SYS-CON Events announced today that the 8th International Cloud Expo will take place June 6-9, 2011, in New York City. The International Cloud Computing Conference & Expo series is the world's leading Cloud-focused event and is held three times a year, in New York, Silicon Valley and in Europe. Over 600 corporate sponsors and 10,000 industry professionals have participated in Cloud Computing Expo since its inception, more than all other Cloud-related events put together. Cloud Computing Expo 2011 East Call for Papers Deadline November 30, 2010 - SUBMIT YOUR SPEAKING PROPOSAL TODAY! The four-day event will offer a rich array of sessions led by exceptional speakers about the business and technical value of cloud computing with more than 150 sponsors and exhibitors and over 5,000 estimated delegates from well over 48 different countries. Explore Cloud Expo Sponsorship &... (more)

The Top 250 Players in the Cloud Computing Ecosystem

In the run-up to the next Cloud Expo, 7th Cloud Expo (November 1–4, 2010) being held at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Silicon Valley, it's time to give my earlier list a complete overhaul. Here, accordingly, is an expanded list of the most active players in the Cloud Ecosystem. I have increased it from the 'mere' 150 I identified back in January of this year, to 250, testimony – as if any were needed! – to the fierce and continuing growth of the "Elastic IT" paradigm throughout the world of enterprise computing. Editorial note: The words in quotation marks used to describe the various services and solutions in this round-up are in every case taken from the Web sites of the companies themselves. Omissions to this Top 250 list should be sent to me via Twitter (twitter.com/jg21) and I will endeavor to include them in any future revision of this newly expanded rou... (more)

Factors that Should Influence Your Outsourcing Decisions

Considering outsourcing? Beyond cost savings and the need to focus resources on your company's core strengths, there are other various reasons why you should - or should not - outsource. After all, not all outsourcing companies are created equal, and outsourcing, in general, is not necessarily the end-all and be-all of IT strategy. In today's economy, monetary pressures are forcing companies to seek software development, information management, and technical support services from third-party service providers. Since engaging both near-shore and offshore service providers can result in overall lowered operating costs, outsourcing is now a lucrative strategy and an integral aspect of running a business. In fact, a business would be hard-pressed to ignore the importance of engaging outsourcing providers for product or software development - or other computing requirem... (more)

Cloud Expo, Inc. Announces Cloud Expo 2011 New York Venue

Click Here to Save $800 at Cloud Expo New York ! Cloud Expo, Inc. announced on Thursday that Cloud Expo 2011 New York, the 8th International Cloud Computing Conference & Expo, will take place June 6-9, 2011, at the Javits Center in New York City. Cloud Expo - International Cloud Computing Conference & Expo series is the world’s leading Cloud-focused event and is held in New York, Silicon Valley, Prague, Tokyo, and Hong-Kong. Over 900 corporate sponsors and more than 65,000 industry professionals have participated in Cloud Expo since its inception, tenfold more than all other Cloud-related events put together. Click Here to Save $800 at Cloud Expo New York ! "Cloud Expo was announced on February 24, 2007, the day the term ‘cloud computing' was coined," said Fuat Kircaali, Chairman and Founder of Cloud Expo, Inc. "Cloud has become synonymous with ‘computing' and ‘soft... (more)

Salesforce & Intuit Cut Strategic Alliance

Salesforce and Intuit have cut a strategic alliance that will see customer relationship management offered to Intuit's four million QuickBooks small business customers. Intuit will resell Salesforce CRM with QuickBooks integration that synchronizes customer data with QuickBooks and QuickBooks Online. The information's intended for people in sales and management and should eliminate data entry in two different systems. Intuit did a survey that found that more than half of small businesses do CRM tasks manually or with software not designed for the job; 28% use pen and paper, and another 28% manually enter data on spreadsheets. The Salesforce widgetry will be sold through Intuit's App Center. ... (more)

Top Five Tips for Choosing a Small Business CRM

When small business owners think of software, they think of email, file management, and…. CRM. Shorthand for “Contact Relationship Management,” CRMs help businesses organize their customers, leads and sales. Important stuff. Unfortunately, choosing a CRM isn’t easy. The Google Apps marketplace lists 90 of ‘em: GetApp has over 280. There are thousands more (and they all sound the same). How’s a business owner to choose? We review (and break) new CRMs every week, so we’re pretty confident when we spot a good one. Here are 5 tips for choosing your own CRM – hope it helps! #1 Choose a usable CRM Usability matters. A lot. As you try new systems, pay due attention to the experience. How intuitive is navigation? Can you find what you’re looking for? Will employees enjoy this? Does it make their job easier? It’s tempting to pick CRMs solely for their feature set, but reme... (more)

Software Sales in the Cloud

Businesses live and die by their ability to sell. When it comes to cloud computing, this is no different. The benefits associated with selling in the cloud are shorter time to market, revenue streams that don't tend to fluctuate, and a shortened sales cycle. Despite common belief, the key to successful selling in the cloud doesn't rely on the technology infrastructure behind the scenes -- the real key is in billing. Monetizing the Agreement In essence, a cloud solution is an agreement between the vendor and the user. The ability to monetize that agreement is the heart of how to sell in the cloud. The more customers using your solution, the more revenue you create. To ensure a steady and predictable revenue stream the back end systems need to be able to support it. Function Before Form The temptation with any sales process is to sell the sizzle; however, in a cloud e... (more)

Top Sales Executive to Share His Insights on Ulitzer

Lee Novak, one of the top sales executives in the country, launched his Ulitzer blog to share his experience, insights, and sales coaching tips. Lee Novak, a Sales Management Executive for 25 years, uses a proven people-first, client-first philosophy. Lee has a reputation for building teams that not only are high-performance groups but also that do business the right way, at the right time and for the right reasons. Novak publishes his Ulitzer blog posts on his two topic sites: Lee Novak on Ulitzer (http://leenovak.ulitzer.com) Team Building (http://teambuilding.ulitzer.com) Sales Coaching (http://salescoaching.ulitzer.com) He received numerous awards for his sales leadership, innovativeness and measured performance while working in various executive roles at ADP Dealer Services (a Fortune 500 company in the technology and service sector) for 21 years - where he was... (more)

Personal Branding Book Review by Dave Ulrich

When you have read Hubert Rampersad’s outstanding book Authentic Personal Branding, you will probably wondering “what does this all mean?” It is nearly impossible to retain all the details of four stages of the authentic personal branding model, you will want to remember some of the messages of this book and how they can be applied to you and your personal and professional life. Of course, you may want to refer back to some of the simple and elegant models for personal and company ambition, objectives, critical success factors, and actions. Hubert has a knack for preparing comprehensive frameworks for analyzing important issues. You may also want to reflect on many of the self and organization diagnostic questions that offer you insight into your brand and your company’s brand. These mental models and their related investigative questions will help you know where yo... (more)

Cloud Expo New York Call for Papers Now Open

Early Bird Savings Cloud Expo Cloud computing is a game changer. The cloud is disrupting traditional software and hardware business models by disrupting how IT service gets delivered. Entrepreneurial opportunities abound as this classic disruptive technology begins to proliferate, so it is no surprise that SYS-CON's industry-leading International Cloud Expo is going from strength to strength. The 5th International Cloud Expo, to be held April 19-21, 2010, at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York, NY, announces that its Call for Papers is fast approaching. Topics on which submission are welcome include all aspects of providing or using massively scalable IT-related capabilities as a service using Internet technologies (see suggested examples below). Help plant your flag in the fast-expanding business opportunity that is The Cloud: submit your speaking propos... (more)

Ulitzer Live! New Media Conference & Expo

http://twitter.com/fuatkircaali I live 11 minutes away from Teterboro Airport in New Jersey. Friday evening I took a Cessna Caravan for a short 45-minute flight to Martha's Vineyard. This was my first trip to the island. I didn't do any research and had false expectations based on my long-time love affair with the island of Cat Cay in the Bahamas. I found out that Martha's Vineyard was huge. Upon landing on the island, my pilot called a cab for me to take me to my hotel. According to the cab driver the island's population was around 30,000 off-season and well over 100,000 during its peak summer season. These numbers change drastically from driver to driver or whomever you ask, of course. As compared to a maximum three to six neighbors any time I go home to Cat Cay, this was an instant shock to me. I had a relaxing two-day weekend in Martha's Vineyard. As long as I ... (more)