Software

This Week in Public Sector Innovation

October 18, 2012 By Mike Hettinger

Federal News Radio CIO Survey: In August Federal News Radio survey 130 federal CIO personnel on key issues affecting government IT today. Among the key findings: budget issues are driving CIO priorities, DOD views cloud differently than do civilian agencies (they see more savings), and many CIOs are concerned about the impact of sequestration on IT spending. See the full summary from FedNewsRadio.com here.

George Washington University hosts discussion on Rep. Issa’s IT reform proposal: On Thursday, GWU’s Law School hosted an open discussion on House Oversight and Government Reform (OGR) Chairman Darrell Issa’s proposed reform of the 1996 Clinger-Cohen Act, which governs federal IT acquisition. The proposal, which is not expected to be introduced until early next year, would empower federal CIOs by giving them budget authority, as well as codifying a number of the Obama Administrations proposals from the 25 Point Plan to Reform Federal IT Management such as data center consolidation and FedRAMP. Ecommerce Times has a story. See the draft bill on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee site.

FedRAMP continues to make progress, news: FCW / 1105 Media released a report this week on the challenges of implementing the FedRAMP program. FedRAMP, which reached its initial operating capabilities in June has not yet approved a single Cloud Service Provider under the program. FedRAMP has approved 15 third party assessment organizations (3PAOS) to work with CSPs to meet the baseline control requirements and expects to grant provisional authorization to 3 CSPs by the end of this year. Read more with a link to the survey here.

Michael Hettinger is VP for the Public Sector Innovation Group (PSIG) at SIIA. Follow his PSIG tweets at @SIIAPSIG.

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Filed Under: Cloud/Gov, Government, PSIG, Software

Cloud Computing and Its Green Lining: Responses to James Glanz and the New York Times

October 17, 2012 By Tracy Carlin

Author James Glanz created a stir in September with his New York Times article, when he wrote that cloud computing and Big Data are actually big energy wasters. I have written about this controversy previously for the SIIA and have found that not to be the case. In fact, data centers are environmentally friendly for three reasons:

Large data centers are more efficient than small and medium-sized data centers, so regardless of this looking negative at first blush, the electricity/unit of computing is less.
Devices themselves are using less energy especially as desk tops and laptops give way to tablets and smartphones,
Cloud data centers can and will drive to renewable energy, as detailed in this report. Companies like Oracle, Adobe, and IBM are devoting their considerable resources to sustainable computing practices, and this trend will only increase as they continue to work to make data centers more efficient and clean.

A number of voices have come out in support of cloud computing’s environmental benefits for these very reasons. The New York Times hosted quite a few on their Room for Debate page. Here is a short sampling.

Urs Hölzle, Senior Vice President for Technical Infrastructure at Google, knows from personal experience how data centers work, operating Google’s servers, networks, and data centers. He writes on the New York Times website:

“Because of our obsession with efficiency, we’re able to help others be more efficient as well. Small and medium data centers use two-thirds of the total energy because it’s much harder to run them efficiently, so the trend of replacing on-premise servers with efficient cloud services will reduce the amount of energy used to run the same workload.”

Similarly, Jonathan Koomey, research fellow at the Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance at Stanford University refutes Mr. Glanz:

“Modern cloud-based data centers are much more efficient and have much higher utilization levels than standard data centers, giving them substantial economic and energy-related advantages. And the shift to mobile computing promises big efficiency gains for users as well. For example, laptop computers, which typically use a third to a fifth of the power of desktops, outsold desktops for the first time in 2009 (according to IDC data). Sales of tablets, which are even more efficient, are growing much faster than those for laptops.”

Gary Cook, the senior I.T. sector analyst for Greenpeace International’s Cool IT campaign, also provides cautious optimism, writing:

Customers need companies to be more transparent about their energy choices so that they can understand the true environmental performance of their Internet and cloud use and make more informed choices. If given the information, people will choose a company that chooses clean energy. We can – and should – be able to feel good about our likes, tweets, photos and music, but it’s up to these companies to take the bold steps to make that possible.

Charles Babcock of Information Week summarizes the other side thusly:

“Everyone is doing a lot more computing, as the story notes. But as we do so, the amount of electricity consumed per unit of computing is going down, which the story somehow misses. Nowhere does the Times address this salient point. Instead, it concludes we are doing a lot more computing and, therefore, we are all guilty of driving environmental degradation. If you’re going to reform the world, you need to build a better soapbox than this.”

Tracy Carlin is a Communications and Public Policy Intern at SIIA. She is also a first year graduate student at Georgetown University’s Communication, Culture and Technology program where she focuses on intersections in education, video games and gender.

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Filed Under: Cloud Computing, Cloud/Gov, Policy - Cloud Computing, Software

Interview with New SIIA Member, CloudNOW

October 17, 2012 By Rhianna Collier

SIIA recently welcomed CloudNOW to the SIIA community. I recently had a chance to speak to their Founder and President, Jocelyn DeGance Graham.

Rhianna: Welcome to SIIA! You launched CloudNOW just over a year ago. Tell me about your vision for the group.

Jocelyn: CloudNOW is a nonprofit consortium of the leading women in cloud computing, our Mission is simply to promote women in tech. CloudNOW’s biggest differentiator is that we work with the industry rather than in a gender silo, and we focus on what we called ‘applied excellence’ rather than concentrating on gender specific issues, or soft issues such as work-life balance. Our partners are the leading media and event groups for Cloud, IBM, and PwC. In 2013 we hope to build on that success and bring in additional corporate partners.

Rhianna: How has cloud computing opened doors for women in technology?

Jocelyn: Cloud has had an amazing ‘democratizing’ ‘effect for everyone. Almost overnight the economic barriers for starting a company had completely been removed. We no longer needed bank loans, funding, capital investment for hardware…in short the good ole boys and other quid pro quo networks were out and the rest of us, in. And yes, that means women, minorities, kids in their college dorm room, third world countries, etc– total inclusion!

Rhianna: Have you seen an increase in the number of women professionals in our industry?

Jocelyn: With frequency I see articles asking ‘where are the women founders in tech’? I challenge these reporters to actually do their jobs and begin with something as simple as a Google search to uncover the growing number of women in tech and especially, cloud. What we’ve seen from our network is an increase of women who are starting their own companies and taking on the CEO role. We expect that trend to continue, and CloudNOW will be there to support it.

Rhianna Collier is VP for the Software Division at SIIA.

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Filed Under: Software Tagged With: cloud computing, CloudNOW, software

FTC Announces Online Privacy Workshop on Consumer Data, U.S. Internet Governance Delegation Formed, Update on Proposed Net Traffic Proposal, and more

October 16, 2012 By David LeDuc

FTC Announces Online Privacy Workshop on Consumer Data

The Federal Trade Commission announced on Monday that it will host a workshop in December to explore the practices and privacy implications of comprehensive collection of data about consumers’ online activities. The Workshop follows up on the FTC’s March 2012 report, Protecting Consumer Privacy in an Era of Rapid Change, which called on companies handling consumer data to implement recommendations for protecting consumers’ privacy, including privacy by design, providing simplified privacy choices to consumers, and greater transparency to consumers about data collection and use. The FTC is encouraging consumer protection organizations, academics, business and industry representatives, privacy professionals, and other interested parties to attend, and has solicited input for specific topics and requests to participate in panels. SIIA will submit a request to participate in this workshop.

U.S. Internet Governance Delegation Formed, Update on Proposed Net Traffic Proposal

The U.S. has fully formed its delegation to the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT), consisting of 100 members from government, industry and civilians, with representatives from the Defense and Commerce departments, the FCC, FTC and NTIA, he said. Industry representatives come from both the telecom and Internet industries. Mark MacCarthy, Vice President of Public Policy at SIIA and adjunct professor in Georgetown University’s Communication, Culture and Technology Program, has been named to serve as a member of the U.S. Delegation to the WCIT.

Other recent announcements from WCIT Ambassador Kramer include an update that the European Telecommunications Network Operators’ Association (ETNO) is likely to withdraw its controversial Internet traffic compensation proposal, but is now considering another proposed revision to the International Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs) that would, among other things, establish a “sender-party-pays” model for Internet traffic compensation that could require the sender of any Internet content to pay for its transmission.

Publishers, Google Settle Book Dispute

On October 4th, several book publishers (McGraw-Hill, Pearson Education, Penguin Group, John Wiley & Sons, and Simon & Schuster) and Google announced that they had settled their seven-year dispute over copyright infringement issues relating to Google’s book search program. While the announcement says that Google “acknowledges the rights and interests of copyright-holders,” it is silent as to the terms of the settlement, and more specifically Google’s views on whether unauthorized scanning and indexing of works constitutes fair use. The announcement did state that, under the settlement, a publisher may opt to have Google remove its works from the Google Book Search database and those publishers that choose to keep their works in the database may request copies of electronic versions of their works from Google. It is unclear if there was any payment made by either party as the terms of the agreement are confidential, and because the deal is a private settlement, there will be no public settlement document. The announcement also said that the settlement need not be approved by the court. Although the publishers have now settled, the Authors Guild has continued their suit against Google as a class action suit.

Senate Leader Confirms Cyber Will Again Come up in Nov.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) confirmed over the weekend [ http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/261891-reid-vows-fresh-bid-to-pass-stalled-cybersecurity-bill ] that the Senate will again consider cybersecurity legislation (The Cybersecurity Act, S. 3414) when it returns for its “lame duck” session in November. The legislation failed to garner the necessary 60 votes to advance in August, but supporters appear optimistic that the less politicized environment and looming threat of the Administration’s executive order on cybersecurity will help garner additional support from Republicans. Of course, any speculations about the outcome of that process should be held until after the elections, as changes in administration or congressional leadership in either body could have a significant effect on the lame duck strategy.

SIIA Federal Cloud Survey Goes Live

Last week SIIA’s Public Sector Innovation Group launched its inaugural Federal Cloud Survey, seeking to aggregate data on the federal government’s progress in adopting cloud computing, mobile technologies, and data center consolidation. Federal government IT professionals are encouraged to have their voice heard by responding to the survey, which can be found here. The findings of the survey will be published as part of SIIA’s Cloud/Gov Conference in Washington, DC on February 12, 2013. Learn more about Cloud/Gov here.

For SIIA policy updates including upcoming events, news and analysis, subscribe to SIIA’s weekly policy email newsletter, Digital Policy Roundup.

David LeDuc is Senior Director, Public Policy at SIIA. He focuses on e-commerce, privacy, cyber security, cloud computing, open standards, e-government and information policy.

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Filed Under: Cloud/Gov, Digital Policy Roundup, Government, Policy, Software, Software Events

Software Division CEO Insights: Audrey Spangenberg, FPX

October 5, 2012 By Rhianna Collier

This interview was originally published in SIIA’s Vision From the Top. The 2013 Vision From the Top will be released at All About the Cloud, May 7-9 in San Francisco.

Does Mobile fall into one of your top 5 priorities for 2012? If so, how will you be attacking it? If not, why not?

Mobile remains a top priority for FPX in 2012. FPX’s core business centers on enabling sales teams to be more successful by responding quickly, if not instantly, to the needs and requests of their prospects and customers. Since every sales situation today is highly competitive, buyers have the power. FPX is committed to equipping our customers to serve their prospects whenever and wherever those customers expect; enabling them to take action immediately. Only a solid mobile component of a greater sales process system can do that.

When sales people have the solutions they need at their fingertips, they have the information they need to give their prospects the confidence needed to buy.

Our commitment to providing superior mobile solutions, beginning with the Budgetary Quotes Mobile App that we released in late 2011, means platform agnostic apps. Our strategy is to continue to develop mobile apps for people, not for a specific device. Our core competency is to exceed the expectations of our customers, allowing them the ability to access their sales systems and solutions from any mobile device.

In 2020, looking back on this decade, what will be the single most impactful technical advancement driving business growth?

Cloud computing, and the Software-as-a-Service model, will prove the single most impactful technical advancement driving business growth today and for the foreseeable future. The transformative power of the cloud is driving innovation virtually everywhere, but its most significant impact will come from bringing to bear the power of solutions previously only available through on-premise systems without the inherent expenses.

This is already creating a movement away from on-premise software installs to SaaS solutions, especially under certain conditions. In the CRM and Configure-Price-Quote® marketplace, SaaS provides undeniable benefits including lower initial cost and total costs of ownership, higher ROI, and reduced strain on IT resources to name a few.

FPX is committed to this model. As one of a very limited number of providers of SaaS-based, multi-tenant sales process solutions, we are increasingly attracting enterprise customers who, in the past, would have had to select a big-box on-premise software provider.

This demand is already pervasive. Adoption to the Cloud empowers companies to transform their business models and gain a competitive advantage. The Cloud allows companies to be agile and enable the development of effective virtual business processes, which will facilitate their employees, customers, partners and suppliers to connect and conduct business seamlessly.

According to a recent study by Bain & Company, the cloud computing share of the tech wallet will quadruple by 2020, growing nearly six-times faster through the end of the decade than spend on legacy hardware and software.

Social media and social business are big themes for 2012. In which areas of business will the social movement have the most impact (or most potential for impact)? Why?

Social media and social business will impact sales and marketing more than any other area of business. In B2C selling situations, consumers have always had access to the thoughts and opinions of those they trusted. This provided consumers a limited degree of power in making personal purchase decisions. For the most part, however, retailers have held most of the power.

Online social media has radically shifted the power in the B2C space from retailers to consumers. Consumers in the early stages of the purchase process now have ready access to others who are farther along in that same process. They can search out reviews, polls, comments, and can even engage in conversations about retailers, products and brands with those they choose and trust. This arms them with knowledge long before they enter a store or engage with an online retailer. Further, the input of others can either undermines or substantiate the claims made by expensive advertising and marketing campaigns.

In the same way, those responsible for making purchase decisions in B2B environments now have access to the opinions and experiences of those with similar responsibilities. Using social media including LinkedIn, salesforce.com’s Chatter, Twitter and a myriad of other specialized networks, decision makers have access to credible sources of information prior to and during the vendor selection process.

The use of social media among business professionals levels the communication playing field. A buyer in a B2B situation can quickly investigate any claim made by a sales person or contained in a company’s marketing collateral. Companies who exaggerate their claims do so with a high degree of peril. However, companies that are committed to customer success will be rewarded for their efforts. As the use of social media increases among business professionals, companies selling to other companies must remember that they are ultimately selling to people. Social media has the potential to push the phrase B2B into obsolescence, making P2P the new reality.

Rhianna Collier is VP for the Software Division at SIIA. Follow the SIIA software division on Twitter @SIIASoftware

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Filed Under: All About the Cloud, Software

Software Division CEO Insights: Karthic Athreya, ForteHCM

October 1, 2012 By Rhianna Collier

This interview was originally published in SIIA’s Vision From the Top. The 2013 Vision From the Top will be released at All About the Cloud, May 7-9 in San Francisco.

As you look around the globe, which markets will provide the best opportunities for tech companies in the next five years?

Most of recent growth trajectory and net job addition seems to be coming from mobility/ social space. With more and more people accessing their social, email and other day to day functions/ applications via their mobile, app development in mobile is a given. India as a target & growth market cannot be ignored. Tele-density has been increasing at a random pace and the telecom sector itself has been growing at more than 25%. Some interesting dynamics include land line adoption of only ~ 35 million whereas cell phone adoption at ~ 882 million. Recent Mckinsey study revealed that India’s internet users will increase fivefold by 2015 and more than 3 quarters of them will choose mobile access. Gartner sees the penetration reaching 82% in 2014.

Yet with all this growth, infrastructure is a challenge and it isn’t going to be easy. Of the country’s 100 million Internet users, just 12.5 million have broadband, compared with 450 million households in China. Internet speeds are sluggish compared to international average of 5.6 mbps. Policymakers are trying to solve this by utilizing cable TV lines. However there are couple challenges to this approach-most of the subscribers only have analog connection and upgrading infrastructure isn’t going to be cheap. Secondly it isn’t going to be easy to up convert an analog box to digital box. Given the demographics, companies might have to push the box at real low price.

Now, where there is a challenge there is an opportunity. Mobile content and applications could be the answer.

There are over 850 million registered mobile numbers (these numbers are skewed as there are multiple accounts registered to the same user). Average revenue per registered number has fallen over the years and service providers are constantly looking for ways to up that. Mobile apps if delivered at affordable prices and with the right content will deliver attractive returns to content and application development companies. As long as the applications are compelling and tuned to local demographics (more so with all the different languages spoken and read) and the pricing right (in order to attract the low end of the demographics), all players can make some money. With mobile advertising picking steam, local ads could be another money spinner.

If email takes a backseat to Facebook, Twitter, and SMS for business communication in 5 years, how will that change your business strategy? What are you doing today to prepare for that possibility?

It is true that new channels have come up but I think there is a synergy between new channels and email. You still need an email to login to Twitter and Facebook. You still get notifications via email for updated info and new followers. It is true that web based email is starting to take a back seat but that is web based. Mobile email usage is skyrocketing. In fact comscore’s own numbers show that about 30% of American mobile users regularly access email via smartphones / mobile devices.

Numerous studies have shown that email is still one of the most effective ways to drive online and offline sales, and is the preferred method by which consumers are notified of offers. Sure, there are better ways to communicate a single line or a short message but the way twitter and Facebook is set up, it is difficult to imagine that someone would send a contract via social sites.

While in about 5 years Facebook and the probably likes may take over intranet communications, for all external communications email still might make sense. I wouldn’t change the business strategy yet…

Rhianna Collier is VP for the Software Division at SIIA. Follow the SIIA software division on Twitter @SIIASoftware

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Filed Under: All About the Cloud, Software

Software CODiE Awards: Tips & Tricks for CODiE Success

September 28, 2012 By Wendy Tanner

Yesterday we hosted a CODiE Awards webinar specifically for software categories. The primary purpose of the webinar was to provide important updates made to the process, including the addition/revision of several categories for a total of 29 software-related categories.

During the webinar we covered:

How to nominate
What happens during the first-round judging process
The complete CODiE Awards timeline
A review of software categories

We were especially pleased to have two guests join us for the webinar: Sarah Lander, Director of Marketing for ShopVisible and a 2012 CODiE Award winner, and Richard Dym, Managing Partner of Bondi Group, a longtime CODiE Awards judge.

Watch the webinar to hear everything that Sarah and Richard had to say, in addition to the information we provided. And remember, nominations for the Software categories must be submitted by Friday, October 5.