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When people think of traditional channel companies in the tech industry, a wide array of distributors, systems integrators (SIs), or value-added resellers (VARs) usually comes to mind. While these players continue to have an important role in the cloud -- despite some dire predictions to the contrary -- a new form of cloud-enabled channel is also beginning to emerge...

In my previous commentary in this space, I suggested that the evolution of the channel in the cloud is entering a new stage in its development. Last month's Dreamforce conference, hosted by Salesforce.com, served as a showcase for a series of new channel initiatives which clearly indicate the growing importance cloud vendors are placing on the channel for their future success...

"Out of all the announcements this was the most subtle -- and the most significant," Jeffrey M. Kaplan, managing director of THINKstrategies, told CRM Buyer "Letting companies keep their data on premise will alleviate the anxieties of many companies," he said, "and allow the e...

Over the past two years, I've been chronicling the evolution of the channel in the cloud in my monthly commentaries in this space. Although many industry pundits have predicted the disintermediation of the channel in the cloud computing marketplace, I continue to see signs of success but under a new set of rules ...

Google's recent decision to abandon its Google Health program has raised new questions about how far the healthcare industry is willing to go down the cloud computing path. The reality is that Google's decision was not a reflection of the healthcare industry's resistance toward cloud computing, but simply a change in Google's corporate priorities. There is plenty of evidence that the healthcare industry is becoming more and more comfortable utilizing the cloud...

Even as a long-time advocate for moving to cloud computing, I'm still surprised by the range of companies and nonprofit organizations making this move, and pleased to hear about the business benefits they are gaining from their decisions. ...

Today's cloud computing phenomenon is causing havoc among many legacy hardware and software vendors who worry that the increasingly competitive market is going to cannibalize and commoditize their traditional products and services. One company that may sit in an advantageous position is Dell ...

Salesforce.com is on a buying binge as it attempts to build on its extraordinary sales momentum and broaden its market penetration within existing customer organizations and among new organizations. ...

When the Software as a Service (SaaS) idea emerged from the embers of the failed Application Service Provider (ASP) model of the past, pioneers of the new generation of software solutions pointed to its multitenant architecture as the critical differentiator that would make it more scalable, economical and successful than its predecessor ...

When the concept of "cloud computing" first began to gain attention within the technology industry, I have to admit that I was convinced that it was one of the worst terms ever created. What's harder to get your arms, or head, around than a cloud? Talk about an amorphous idea ...

I'd like to take this space to elaborate on one of the predictions for 2011 I made last month. I suggested that community clouds aimed at specific vertical markets and supply chain relationships would become more prevalent, as various organizations recognized the value of sharing cloud resources and services with their peers. ...

As the year winds to an end, it is incumbent on all industry pundits to make predictions about what they envision for the coming year. Since I'm often lumped into this category, I'm obliged to offer my views about how the world will evolve over the next 12 months from a cloud computing perspective. ...

Salesforce.com has the luxury of experimenting with its pricing model, even offering a version of Chatter for free, Jeffrey M. Kaplan, managing director of THINKstrategies, told CRM Buyer. The company just posted stellar earnings and is sitting on a lot of cash, he observed.

As I reported in this space earlier this year, a growing number of IT professionals are putting aside their apprehensions about Software as a Service and cloud computing, and investigating how they can utilize these "on-demand" solutions to address their day-to-day IT management requirements ...

One of the commonly accepted myths of the Software as a Service (SaaS) market and the broader cloud computing environment is that it is inherently a high-transaction business. This view has been fostered by the rapid growth of many commodity-oriented SaaS solutions and public cloud services ...

A popular parlor game in the technology industry is predicting new market opportunities and forecasting how quickly they're going to flourish. Despite all the investments that have been made in trying to turn this pastime into a science, it is amazing how often the market research firms still get it wrong or miss a rapidly emerging trend entirely.

Since its inception, the cloud computing industry has been the beneficiary of various outputs of the open source movement. The symbiotic relationship between these two forces has helped to transform the technology industry and continues to reshape the marketplace ...

One of the most vexing problems facing organizations for years has been knowledge management. In the past, the task of capturing, organizing and disseminating valuable information so it could be properly utilized by end-users and business executives was an herculean effort that produced limited results. Today's cloud computing movement offers exciting opportunities to remedy those age-old challenges...

A lot of folks look down their noses at the prospect of Facebook penetrating the corporate world in a meaningful fashion. In fact, many people believe that the IT community will do everything possible to resist this prospect because of the security, privacy and compliance issues surrounding the social network. ...

Whenever people debate the enterprise-readiness of cloud computing, the discussion usually centers on reliability, security, compliance and integration questions. However, underlying these important concerns is an even more fundamental issue that keeps most IT and business decision-makers up at night: customer support ...