Thought Leaders In Cloud Computing: Rick Blaisdell, CTO Of ConnectEDU (Part 5)

By Sramana Mitra and guest author Shaloo Shalini

SM: What is the architecture of your solution in terms of dealing with these fragmented student information systems? How does that work? >>>

Thought Leaders In Cloud Computing: Rick Blaisdell, CTO Of ConnectEDU (Part 4)

By Sramana Mitra and guest author Shaloo Shalini

SM: You mentioned that you chose UCS over other platforms. What were your evaluation criteria, and what did you learn about the different offerings available? Which vendors or solutions did you consider, and what did you learn about the competitors in that space? Why did you choose UCS? >>>

Thought Leaders In Cloud Computing: Rick Blaisdell, CTO Of ConnectEDU (Part 3)

By Sramana Mitra and guest author Shaloo Shalini

SM: When you say physical deployment, does that mean you had to put in a server; it is an on-premise deployment?

RB: Yes. The Massachusetts state portal was actually a good case study because that was our first deployment. We architected the software using the UCS Platform, which was not ready for the roll out at that time. So, we basically opted to go with physical servers. At that time, the customer too wanted to go with a physical solution. It is a physical solution that is being co-located. >>>

1M/1M Announces Partnership With Persistent Systems; CrowdEngineering First Beneficiary

Menlo Park, CA, and Pune, India – January 27, 2011: One Million by One Million (1M/1M) and Persistent Systems have announced a partnership to connect entrepreneurs to customers. The 1M/1M initiative set up by Sramana Mitra has a goal to help a million entrepreneurs reach $1 million in revenue.

Headquartered in Pune, India, Persistent Systems is a leader in outsourced product development. Persistent works with more than 250 customers and will be reselling and also be a channel for products from select 1M/1M entrepreneurs. In addition, Persistent Systems will also provide outsourced product development services to these companies.
>>>

Thought Leaders In Cloud Computing: Rick Blaisdell, CTO Of ConnectEDU (Part 2)

By Sramana Mitra and guest author Shaloo Shalini

SM: What does a state portal do?

RB: The state portal does basically what our national portal does, and what our product does. It offers high schools and colleges within the state a way to communicate. It also provides tools for students and parents to help students make the transition from high school to college and beyond. >>>

Thought Leaders In Cloud Computing: Rick Blaisdell, CTO Of ConnectEDU (Part 1)

By Sramana Mitra and guest author Shaloo Shalini

Elementary, secondary, and university education in the United States is rapidly evolving to address the needs of changing times and those of a competitive and more flat world. Until now, publishers have generally been responsible for providing learning material, a lot of which takes the form of paper textbooks. But the proliferation of gadgets that bring the power of information to the fingertips of students and academics through devices such as the iPad, and the growing popularity of e-books, are changing the face of the market. The U.S. education technology market is estimated at $500 billion with three broad sectors – instructional materials and assessments, data management and analysis, and supporting services. Among entrepreneurs and educators, there is a spurt of interest in creating innovative products for the education sector that is driven by several factors, such as the Web technology evolution; the emergence of flexible, scalable, and cost-effective options such as cloud computing; advances in Internet connectivity; the spread of home broadband; wider adoption of state learning standards; and, to some extent, the Obama administration’s emphasis on education. The K-12 segment is ripe for change since the market is fragmented, there is no clear leader, and K-12 is technologically lagging behind higher education. >>>

Thought Leaders In Cloud Computing: Doug Menefee, CIO of Schumacher Group (Part 9)

By Sramana Mitra and guest author Shaloo Shalini

SM: I would like to know what your thoughts are on entrepreneurial opportunities, some of the blue-sky opportunities in the context of cloud computing. This interview is part of program I run called One Million by One Million, and we want a million entrepreneurs to earn a million dollars in annual revenue. So, we have a lot of entrepreneurs, including cloud entrepreneurs, who are trying to understand the blue-sky opportunities and learn where CIOs have open problems during their cloud computing adoption phase. Through this series, we are trying to bring to entrepreneurs insights from the CIOs of cloud-adopting enterprises in various industries. >>>

Thought Leaders In Cloud Computing: Doug Menefee, CIO of Schumacher Group (Part 8)

By Sramana Mitra and guest author Shaloo Shalini

SM: That covers our discussion on collaboration. I think collaboration is one of the biggest trends in the cloud environment today. My vision is to see more desktop telepresence. >>>