Juniper research, a Media Partner of the Cloud Computing Congress, reports on new mobile cloud computing findings.

As collaborative applications become ever more important for enterprise, a new report from Juniper Research has found that the number of enterprise customers using mobile cloud-based applications will rise to more than 130 million by 2014, facilitated by platform as a service (PaaS) deployments from key players such as Google and Microsoft.

The report found that the market for connected enterprise apps had benefitted from the success of Apple’s iPhone and App Store. It said that this was reflected both by a marked increase in both the number of enterprise apps available to end-users and also in the fact that such apps were themselves becoming far more attractive given the wide-ranging enhancements to smartphone user interfaces in the wake of the iPhone launch.

Furthermore, Juniper’s Mobile Cloud Applications research found that as cloud providers were increasingly opening up their APIs for application providers seeking to develop browser-based or thin client applications, this provided greater opportunity and incentive for developers seeking to reduce the costs associated by porting apps across multiple platforms.

According to report author Dr Windsor Holden, “A cloud-based ecosystem for enterprise apps will be attractive both for developers and enterprises alike. For developers, cloud opens up a far wider potential audience for their products; for enterprise customers, outsourcing application management to a remote third-party, costed on a scalable, pay-per-use basis, offers far more flexibility combined with a significant reduction in capital expenditure.”

Other findings from the Mobile Cloud Applications report include:

•         A cloud-based ecosystem offers storage and infrastructure suppliers the opportunity to enter the mobile arena by leverage their strengths in these areas to develop mobile-oriented cloud services

•         While enterprise applications will comprise the majority of cloud-based application revenues over the next five years, consumer applications including games, social networks and music services will together generate more than 25% of such revenues by 2014.

Juniper Research assesses the current and future status of mobile cloud based on interviews, case studies and analysis from representatives of some of the leading organisations in this bleeding edge industry.

Mobile Cloud whitepaper and further details of the study ‘Mobile Cloud Applications & Services: Monetising Enterprise & Consumer Markets 2009-2014’ can be freely downloaded from www.juniperresearch.com.  Alternatively, please contact John Levett at john.levett@juniperresearch.com, telephone +44(0)1256 830002.

To find out more about Mobile Cloud Computing you can visit the free to attend workshop sessions at the Cloud Computing Congress

The Cloud Computing Congress (http://www.cloudcomputingcongress.com ) , has just announced a range of free to attend workshops on mobile cloud computing, co-located with the Mobile Social Media forum (http://www.mobilesocial-networking.com ) .

The workshops  examine why mobile and cloud computing are the perfect fit, and how this can be used to generate the next generation mobile experience. The workshops also cover practical demo of hybrid and mobile cloud computing, and how core functionality can be expanded to mobile devices for the cloud. View the free to attend workshops here: http://www.cloudcomputingcongress.com/exhibition/workshops.html

“Cloud computing technologies look like they will become a changing force in the mobile world, facilitating mobile apps to be offered to a much broader audience of mobile subscribers.” commented Ian Johnson, MD , Six Degrees Events. “We are delighted to announce a range of free to attend workshops, and think that  the mobile social media event will help outline the next generation in mobile cloud applications, new business models, and the obstacles to be overcome. “

“What if you could build applications based on web standards, move the processing associated with the applications off the mobile device to powerful, centralized platforms and then use the Internet to access the applications, in essence moving these applications into the cloud?” (Mark Beccue, ABI Research)

Additional workshops at the event include cloud application development, Microsoft Azure overview and more.  To register for the free to attend workshop please go to – http://www.cloudcomputingcongress.com/register/free-exhibition.html

Learn which mobile applications will lead the growth, the key technologies, players and initiatives involved, new business models that will be introduced, and the barriers that must be overcome. Additional free to attend workshops with Facebook and other partners are co-located @ the social media world forum, please see agenda – http://www.socialmedia-forum.com/exhibition/workshops.html

Cloud Computing Congress  & Mobile Social Media is co-located with the Social Media World Forum (www.socialmedia-forum.com) an event that encompasses the entire spectrum of Social Media.  It will take place at Olympia, London on the 15/16 March.

Speaker line-up announced at the London Social Media Events.  200 confirmed speakers across the conferences.  See our full line-up below.

Speakers @ Enterprise Social Media & Cloud Computing http://www.cloudcomputingcongress.com – 15/16th March

* David Akka, MD, Magic Software Enterprises UK, Eire & Nordics
* Chris Rae, EMEA Director, Automation Solutions, CA
* Dion Hinchliffe, Editor in Chief, Social Computing Magazine & Web 2.0 Journal
* Geoff Timblick, Group Internal Communications Manager, New Media, Vodafone Group
* Helen Farrar, Head of Internal Communications, Virgin Media
* Martin Bellamy, CIO, Cabinet Office
* Adrian Steel, Head of Infrastructure Management, Royal Mail
* Thanos Kokkiniotis, Business IT Analyst, Shell International Ltd
* Eachan Fletcher, CIO, Sporting Index
* Simon Revell, Associate Director, Collaboration and Web Technologies, Pfizer
* David Wilde, CIO, Westminster City Council
* Per Rombouts, Project Manager Intranet & Social Media, ING Group
* Kenneth Verlage, CIO, DHL Express
* Paul James, CIO, Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, MOD
* Dominic Burch, Head of Corporate Comms and New Media, ASDA
* Sonia Carter, Senior Manager Online Communications, AXA
* Anthony Frost, Head of Corporate Communications, Santander
* Euan Semple, Independent Advisor/former Director of Knowledge Management BBC
* Alison Coward, Owner, Bracket
* Evangelos Kotsovinos, Vice President, Technology, Morgan Stanley
* Eachan Fletcher, CIO, Sporting Index
* Richard Ellis, Manager, UK & Ireland, Iron Mountain Digital
* Andrew Charlesworth, Director, Centre for IT and Law, University of Bristol
* Dr Bill Ashraf, Director of Technology Enhanced Learning, University of Sussex
* Adrian Davey, Head of IT, Tube Lines

Speakers @ Social Media World Forum 15/16th March – http://www.socialmedia-forum.com

* Lucas Herscovici, Global Marketing Manager, Becks
* Dr. Torsten Wigenter, Head of Social Media Marketing, Lufthansa
* Trevor Johnson, Head of Strategy and Planning, EMEA, Facebook
* Stephane Panier, Global Head, Bebo
* Nick Halstead, CEO, Tweetmeme
* Allison Wightman, Head of Marketing Systems, Virgin Atlantic
* Kerryn Dinsdale, Senior PR Manager, Barclaycard
* Muhammad Karim, Senior Brand Manager, Mars
* Peter Crosby, COO, Viadeo
* Dr. Helmut Becker, COO, XING
* Mark Schmid, Communications Director, Talk Talk
* Martine Edgell, CRM Specialist, Mercedes Benz
* Neal Sato, CTO, mixi
* Christian Schultz, Head of Communications, Mattel
* Michael Smith, Deputy Director of Interactive Services, COI
* Lorenz Bogaert, CEO, Netlog
* Jason Baker, Head of CRM and Digital Media, Ikea UK
* Justin Kan, founder and President, Justin.tv
* Guy Clapperton, Freelance Journalist, Editor and Broadcaster
* Penny Power, Author, International Speaker, Entrepreneur and founder of Ecademy
* Matthew Fraser, Senior Fellow at INSEAD & co-author of  ‘Throwing Sheep in the Boardroom
* Fred McIntyre, Vice President, Product, CBS Interactive
* Sienne Veit, Social and Mobile Commerce Development, Manager, M&S Direct
* Ricky Chopra, Digital Marketing Manager, Speedo International Limited
* Igor Beuker, Founder, SocialMedia8
* David Henry, VP Digital Marketing, Europe, Monster Worldwide
* Mark Watts-Jones, Head of Development & Innovation, Orange UK
* Lisa Mane, Head of Social Media, COI
* Mike Gamoroff, Owner & MD, Gamoroff
* Will McInnes, Managing Director, NixonMcInnes
* Michael Caselli, Editor, Online Casino News
* Adam Caplan, Vice President – Virtual Currency (Super Rewards), Adknowledge
* Neal Sato, CTO, mixi
* Fred McIntyre, Vice President, Product, CBS Interactive
* Oli Newton, Head of Emerging Platforms, i-Level
* Celina Maguire, Consumer Director, Gorkana
* Laila Takeh, Online Manager, British Heart Foundation
* Kristin Wadge, Director, Metrica
* Sam Barratt, Head of Media, Oxfam
* Craig Elder, Online Communities Editor, Conservative Campaign HQ
* Alex Aiken, Head of Communications, Westminster City Council
* Kerry McCarthy, Labour MP for Bristol East & New Media Communications Spokesperson
* Mark Jones, Online and Social Media Editor, Thomson Reuters
* Alex Miller, Head of Social Media, i-Level
* Markus Berger – de Leon, CEO, VZ Networks
* Angel Gambino, Vice President, Sonico

Speakers @ Social TV & Mobile Social Media 15/16^th March  include – http://www.social-tv.net & http://www.mobilesocial-networking.com

• Robert Marsh, VP, Interactive & Telephony, Freemantle Media
• Peter Ward, Co-founder & CEO, WAYN
• Bob Rapp, Head, User Communities, Vodafone Group
• Rahul Chakkara, Controller of TV Platforms, BBC
• Angel Gambino, Vice President, Sonico
• Mark Watts-Jones, Head of Development & Innovation, Orange UK
• Yoel Flohr, Head of Mobile, Bebo
• Andrew Kearney, Vice President TV Products at UPC Broadband
• Richard Griffiths, Director TV and Entertainment, Eircom
• Nicolas Bry, Vice President, Orange Vallee
• Kevin Baughan, Head Technical Strategy, Virgin Media
• Ian Kegel, Head of Future Content Group, BT UK
• Triona Campbell, CEO, Campbell Ryan
• Pasa Mustafa, Head of Digital Studios, Endemol
• Damien Byrne, Head of Entertainment, T Mobile
• Miroslaw Smyk, General Manager TV Business Division at Romtelecom
• Matt Dicks, CMO, Flirtomatic
• John Cole, Managing Director UK, Adknowledge
• Claudio Venezia, Researcher, Telecom Italia
• Cian O’Sullivan, Editor in Chief, GoMo News
• Tim Hussain, Head of Mobile and Video Advertising
• Guillaume de Saint Marc, VP R&D New Initiatives, NDS
• Konstantinos Papamiltiadis, Head of Product, Mobile – EU, Yahoo!
• Paul Berney, Managing Director Europe, Mobile Marketing Association
• Adrian Drury, Principle / Media, Broadcast & Telecoms, Ovum
• Paul Berney, Managing Director, Europe, MMA
• Deborah Porton, Head of Mobile Development, Badoo Ltd
• Franco Beschizza, Head of Mobile, Interactive Services, COI
• Konstantinos Papamiltiadis, Head of Product, Mobile – EU, Yahoo!
• Martin Harris, SVP Corporate Sales, Bango
• Peter Ward, Co-Founder & Co-CEO, WAYN.com
• Stefanie Hoffmann, CEO Finance, Business Development, aka aki
• Simon Spanswick, Chief Executive, Association for International Broadcasting
• Dan Cryan, Head of Broadband, Screen Digest
• Paul Bristow, Vice-President of Strategy, ADB
• Dr William Cooper Founder and Chief Executive, informitv.com
• Justin Kan, founder and President, Justin.tv
• Aliza Beckett, Business Development, Web, Mobile & New Platforms, Channel 4
• Chi-chi Ekweozor, Director, RealFresh.tv
• Dick Rempt, CEO, Talents Media
• Richard Lindsay Davis, Director General, DTG
• Benjamin Schwarz, Owner, CTO Innovation Consulting
• Martin Jarrold, Chief, International Programme Development GVF

Microsoft Corporation, the world’s leading manufacturer of software for business and personal computing, announced today that they will be hosting a workshop presentation on their cloud platform offering ‘Windows Azure’ at the Cloud Computing Congress, http://www.cloudcomputingcongress.com/ taking place on the 16th March at Olympia, London.

Eric Nelson, Microsoft’s Developer Evangelist will be giving an introduction to one of the leading cloud platforms that is at the cutting edge of the Cloud Computing Age. Attendees will learn what Windows Azure is capable of doing and why, how and when you should adopt the Azure platform that went into production on the 4th January 2010.

The workshop session is a must attend for resellers, developers, the IT community and independent software vendors (ISVs) who can explore the potential to increase revenues and decrease its costs.

The free to attend session will demonstrate Windows Azure PaaS offering that enables applications built in .NET, Java, Ruby, PhP, SQL Server, MySQL and more to be run on Microsoft Data Centers. To register for your free exhibition and workshop pass register here http://www.cloudcomputingcongress.com/register/free-exhibition.html

“For the past decade we have relied on Microsoft for underpinning technologies in our foundational SaaS, infrastructure services and innovations in the Media & Entertainment and Enterprise markets’’, said Darcy Lorincz, CEO of Origin Digital. “Integration with the Windows Azure platform is another market leading, evolutionary step for our company and we expect that Origin Digital and our customers will benefit from performance and cost benefits for years to come.’’

“The Cloud Computing Congress is an event designed for building partnerships across the board, and providing a good networking environment for those to communicate and take the cloud debate forward.” commented Ian Johnson, Managing Director, Six Degrees Events. “I’m especially interested in heading the latest in the demand for mobile devices and mobile cloud computing, and the challenges this presents.”

The Cloud Computing Congress will run simultaneously with other conferences including; Enterprise Social Media (http://www.enterprisesocialmedia.net, Social Media World Forum (http://www.socialmedia-forum.com), Mobile Social Media (http://www.mobilesocial-networking.com)

About Windows Azure

Windows Azure is the cloud services operating system that serves as the development, service hosting, and service management environment for the Windows Azure Platform. Windows Azure provides developers with on-demand compute and storage to host, scale and manage web applications on the Internet through Microsoft Data Centers.

Windows Azure supports a consistent development experience through its integration with Visual Studio. Windows Azure is an open platform that will support both Microsoft and non-Microsoft languages and environments. Windows Azure welcomes third-party tools and languages such as Eclipse, Ruby, PHP, and Python.

Hilton London Olympia – 380 Kensington High Street London W14 8NL, United Kingdom

We are pleased to have partnered with The Hilton London Olympia Hotel to offer all Cloud Computing Congress visitors a discounted room rate for the 14th, 15th & 16th March 2010.

We only have a limited number of rooms reserved, so we do recommend making your reservation soon!

Room Rates:

Hilton Guest Double/Twin

Single occupancy £105.00 per room including VAT & English Breakfast

Double Occupancy £115.00 per room including VAT & English Breakfast

To Book:

To take advantage of the above discounted room rates simply contact Julie Allen on +44 (0) 207 856 1902 or email Julie.allen (@) hilton.com and quote ASNE.

If you do not quote this promotional code at the time of booking your will not receive the event hotel rate.

The Hilton London Olympia hotel is on the bustling Kensington High Street, 2 minutes’ walk from Olympia Exhibition Centre with Heathrow Airport just 14 miles away. The hotel has many facilities – contemporary Plum Grill, socialize at Plum Bar or watch the match at Plum Sports Lounge.

The Hilton will also host the events pre networking get2gether on the evening of the 14th March within the Plum Bar.

The success of Web 2.0 consumer web sites teaches us many lessons about how we can improve internal IT and business to consumer online applications. Social technologies have made it progressively easier and easier for people to find each other, share information and collaborate, and we have seen how a singular focus on supporting individual needs can crete powerful network effects when aggregated at scale.

However, these and other lessons have not yet penetrated the world of corporate IT in most companies today, which means expensive, centralised and highly bureaucratic models of co-ordination and collaboration are the norm.

The recession is a perfect time to change this, and to seek leaner, flatter business processes and structures that act as enablers rather than dampeners of innovation and initiative. We simply cannot afford the high-cost models of internal co-ordination that have persisted for so long.

The key to this change is recognising that, in most cases, people power is the best way to get things done, and the role of technology is to augment human cognition and decision making, rather than try to replicate or replace it. People over process. This is why so many employees in companies have reached out to find each other using consumer online social networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn in preference to their own internal systems, which do not provide easy ways to network with colleagues to get the job done. Similarly, we have seen people go outside the firewall to initiate wikis for collaboration, or blogs for sense making, or perhaps consumer RSS management tools for information management. Each of these capabilities should be available within a modern corporate IT setting.

We can now take advantage of a range of enterprise-ready social tools, including blogs, wikis, social networking tools, information management tools and so on, and these are generally a great deal cheaper and more effective than older generations of internal IT systems. As people have become accustomed to the simple user experience of Google’s tools or Facebook in their non-work lives, they are increasingly asking why the experience of internal IT in their companies must be so poor, so frustrating and such a time sink. The fact is, it doesn’t need to be that way. It can be smarter, simpler and more delightful to use, and the transition to lightweight social tools can achieve much of what internal IT has promised, but so far failed to deliver.

Lee Bryant is the Director of headshift www.headshift.com

To find out more about the next Enterprise Social Media event taking place on 15th March 2010 at Olympia, London, visit http://www.enterprisesocialmedia.net/

Time to let your staff use social media at work?

It’s a license for staff to waste time.   There’s no control about what they say.   What happens if a customer makes contact with them direct?

Today’s arguments against allowing your staff to use social media at work?  Actually they were pretty much the arguments used by companies to restrict email use in the mid 1990s.

That’s worth bearing in mind as the social media in the office debate rages.

Today it’s received wisdom that email is an essential business tool, and so it will be with social media before too long.

Especially with metrics firm Nielsen showing that communication via social networks overtook communication via email.   And from personal experience, I can now think of several instances of clients messaging me direct on Twitter as opposed to pinging me an email.

However just like with 90s email, the first stage of workplace social media acceptability is to publish dos and don’ts guidelines about what’s allowed.   Even though a survey by Monster showed that 90% of workers are afraid of using Twitter for fear of getting in trouble, a number of firms have done just that.

As with all internal guidelines this ranges from the simple to the ones filled with corporate speak.

For example, Opera, the makers of the Internet browser of the same name, published a series of eight easy to understand rules: Share your thoughts, be active, “we’re not your mama”, don’t give away the farm, check your sources, our friends are your friends, for the squeamish post a disclaimer and use your common sense.

Australian telecoms giant Telstra publicly released guidelines revolving around the ‘three Rs’ – responsibility, respect and representation.   And at the far end of the scale, Canadian broadcaster CBC published criteria that they backtracked on after it caused a fuss, saying that personal blogs couldn’t be used to espouse a partisan political opinion.

The bottom line is though social media isn’t going to go away, it’s part and parcel of today’s Internet environment and it’s what graduates in particular who join your organisations see as second nature.

As with so much of social media, you can either set out the parameters of your involvement now.   Or stick your head in the sand and wait until it comes to you, when you are forced to react to it.

Follow Dirk Singer, Director and Digital Planner at brand communications agency Cow, on Twitter at twitter.com/dirkthecow or visit his blog at http://www.thisisherd.com

The next Enterprise Social Media event takes place on 15th March 2010 at Olympia in London.

To be in for a chance to attend the “Must attend” Cloud Computing event of the year FREE, simply take part in our Re-Tweet competition!

It’s Really Easy to Enter

All you need to do is put your social media skills to the test and re-tweet our competition tweet on your twitter. Just make sure your tweet contains our Twitter name (@cloud_comp_news so we can track you as a contestant) and link to this blog post

Tweet – “I am tweeting to win a free pass @cloud_comp_news, http://bit.ly/8qBTYm”

That’s all you have to do!

Winner Announcement

The winner will be selected by random on the 22nd January 2010 at 12.00 GMT. We will announce the winner via Twitter the same day (so we highly suggest you follow us and will contact the winner through DM. The winner will win a two day pass to the Cloud Computing Congress & Enterprise Social Media event taking place on the 15^th & 16^th March at Olympia Conference Centre, London.

Please Note: The winner will be responsible for their own travel and accommodation costs.

Rules of Competition

In order to participate, you must have a Twitter account, and have accepted the Terms of Service of Twitter. Members from every part of the world can enter the competition. In order to participate, you must send a valid Twitter message. A valid Twitter message, or tweet, contains our Twitter name (@cloud_comp_news so we can track you as a contestant), and a link to this contest page (of which http://bit.ly/8qBTYm is a short version)

For more information about our events please visit: www.socialmediaseries.net www.socialtvseries.com www.cloudcomputingseries.com

Register for your conference pass by the end of Friday 15th January for your last chance to take advantage of our excellent early bird savings. To save 25% off your conference passes and for full conference pass types simply visit our registration page and sign up today!

All conference passes include complimentary refreshments during the day(s) and hot food. You will also be invited to attend our official networking event on the evening of the 15th March in a central London location – providing a great opportunity to network with a few beverages.

Book Today!

We’re pleased to announce that BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, will be supporting Enterprise Social Media and the Cloud Computing Congress.

BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, promotes wider social and economic progress through the advancement of information technology science and practice.

We bring together industry, academics, practitioners and government to share knowledge, promote new thinking, inform the design of new curricula, shape public policy and inform the public.

As the professional membership and accreditation body for IT, we serve over 70,000 members including practitioners, businesses, academics and students, in the UK and internationally. We deliver a range of professional development tools for practitioners and employees.

A leading IT qualification body, we offer a range of widely recognised professional and end-user qualifications.