London, United Kingdom, November 28, 2012 --(PR.com)-- XTime is now using Storage Made Easy's SaaS unified Cloud File Server Platform. XTime is the leading provider of web scheduling and customer relationship management (CRM) solutions for automotive service departments in North America, covering more than 4,800 dealerships. “We ran an extensive trial prior to choosing Storage Made Easy,” said David Richards, application specialist, XTime. “We've been using the system for more than a year now while expanding our user base. We chose Storage Made Easy because we wanted a familiar, folder-based solution that would be easy for our people to use on their own. File versioning and folder security were also requirements, which SME provides. And although we didn’t know it when we first signed on, SME’s support has been truly outstanding. We made several requests for enhancem... (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)

Cloud Expo 2011 East To Attract 10,000 Delegates and 200 Exhibitors

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)

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)

Top Two Technology Priorities for CIOs in 2011: Cloud & Virtualization

"New infrastructure and operations technologies such as cloud services and virtualization ... were selected by CIOs the most often and are the top-two technologies for 2011," said Mark McDonald, group vice president and head of research for Gartner Executive Programs, as the results were announced of the 2011 CIO Agenda survey by Gartner Executive Programs (EXP). "CIOs and IT have been boxed in between modest budget growth and growing legacy requirements," McDonald continued, noting that "Cloud services and virtualization are well-suited for this budget reality, as they offer similar service levels at lower budget costs." The worldwide CIO survey was conducted by Gartner EXP from September to December 2010 and represents CIO budget plans reported at that time. According to the results, CIOs expect to adopt new cloud services much faster than originally expected. Cur... (more)

Will Google's Android Sink or Swim?

Kevin Hoffman's Blog I've been poking around at some of the documentation for Google's Android project. I've seen a couple of the code samples, read through a lot of the SDK documentation and I've even checked out a couple of YouTube videos, including this one: I also highly recommend that you check out the 3 architecture videos that you can find on YouTube. One of the engineers on the Android project takes us on a detailed walkthrough of the architecture of the platform, how applications work, and even shows us how memory, processes, activities, and state are managed. So here's what I've been able to take away as highlights from what I've read and seen: Notifications. Application code can be woken up when certain important events take place. This is something that I really liked about PalmOS in that it could wake your code up and do things necessary and then shu... (more)

Cloud People: A Who's Who of Cloud Computing

Behind every cloud service or cloud-based solution, there are real people... A robust ecosystem of solutions providers has emerged around cloud computing. But who are the CEOs & CTOs behind those providers, who are the internal and external entrepreneurs driving companies involved in the Cloud, who are the leading engineers, developers, analysts, researchers, marketing professionals, authors...who, in short, are the people behind the cloud? This list will be updated weekly between now and November 4-7, 2013, when 13th Cloud Expo | Cloud Expo Silicon Valley opens its doors in the Santa Clara Convention Center, in the heart of California's Silicon Valley. Here are some highly prominent "Cloud People" to kick off with... RANDY BIAS | @randybias "Randy Bias is visionary. He sees things others don't." [Emphasis added.] That is how Mårten Mickos puts it, as succinctly as ever.... (more)

Facebook, Twitter LinkedIn, Ulitzer, MeettheBoss - Execs Go Online Big-Time

New Media on Ulitzer A recent study run by online business networking service www.MeettheBoss.com shows that executives are spending an extra 11 hours a month online sharing their professional experiences and learning from their peers. The survey asked its executive users what direct value they gained from spending time running blogs, writing tweets and connecting with other executives on sites such as LinkedIn, Xing, MeettheBoss, Ryze, Facebook, Ulitzer and Twitter. The answers revealed that executives proficient with online activities are spending an average of 11 hours more per month online than this time last year – and over 90% of respondents said they felt their time online was ‘very valuable’ to their daily role. Professionals are rushing to the Web for immediate answers to their most pressing questions. “I find online business networking very useful,” says M... (more)

Why SOA Is a Good Fit for CRM Solutions

Oracle on Ulitzer Online commerce is no longer just for consumer products, but also for direct and indirect goods and services. As a result, new demands are placed on classic customer relationship management (CRM) applications. While most have successfully automated customer-facing interactions (such as order capture, configuration, pricing, and order query), they still rely on external systems to process subsequent steps (such as invoicing, fulfillment, and pick-pack-ship), which are completed in a back-office enterprise resource planning (ERP) application. This leads to disjointed business processes and multiple user interfaces, each executing well within the native application (CRM or ERP), and requiring the creation of point-to-point and proprietary integrations and cumbersome custom user interfaces that are difficult to extend and maintain. REGISTER FOR SOA W... (more)

Rising of Open ERP and Its Founder Fabien Pinckaers

ERP Journal on Ulitzer Fabien Pinckaers make programs for businesses since the age of 13. Now at the age of 30, he developed his company, Tiny Sprl. It was established in 2002 while pursuing his studies in civil engineering at UCL (Louvain-la-Neuve). The story is beautiful and has only just begun. The history of this company is making on the cover page of the magazine "Trends Tendances" titled as "New Bill Gates is Belgian", dated Thursday 16 June 09.  Fabien Pinckaers has also developed several large scale projects, such as Auction- in-Europe.com, which become the leader in the art market in Belgium. He is also the founder of the LUG (Linux User Group) of Louvain-la- Neuve, and of several free projects like OpenReport, OpenStuff and Tiny Report. Educated as a civil engineer (polytechnic), he has won several IT prizes in Europe such as Wired and l'Inscene. A fierce ... (more)

Ulitzer vs. Ning

My original post in late June was based on two weeks of using Ulitzer and Ning.  I've added additional thoughts after two months of use. The obvious point for me is that the sites have two different objectives for the writers.  For Ning, the writer is trying to be involved in a niche social network from scratch.  For example, I have built my own social network for marketers and salespeople called BuyerSteps.  I created BuyerSteps as a way for other professionals to join in a conversation around the 21st century buyer.  So, Ning represents a way to build a community. In the case of Ulitzer, as a writer I am focused on getting readers from within an existing audience.  There are already thousands of readers coming to the Ulitzer site, so if they are interested in my topics such as marketing, they will find my articles as well as others.  Ulitzer allows the writer the ... (more)