MIT Sloan CIO Symposium In Cambridge, MA, On May 18, 2011

On May 18, 2011, more than 800 CIOs, CTOs, and senior technology executives from around the world will gather to explore how to profitably leverage digital media at the 8^th Annual MIT Sloan CIO Symposium. The theme for this year’s event is “Beyond the Crossroads: How will the CIO role evolve in the digital business world?”

The Symposium will take place from 7:30 a.m. – 8:00 p.m. at the MIT Kresge Auditorium in Cambridge, MA. The event is part of the MIT 150^th Anniversary Celebration. The full agenda is available at here. You can find more information and REGISTER HERE.

Thought Leaders In Cloud Computing: Dr. Reed Sheard, CIO Of Westmont College (Part 7)

By Sramana Mitra and guest author Shaloo Shalini

SM: What about higher education–specific vendors?

RS: I would put Apple in there. Apple would count as an education-specific vendor.

SM: How so? Do they have specific offerings for higher education?

RS: Every other year, Apple organizes a conference for CIOs in higher education. They have account executives who are focused only on higher education. Apple also has pricing models that are beneficial to the higher education sector. These are some of the things they do, and our Apple user base in higher education in general qualifies them as a vendor. This is a pretty significant shift to the Apple platform across higher education that has created an interesting and creative dynamic. This is an interesting dialogue happening among colleges and universities. >>>

Thought Leaders In Cloud Computing: Dr. Reed Sheard, CIO Of Westmont College (Part 6)

By Sramana Mitra and guest author Shaloo Shalini

SM: I think when you talk in terms of e-mail or CRM, the basic e-mail or CRM, these are horizontal functionalities. You would definitely have an advantage if you use somebody else’s solution that has been built, tested, and scaled, and something that is scalable on this level has the right kind of support. There is no reason to reinvent that wheel for higher education specific solutions if there is such horizontal functionality available today. >>>

Thought Leaders In Cloud Computing: Dr. Reed Sheard, CIO Of Westmont College (Part 5)

Thought Leaders In Cloud Computing: Dr. Reed Sheard, CIO Of Westmont College (Part 4)

By Sramana Mitra and guest author Shaloo Shalini

SM: There are applications on Salesforce that are specific to fundraising; have you looked at those in this process?

RS: Well, I wanted a solution that was specific to higher education, non-profit fundraising versus just non-profit fundraising and other areas. I also wanted this solution to be connected to our enterprise resource planning (ERP) system in ways that made the two more valuable for our fundraisers. >>>

Thought Leaders In Cloud Computing: Dr. Reed Sheard, CIO Of Westmont College (Part 1)

By Sramana Mitra and guest author Shaloo Shalini

In the multibillion-dollar market of higher education in the United States, we see an interesting trend whereby a combination of IT people and college communities are playing the role of an active “lead user” and using the cloud computing paradigm to make campus life simpler and information accessible for students through handheld devices. In this interview, we have some insights for you on evolutionary application integrations happening at Westmont and in higher education, from dispensing efficient IT infrastructure for effective collaboration to simplifying campus processes and other real-world tasks. During the interview, Sramana and Dr. Reed Sheard, VP and CIO of Westmont University College, discuss how Sheard has deployed cloud computing technologies and solutions to help the Westmont IT user community move to a higher level of service and helped the college IT team evolve to the next level in terms of business alignment. It is interesting to note that there has been explosive growth in the number of Apple devices in the higher education world, with applications taking a lead in terms of the user base compared to pure browser-based or Internet applications and the absence of Amazon’s Kindle, which is positioned as the textbook of the future in higher education but still needs a volume of textbooks to be made available on it and still lacks the ease with which iPad users can make notes and collaborate. >>>

The 1M1M Deal Radar 2010: Gigamon , Milpitas, California

Following on Friday’s coverage of network forensics with Solera Networks, today’s post profiles Gigamon, which develops data access solutions to enhance network monitoring of data centers, service provider, and enterprises. >>>

The 1M1M Deal Radar 2010: Solera Networks ,South Jordan, Utah

Solera Networks develops software and appliances for network forensics, a technology created to give more complete information into breaches of network security. Solera compares it to “putting a security camera on your network” by combining high-speed data capture, indexed storage, and comprehensive analysis tools. >>>