This is a collection of interesting articles, blog posts, etc from around the web related to Cloud, Technology, Leadership, CIOs and the Enterprise.  In addition to our own content, the goal is to showcase the variety of conversations occurring around the web in the area of business productivity.  If you have others we should consider for future Digests, just post in the comments section.

Forrester: Public Cloud Growth to Surge, Especially SaaS

Overall, Forrester's report, "Sizing the Cloud", predicts that the global market for cloud computing — including the public cloud, the private cloud and the virtual private cloud — will leap from $40.7 billion this year to more than $241 billion in 2020.

Connecting IT and the Business

When more than 700 CIOs were asked what tasks and activities would consume them the most in three to five years, they listed “driving business innovation” and “identifying opportunities for competitive differentiation.”

Lessons From a Cloud Failure: It's Not Amazon It's You

Some developers saw that AWS outage as a warning about what happens when we rely too much on the cloud. But the real failure of Amazon's downtime is not AWS, but the sites that use it. The problem for those sites that were brought down by the AWS outage is the sites' own failure to implement the one key design principle of the cloud: Design with failure in mind. 

Dr. CIO: Prepping our Next-Gen IT Leaders

It appears that the CIO role is more important than ever before. In fact, a number of executives have articulated to me concerns that the CIO talent pool appears to be very shallow, that the same people are mentioned when new CIO opportunities become available—and those positions will be available this year, for sure.

Microsoft CIO Tony Scott: 5 Lessons Learned from Our Cloud Deployment

CIOs have heard about cloud computing and know the benefits, yet they remain uncertain on how and where to begin to bring their business into the cloud. As Microsoft CIO, my top priority is to transform our IT organization to meet the company’s ever-evolving business and technical needs.

Since the start of this year, I have been suffering from something I have termed “Cricflu.” For fans and followers of the sport of Cricket, this won’t be much of a surprise, since it was the year of the World Cup. India’s victory of the World Cup after 23 years, has only exacerbated my ‘Cricflu.” So I decided to go back to those childhood days of playing the sport myself and joined a local team. Now, this meant I had to get all the gear. I started with finding the right hat, so I ventured to the mall. I went to a few sporting goods stores and clothing stores but I couldn’t find one that fit – they were all “One Size Fits All” and they were all too BIG. So that got me thinking that first, I must have a small head, and second, I can’t be the only one who has this problem. My conclusion: there are some things for which the One Size Fits All model simply does not work.

In the same way, Google would have us believe that One Size Fits All is a good thing when it comes to cloud-based business productivity solutions. That it should be all or nothing – your organization’s entire infrastructure in the cloud or not at all. Since when do we try to squeeze every organization – despite its unique needs – into a One Size Fits All scenario?  It doesn’t make any sense.

Choice and flexibility are important whether we’re talking about hats or cloud-based productivity solutions. Why? Because different organizations have different needs.  Some organizations may want to store all of their workloads in the cloud, while others may want to take a hybrid approach in which some workloads are stored in the cloud, and others are kept on premises. 

Take Starbucks, for example. For years, the company had been running Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft SharePoint Server on premises for employees who work in the company’s headquarters. Yet during the past year, the organization decided to provide e-mail access to its baristas working in the cafes. To accomplish this goal, Starbucks connected its baristas to e-mail in the cloud using Microsoft Exchange Online, while keeping its e-mail for employees at headquarters on premise. This hybrid approach made it possible for Starbucks to accomplish its goal both quickly and painlessly. From the perspective of Starbucks employees, the experience is seamless. There’s one global address list for both baristas and headquarters employees.  Take a look at the full video with Microsoft Senior Executive Chris Caposella where he talks about  "Cloud on your terms" that includes the Starbucks example.

Starbucks isn’t alone. We’re seeing many companies that want to mix and match, moving some workloads to the cloud, while leaving others on premises.  The bottom line is that one size does NOT fit all. Customers need solutions that truly fit. That’s why our strategy has been to deliver the cloud on each company’s unique terms.  We would love to know what you think?  Are you feeling the pressure to to just take what you get or do you want flexibility in how the cloud can work for your organization?

For years, a friend of mine owned the same old, 28-inch CRT television set. Whenever I’d go over to his house, I’d tease him about it. “Why don’t you upgrade?” I’d ask, shaking my head at his outdated tube.

His answer was always the same: “What’s the point?” he’d say. “My TV may not be high-definition and it may be bulky. But I can watch everything I want. Getting a special cable subscription and digital cable box just isn’t worth the hassle.”

A couple months ago, I walked into my friend’s house and was shocked to find that old TV replaced by a brand new, flat-screen HDTV. My friend smiled at the surprised look on my face.  “As you know, the Cricket World Cup is about to start, and that means I can no longer compromise on resolution,” he said, laughing. “I upgraded because I finally had a rock-solid business case.”

Just like the Cricket World Cup gave my friend the business case he needed, the advent of the cloud offers businesses an added incentive to upgrade to the Microsoft platform at the same time that they migrate to the cloud. It gives them a rock-solid business case.

Take the case of Kellwood Company, one of the largest apparel manufacturers in the U.S.  For 10 years, the company had been using IBM Lotus Notes despite many employees’ complaints that the messaging system was out of date. Why? Because management felt it wasn’t necessary to upgrade as long as it was working. 

But during a recent restructuring, Kellwood’s CIO Charles Pritzl had a new argument to make: He could save the company money by moving e-mail to a hosted service. “Per user, Lotus Notes costs me three times as much as Microsoft,” he said. “It’s hard to argue with numbers like that.” Suddenly, he had a rock-solid business case.

The benefits of moving to Microsoft Online Services while simultaneously migrating its messaging system to the cloud have been many. Migrating to Microsoft Online Services has saved Kellwood  55 percent over continuing with Lotus Notes, mainly in reduced licensing and support expenses according to Pritzl. In addition, the company has reduced day-to-day maintenance, freeing valuable IT staff to focus on more strategic initiatives. What’s more, Kellwood has improved productivity by making web conferencing and e-mail available to employees across the organization anytime, anywhere. It has also gained a searchable e-mail archive and a more secure way to reduce inbox sizes, according to Pritzl.

Did your organization migrate to the Microsoft platform and move to the cloud at the same time? Please share your experience. 

This is a collection of interesting articles, blog posts, etc from around the web related to Cloud, Technology, Leadership, CIOs and the Enterprise.  In addition to our own content, the goal is to showcase the variety of conversations occurring around the web in the area of business productivity.  If you have others we should consider for future Digests, just post in the comments section.

Gartner Says Over Half of Innovation will be Gamified by 2015

Today, the tech research firm released a report that says over half of companies that want to drive innovation will be gamified by 2015 — and that in three years, gamified services for consumer goods marketing/customer retention will become as important as Facebook, Amazon or eBay.

Federal CIO Vivek Kundra Plans to Shut Down 100 Data Centers by 2012, 800 by 2015

It’s no secret that US Federal Government Chief Information Officer (CIO) is big on cloud computing. He had already said that he wants to move 25% of the government’s annual technology spending of $80 billion to the cloud.

CIO Brings Innovation to Business Process Outsourcing 

Joel Levinson is CIO at Maximus Canada Inc., a business process outsourcing provider of government and public sector services. He spoke with SearchCIO.com Editorial Director Scot Petersen at the recent Gartner CIO Leadership Forum in Scottsdale, Ariz., about CIO innovation and leadership.

I'm Hooked on the Cloud

Ever since the Microsoft Professional Developer’s Conference in October 2008, I've been hooked on Windows Azure. I could see immediately that Windows Azure provided a way for developers to build applications that scaled to "Internet scale." 

Microsoft's Virtualization Strategy: Q&A with David Greschler 

SearchServerVirtualization.com caught up with David Greschler, Microsoft's director of integrated virtualization strategy, to discuss Hyper-V and the company's overall virtualization strategy and plans. In part two of this interview, Greschler discusses Microsoft's vision of greater integration between server and desktop virtualization and cloud computing.

Today, we have a guest blog from Tony Tai, Sr. Product Manager on the Office 365 team. He frequently posts to the Why Microsoft Blog. He will share a recently released white paper and learning from customers who found that Google Apps could cost considerably more than the annual fee of $50/user. 

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Unable to resist the low price, I invested in an inkjet printer for my home some years ago. The cost was only a couple hundred dollars, so how could I go wrong? Even though I didn’t use the printer that much, the four color cartridges constantly ran out, each one costing me tens of dollars. Within a few months, I realized I had already spent more on the cartridges than I did for the printer itself. 

My experience with the printer reminded me to weigh the add-on costs, not just the purchase cost. In the same way, businesses transitioning to the cloud need to consider the total cost of their web-based productivity software. Google Apps may seem cheaper on the surface. But what about deployment, support, and training costs?

After examining the true costs of adopting Google Apps, many IT leaders tell me they reconsider their decision. For example, a CIO in the insurance industry told me that Google Apps looked attractive from a price perspective, but when employees piloted the software, they discovered serious limitations – including inadequate offline access to productivity applications.

Similarly, a CIO in the retail industry told me the price difference between Microsoft Online Services and Google Apps was minor, particularly considering the overall value of Microsoft Online Services. After concluding that Google Apps posed too big of a risk, he chose Microsoft. 

So what are the hidden costs of Google Apps? We recently released a white paper, “Look Before You Leap into Google Apps,” which examines the true impact of Google Apps on an organization. These identified hidden costs are based on many actual customer experiences. Some of the problems discovered with Google Apps include:

• Document fidelity: Opening Microsoft Office documents within Google Apps can create document fidelity problems, making it difficult to work with partners and customers.

• Data migration: When moving existing e-mail data to a hosted environment, some may not move and some may be corrupted.

• Installation and configuration: Employees may be required to install various software tools to function correctly with Google Apps, creating an IT Help Desk burden.

• Missing features: Google Apps lacks several communication and collaboration features found in Microsoft Office, meaning employees lose productivity each day.

• IT administration problems: Lost data recovery is not covered in Google’s Service Level Agreement. In addition, Google does not provide 24/7phone-based administrator support.

• Security concerns: Google does not support basic end-user security features such as e-mail encryption, the ability to flag messages as confidential or personal, information rights management, and watermark preservation. 

The takeaways are clear. When transitioning to the cloud, choose web-based productivity software that provides an integrated experience and a seamless transition for employees. Be sure this software offers the flexibility to extend communications capabilities. And make certain the software is based on a supported communications platform that you trust. In short, look before you leap.