Thought Leaders In Cloud Computing: The Move To Cut Costs

In the past year or so, the Thought Leaders in Cloud Computing (TLCC) series has hosted conversations with some of the top thinkers in our industry. It has become abundantly clear based on these discussions that cloud computing has graduated from hype to a significant driver of cost savings. >>>

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Thought Leaders In Cloud Computing: Jim Stikeleather, Chief Innovation Officer, Dell (Part 1)

Sramana Mitra:  Hi, Jim. Welcome to the Thought Leaders in Cloud Computing series. To better understand the scope of the IT infrastructure you are running for Dell, would you talk a bit about this before we get into cloud computing in more depth?

Jim Stikeleather:  Hi, thank you. To introduce myself, I am the chief innovation officer for Dell. What I’m focused on, as opposed to the chief information officer, are future products and services for Dell. >>>

Thought Leaders In Cloud Computing: Social CRM and Crowd Sourcing

There are many trends hitting large enterprises at the moment right in their bellies. Within the broad sphere of cloud computing, with the adoption of the social Web, one of these trends is crowd sourcing. The business function that is most acutely impacted by this trend is CRM. All the way from marketing to sales to customer support, the social CRM trend is becoming an avalanche, and for some industries the implications bear particularly serious consequences.

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Thought Leaders In Cloud Computing: Willie Tejada, Senior VP And GM Of The Enterprise Cloud Division, Akamai (Part 1)

The Web gets more crowded and complicated every day. As more businesses and individuals access the Internet and all that it has to offer, the need for companies like Cambridge, Massachusetts–based Akamai increases. Founded in 1998, Akamai accelerates content and business processes for a bevy of international clients such as NBC, Audi, and NASDAQ. Each time you access an article online or make a purchase, you probably have Akamai – or one of its competitors – to thank for it.

Sramana Mitra: Hi, Willie. Would you give us some context about your division within Akamai. What is the mission of the division?  >>>

Thought Leaders In Cloud Computing: Dan Raju, CIO Of TradeKing (Part 1)

By Sramana Mitra and guest author Rajdeep Ramsay

Sramana Mitra: Hi, Dan. Welcome to our Thought Leaders in Cloud Computing series. Let’s begin by talking about what TradeKing does, and what your business is, and what is the scope of cloud deployment we are talking about for your company. Also, would you give us some background about you. >>>

Thought Leaders In Cloud Computing: Steven John, Strategic CIO Of Workday (Part 1)

By Sramana Mitra and guest author Siddharth Garg

About Workday
Workday’s mission is to build the next generation of enterprise business services—human capital management, financial management, and payroll—and deliver its solutions through a Software as a Service (SaaS) model. Founded by former PeopleSoft founder and CEO Dave Duffield with former PeopleSoft vice chairman and head of product strategy Aneel Bhusri in March 2005, Workday aims to offer a fresh approach for today’s global businesses. >>>

Thought Leaders In Cloud Computing: Marc Ferrentino, CTA Of Salesforce (Part 1)

By Sramana Mitra and guest author Siddharth Garg

About Salesforce
Salesforce.com is an enterprise cloud computing company headquartered in San Francisco that distributes business software on a subscription basis. Salesforce.com hosts the applications offsite. It is best known for its customer relationship management (CRM) products and, through acquisition, has expanded into the area of social enterprise. It has been one of cloud computing’s biggest champions through devising and delivering its cloud-based CRM, collaboration, and platform services to its customers.

Salesforce.com has its services translated into 16 languages and, according to Wikipedia, currently has 82,400 customers and more than 2.1 million subscribers. Its CRM solution is broken down into several broad categories: sales cloud, service cloud, data cloud (including Jigsaw), collaboration cloud (including Chatter) and custom cloud (including Force.com).

About Marc Ferrentino
Marc joined Salesforce.com in February 2007. His responsibilities included early-stage product development and marketing, evangelism of the Force.com platform, and promoting Salesforce.com’s open source initiatives. Marc is also involved with developing Salesforce.com’s collaboration and platform strategies. Prior to Salesforce.com, Marc served as the vice president of Engineering at Vettro Corp, a global leader in mobile on-demand applications. Prior to Vettro, Marc served as vice president of development at InternetCash.com. Over the course of his career, he has held technology positions at Goldman Sachs and Westinghouse/Cutler-Hammer.

Sramana Mitra: Hi, Marc. Welcome to the Thought Leaders in Cloud Computing series. Would you please give us some background on your role at Salesforce and also on Salesforce’s perspective on the cloud today from where you are. >>>

Thought Leaders In Cloud Computing: Jay Leader CIO, Of iRobot (Part 1)

By Sramana Mitra and guest authors Siddharth Garg and Rahul Nagpal

About iRobot
iRobot designs and builds robots that make a difference. iRobot was founded in 1990 when Massachusetts Institute of Technology roboticists Colin Angle and Helen Greiner teamed up with their professor Dr. Rodney Brooks with the vision of making practical robots a reality.

In 2010, iRobot generated more than $400 million in revenue and employed more than 600 of the robot industry’s top professionals, including mechanical, electrical, and software engineers and related support staff. iRobot trades on the NASDAQ stock market under the ticker symbol IRBT.

About Jay Leader
Jay Leader has nearly 25 years of international IT management experience. His areas of expertise include IT management, strategic planning and financial management, and infrastructure and security management. Prior to joining iRobot, Leader was CIO at Nypro Inc., a $1.2 billion injection molding and contract manufacturing firm with 66 locations in 18 countries. He was responsible for worldwide IT operations, managing support and development organizations in the U.S., Latin America, Europe, and China. Earlier in his career, Leader served in IT management positions at Coopers & Lybrand LLP, Groundwater Technology Inc. and Data General Corporation. He holds a bachelor’s degree in government and international relations and a master’s degree in business administration, both from Clark University. >>>

Thought Leaders In Cloud Computing: Frank Modruson, CIO of Accenture (Part 1)

By Sramana Mitra and guest authors Siddharth Garg and Rahul Nagpal

In this interview we spoke with Frank B. Modruson, CIO of Accenture. He leads a high-performance global IT organization that directly supports the business goals of a $21.6 billion company. He oversees all business applications and technology infrastructure, helping to enable more than 223,000 employees in 52 countries worldwide to work anytime, anywhere. Modruson has transformed IT into a strategic asset for Accenture. Under his leadership, the IT organization has produced an ability to run IT as a business, implemented a comprehensive governance model, and streamlined the technology infrastructure, and more. >>>

Thought Leaders In Cloud Computing: Diane Bryant, CIO Of Intel (Part 1)

By Sramana Mitra and guest authors Siddharth Garg and Rahul Nagpal

About Intel

Intel Corporation is an American global technology company and the world’s largest semiconductor chip maker, based on revenue.

Intel was founded on July 18, 1968, as Integrated Electronics Corporation and is based in Santa Clara, California. Outside of California, the company has facilities in 63 countries and regions internationally, including China, Costa Rica, Malaysia, Israel, Ireland, India, Russia, and Vietnam.

Intel also makes motherboard chip sets, network interface controllers and integrated circuits, flash memory, graphic chips, embedded processors, and other devices related to communications and computing. >>>

Thought Leaders In Cloud Computing: Mandy Edwards, CIO Of Sitel (Part 1)

By Sramana Mitra and guest author Siddharth Garg

In this interview, we spoke with Mandy Edwards, the global chief information officer at Sitel. Sitel is the leading business process outsourcing (BPO) call center provider, as ranked by the Black Book of Outsourcing, a Data Monitor company. Sitel’s customer interaction outsourcing solutions span more than 135 domestic, nearshore, and offshore call centers in 26 countries across North America, South America, Europe, Africa, and Asia Pacific. The company has more than 52,000 employees. >>>

Thought Leaders In Cloud Computing: Chris Burchett, CIO Of Credant Technologies (Part 1)

By Sramana Mitra and guest author Siddharth Garg

About Credant Technologies
Credant Technologies’ Mobile Guardian solutions are designed to protect endpoint data wherever it resides, helping to ensure endpoint data security and demonstrate compliance while avoiding the costs and complexities of full disk solutions.

Named in 2007 and 2008 as the fastest-growing privately held security company in the Inc 500 survey, Credant Technologies’ goal is to enable customers to leverage the business productivity benefits of highly mobile endpoint computing without the risks or operational constraints imposed by other technologies. >>>

Thought Leaders In Cloud Computing: Mark Egan, CIO Of VMware (Part 1)

By Sramana Mitra and guest author Siddharth Garg

About VMware
VMware (NYSE:VMW), the virtualization and cloud infrastructure company, delivers solutions designed to accelerate IT by reducing complexity and enabling more flexible, agile service delivery. VMware enables enterprises to adopt a cloud model that addresses their unique business challenges. The company’s approach accelerates the transition to cloud computing while preserving existing investments and improving security and control. With more than 250,000 customers and 25,000 partners, VMware has solutions to help organizations of all sizes lower costs, become more agile, and preserve freedom of choice. >>>

Thought Leaders In Cloud Computing: Klaus-Michael Vogelberg, CTO Of Sage Group Plc, Newcastle (Part 1)

By Sramana Mitra and guest author Siddharth Garg

Thought Leaders In Cloud Computing (TLCC) returns with an interview with Klaus-Michael Vogelberg, CTO of Sage Group Plc. Before diving in, readers new to the series may want to read more about its purpose and goals, which are set forth in Cloud Computing Trends And Opportunities

About Klaus-Michael Vogelberg
Klaus-Michael was R&D director and partner of the German KHK Software Group, acquired by Sage in 1997. In 2000, joined the Group team to assist Sage operating companies and the board on software architecture and technology strategy. Between 2004 and 2007, Klaus-Michael acted as R&D director for Sage UK and Ireland before taking up his current post of Group chief technology officer.

About Sage
Sage Group Plc provides business software, services, and support to small and medium-sized businesses. Founded in 1981 in Newcastle upon Tyne in northeast England, the company has grown to become a major provider of business management software and services. It employs more than 13,400 people in a global operation that, in the year ended September 30, 2010, generated revenues of £1.435 million.

Traditionally, the company has been associated with accounting software, but over the past twenty years it has applied its experience here to other areas and now has a range of solutions to help businesses from front to back office. Functions addressed include accounting, payroll, customer relationship management (CRM), financial forecasting, payment processing, job costing, human resources, business intelligence, taxation and other products for accountants, business stationery, development platforms, e-business, and enterprise resource planning (ERP). >>>

Thought Leaders In Cloud Computing: Judy Spitz, CIO Of Verizon (Part 1)

By Sramana Mitra and guest author Shaloo Shalini

What is a typical user’s expectation of a tolerable speed of mobile connectivity? Connectivity today spans telephony, infrastructure and service access speeds, application speeds, and perceptible performance. Having been in the business of managing ever-higher customer expectations for telecom providers, Judy Spitz, CIO of Verizon, has a witty answer to this question. She says that for a typical user, the slowest speed they are willing to tolerate is the fastest speed they have ever experienced! >>>