaS) security market is booming, according to a report by Infonetics Research, announced on Monday.

SaaS security services accounted for 10 percent of the estimated $9.4 billion managed services market in 2010, according to Infonetics. That share is expected to grow to 22 percent by 2014. The report predicts that the SaaS security market will continue to grow as both enterprise and small-to-medium businesses deploy managed security services to fight off growing Web-based security threats.

Infonetics analyst Jeff Wilson predicts “strong growth” in SaaS security over the next five years. However, meeting enterprise needs for SaaS security is still a bit behind the curve, he noted in an e-mail.

“It’s a work in progress, and it depends on the security technology in question,” Wilson wrote. “The security technology itself is there, but many of the ancillary capabilities [that enterprises need] are still under development.” Those capabilities include management, logging and reporting, he explained.

Wilson noted that security on the Internet has always been a big question for businesses of all sizes. The answers businesses will get “will vary based on the [service] provider you talk to,” he said.

“The equation generally boils down to the provider showing that moving to SaaS improves a company’s level of security over what they’re doing right now, and then the buyer building trust over time with the provider,” Wilson added.

For its study, Infonetics tracked major telcos (including AT&T, T-Systems, China Telecom and more), large hosting providers offering security services (such as Google), specialized service providers and security SaaS vendors such as Cisco/ScanSafe, Symantec and McAfee. The report, “Managed Security Services and SaaS,” provides market forecasts through 2014.

The study’s results showed that worldwide revenues for SaaS security services were up by 70 percent in 2009. Those revenues were boosted by demand for content security services that address, Web, e-mail and antivirus security.

From a SaaS revenue standpoint, customer premises equipment (CPE)-based security still dominates the security space, with a more than 60 percent market share. Next in line, in terms of SaaS revenue, are cloud-based security offerings with more than 20 percent of the market, followed by current SaaS security services, according to the report.

Wilson noted that cloud-based services, such as firewall services in hosting environments, are typically provided by a traditional service provider with network or datacenter facilities. These providers typically do not develop their own security technology, but instead add solutions from third-party security software vendors.

“SaaS offerings are developed and sold by one entity. The technology is branded with the name of the SaaS provider and, in most cases, they don’t own their own network facilities,” Wilson said. He noted that SaaS providers are a mix of focused service providers, such as zScaler, and technology/product suppliers such as Cisco, McAfee, Symantec and others.

Full Source

The chart provides the 3-month moving total beginning in 2004 of permanent IT jobs citing Cloud Computing within the UK as a proportion of the total demand within the Miscellaneous category.

Worldwide chart from Indeed.

Here are 5 websites which may help you find that Cloud Computing Job.

Cloudcomputingjobs.org

Cloudjobs.net

Indeed.com

Simply Hired

ITjobswatch.co.uk

Uncapped broadband is a first step into the clouds – Frost & Sullivan

Last week Mweb announced that it will be offering uncapped broadband packages in South Africa. The very next day, Vox Telecom’s subsidiary @lantic.net responded by undercutting Mweb’s offering with one of its own. Frost & Sullivan welcomes these initiatives as a sign that the competitive landscape in the local broadband market is undergoing rapid transformation, opening up a range of new opportunities for businesses.

“Competitive pricing, enhanced service offerings and value added services will start to increase competition, which is what South Africa requires in reaching international standards,” notes Frost & Sullivan ICT analyst Craig Johnston. “This creates the opportunity for South Africa to become a stronger player in the international market.”

The speed of the uncapped broadband will not immediately increase. The current South African speeds that are offered are 384 Kbps, 512 Kbps and 4 Mbps. However, Frost & Sullivan predicts that once there is sufficient demand for uncapped broadband, the speed and quality of the broadband will start to improve considerably.

“Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in South Africa will benefit, as uncapped broadband provides expansion opportunities through access to unlimited information, applications and the ability to explore alternative forms of data storage,” Johnston says. “In particular, it provides a platform for smaller enterprises to make use of cloud computing for storage and archiving.”

Cloud computing is an internet-based model that requires access to fast, reliable and affordable broadband in order to achieve its maximum functions. Uncapped broadband is needed for cloud computing to work as SMEs that would like to store information on the cloud need to transfer large amounts of data. The speed of the broadband is also an important, as enterprises do not want to take days or even weeks to transfer terabytes of information due to a slow connection.

Cloud computing provides numerous benefits, including cost savings as enterprises only pay for what they use. This is enormously beneficial as they will not have to monitor, maintain and control personal information, but instead hand information over to a reliable third-party that provides a guaranteed service.

“Cloud computing affords enterprises the opportunity of flexibility in decision making,” Johnston adds. “This is achieved through customers being able to decide what information they would like to store and use on the cloud, and which information they would prefer to keep in-house due to certain requirements.”

Ubiquity is a feature of the cloud that allows enterprises and clients to have access to data and files at any time and at any location, provided there is access to an internet connection. The days of not having a document for an important meeting are over, as the cloud provides the opportunity to gain access to documents via the internet.  Source

The growing popularity of applications such as Software as a Service (SaaS) will support greater growth in the financial technology industry during 2010, a new report has claimed.
A study by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) revealed that vendors working within the financial technology sector can expect to benefit from greater levels of compliance, regulation and increased demand for risk management solutions.

Organisations will expand their IT systems during the year as part of a wider plan to improve efficiency across their businesses, the report forecast.

Andy Morgan, PwC partner, said: “Carve-outs from financial institutions and smaller infill deals are expected to prevail within the FinTech sector over the next 12 months but Merger & Acquisition (M&A) activity will require creativity in terms of deal structures to achieve results.

“The real hotspot in the world of applications is software-as-a-service (SaaS) as organisations see the benefits of moving large-scale software expenses from their capital budget to their operating budget, which will certainly drive increased M&A activity.”

Further findings from the report suggested that heads of businesses now view the “digital transformation” of their organisation to be a priority.

Previous research from PwC showed that the number of deals in the global financial technology marketplace fell by more 60 per cent during 2009 when compared with figures from last year.

Full Source