According to Gartner, companies will buy 40 percent of IT infrastructure as a service by 2011. There is little doubt that the winds are blowing cloud computing into the enterprise.
With the predicted explosion of cloud-computing applications, companies will need to ensure all these disparate services play nice, orchestrating data exchanges between internal systems and “the cloud.” As more companies continue to adopt different on-demand applications from various sources, headaches for IT departments are bound to grow.

Enterprise integration service providers (like our client Hubspan) remove barriers between the various applications in the cloud, allowing users to maximize ROI from their investments and focus on their core business. This way, It departments can continue navigating through the cloud without worrying about incompatible systems, manual intervention errors or delayed revenue streams.

It will be interesting to see where the winds blow cloud computing next. As cloud computing continues to gain traction, enterprises and application vendors will come to realize that integration is a critical component to ensuring data orchestration and management in the cloud.

For those of you who are not aware, the European Computer Driving License Foundation has been offering computer proficiency certification for more than a decade. This means that users can take a test to obtain an official computer driving license. While it’s not common in the United States, it’s commonly required for administrative positions in the UK.

The computer driving license test itself consists of seven parts, a majority of which test the taker’s ability to perform tasks using common software applications such as word processing and spreadsheets. The test goes above and beyond the standard Office suite. There’s also a module on Microsoft Access.

The seven-part computer driving license test is a rigorous attempt to ensure new employees are prepared and suited for the job. The employees here at VisiTech PR experience a similar examination to demonstrate technology aptitude and knowledge. We are kind of certified “geeks,” each one of us must pass a technology aptitude test.

Perhaps more industries should test employee skills and aptitude before hiring. It is a way to set people up for success. In addition to resumes and interviews, a certification test would help make recruiting a more effective and efficient process in terms of selecting qualified candidates. It would also help standardize professions, such as PR, and hold its practitioners to a high degree of accountability.

Twitter is all the rage. It is being titled the Facebook of ’08. So why is everyone falling head over feet with Twitter?

In short, Twitter is email, texting, chat room, news source and focus group all in one. It’s simple, easy to use and provides a venue for people to not only strengthen relationships but also to form new connections. It’s like living in parallel with your friends and family. Instantaneous push connections. Like touch-base phone calls used to be.

The simplest of things can have the most value. Facebook is a little overwhelming and cluttered. Although, it has its place. Twitter is almost crazy simple.

But not everyone is head over heels for Twitter. That’s ok. The rest of us can have fun with it and remember to make those phone calls to the anti-Twitter crowd to stay in touch.

Silicon Valley-based Sezmi launched an alternative pay-TV system last week that combines a mixture of different technologies to deliver programming services.  The Sezmi unit consists of a set-top box that receives video content through digital over-the-air broadcasts, internet downloads and on demand broadcasts from basic cable channels.  In other words, it’s a set-top box on steroids, combining a digital TV tuner, a TV-style DVR and Internet video recorder.

Sezmi is counting on selling into phone companies and also wireless carriers that don’t currently have a triple-play package. The great thing for consumers is that monthly fees are rumored to be half of satellite and cable.

I like the idea of an alternative to cable and satellite. I also like the convenience of not having to subscribe to a myriad of different providers.

The Sezmi box is a good indication of alternatives in the works.  For now, it’s a bit too techie for your average consumer.

Mike Masnik at Techdirt recently commented that Microsoft’s plan to sell software-as-a-service (SaaS) is a sign of today’s changing market. Masnik makes an interesting argument that the viability of SaaS is increasingly unsustainable, and goes on to describe how companies have starting shifting to either software OR services.

While he applauds Microsoft’s effort to break away from selling software directly, Masnik argues that the company must focus its efforts on providing ongoing services through its “Albany” subscription rather than just pushing its software out to users on a per- cost basis.

He brings up a good point. Companies need to define what exactly they are providing instead of touting the broad SaaS moniker, which has too often only meant a different pricing model. If this is the market direction, then expect to see a lot of companies begin veering to the services side of SaaS.

It’s clear that people are moving beyond the delivery mechanism, they understand on-demand. Now they want the icing on the cake in terms of defined, ongoing services. What we as users have to do is define what value-added services we want to be paying for, not everything but the kitchen sink for $99.99/month.

RFID promises tremendous benefit if the technology can expand beyond traditional inventory management applications in retail settings. One example is electronic vehicle registration (EVR).

Disclosure: VisiTech PR client MIKOH provides RFID technology for EVR applications, including the recently announced Bermuda EVR deployment.

The Philippines are evaluating RFID for a national EVR deployment. The country hopes to improve registration compliance to improve enforcement and recoup missing registration fees and tax revenue. The Filipino government estimates registration revenue to generate US$309 million this year, a 20 to 25 percent increase from years past thanks largely to RFID.

Bermuda rolled out its national EVR system in 2007. The country estimates that eight percent of its 47,000 vehicles are not currently registered. RFID is correcting the problem, generating almost immediate ROI. With six RFID readers and four major checkpoints, Bermuda expects to recoup its initial investment in the first year, generating US$11 million in revenue over the next five years.

RFID holds tremendous potential, yet untapped by the market at large. Things are starting to heat up however. Expect to see a lot more application news rolling in from vendors across the industry.

Om Malik recently blogged about a FT article that appeared on March 24 citing rumors that Dish Network was launching a mobile TV service on account of its relationship with Frontier Wireless. Frontier recently walked away with $712 million worth of spectrum from the recent auction. Om is understandably skeptical about its success, given the lack of traction of MediaFLO and overdue deployment from AT&T. The service is currently only available on a few Verizon handsets due to lack of demand.

To be fair, there isn’t a whole lot to watch right now on mobile TV in the US. Often content is limited and browser quality isn’t great.  Until someone gets it right, we’ll still be downloading shows off of iTunes. However, I’m eager to join our Asian counterparts who are already watching TV on their phone. It’ll be interesting to see new startups and services in this area at the upcoming NAB show to see if anyone has finally gotten the formula down.

It’s been a long time coming but the iconic red phone booths in Britain are disappearing, as Jeffrey Stinson writes in an article in USA Today on 3/24/08. According to the article, Britain has more cell phones than people (70 million handsets vs 60 million people). BT also reports that nearly 60 percent of pay phones are unprofitable. Instead, the red boxes are popular collectors items, commanding anywhere between $5,000 to $10,000 depending on the year, make, and condition- similar to an antique car.

Londoners are sad to see them go but comment on this while talking on their “mobiles.” It’s amazing to see just how far phones have come- and the various deployment uses and rates in different regions of the world. People are reluctant to give up historical icons but practices easily give way to modern convention. After all, the red phone booths were meant to provide privacy while having a conversation. Now everyone knows our business when we chat up on the cell phone, whether we’re at the airport or the grocery store. Operators are no longer concerned about who overhears our conversation but about making sure what’s on our phones isn’t being shared with others who aren’t paying for it.

We were on a media call the other day with a client of ours who specializes in conditional access solutions. The journalist, who also happened to be a Londoner, could not fathom watching TV shows on a cell phone’s small screen and opined he would get “very bored.” Our client spokesperson chuckled and commented that it was only 5 years ago that, his wife thought it was incomprehensible for people to be texting on their cell phones, since the keyboard was so small. And look at where we are today.  With CTIA this week, even more mobile technology innovations are about to be unleashed on society.

Cultural icons will be remembered and this is one more historical landmark that is passing. While we may be reluctant to give up previous generations’ icons, we can appreciate the new technologies in our wake.

Having access to your MySpace or Facebook accounts through your cell phone is obviously a very cool concept. It allows you to check it while traveling, and send those messages or comments that I otherwise don’t have time to get to. 

Then there is the concept of blending social networking with mobile games.

Depending on who’s offering the game, the general idea is that consumers have the opportunity to create their own avatars, and express themselves – their virtual selves - in a virtual world. In other words, a Second Life like world on your mobile phone. There is also a rumor that World of Warcraft might be making it to mobile phones. My question is, are handset graphics robust enough yet to support these visually stimulating worlds? If these catch on, could wireless networks and backhaul support the load along with regular voice calling and mobile TV which is also rising in popularity?

Before social networks catch on, a few things need to be more deeply analyzed – 1) Is there a consumer demand for social networking sites and games on mobile devices? And, 2) Beyond the graphically robust iPod, are other handheld devices well suited for these kinds of applications? Are these virtual environments compromised on a PALM or a cell phone?

Michael Arrington at Tech Crunch is inundated with e-mail, which sparked an interesting article on Sunday, March 23.  The basic theme is that Arrington feels a slave to e-mail.  As a result, he’s issuing a call to action for new technologies that better manage incoming messages.  In short, he’s looking for technology to deliver balance.

The tide is starting to change as more and more people are inundated with non-spam messages (something our client MessageGate calls bacn).  Most people have accepted that they cannot read each and every e-mail in their inbox.  Conversely, people are also starting to accept that not every e-mail they send will be read.

Technologies need to incorporate this inevitable truth, much like the e-mail bankruptcy concept mentioned in Michael’s post.  There needs to be a feature that allows people to declare bankruptcy, automatically returning any unread e-mail in your inbox to its original sender.  If it’s important, the sender will try again (in theory anyway).

FeedDemon is ahead of the curve with its Panic Button.  The RSS reader’s feature sets a threshold for unread feeds.  When that threshold is crossed, the user can easily delete all unread feeds and start over.  It’s a great example of technology working to simplify itself.

The true beauty of technology is how it intervenes with humanity.  E-mail bankruptcy may be a bit extreme, but something needs to be done.  Technology should simplify our everyday lives – not control it every step of the way.