Real World Computing

It wasn't all that long ago that cloud services were frowned upon in business circles but 2015 looks like being the year of cloud adoption. So far, I've personally signed up for three major options, Google Apps for Business Microsoft Office 365 IBM Smartcloud Connections  Of course, there's a few smaller options in there too, like Symantec.Cloud which we use for Anti-Spam and Mail Archiving and Telstra's cloud services which we use in other capacities. Data Protection One of the things that has kept businesses well away from the idea of cloud services is belief that the US government has more access to data on cloud servers. In a way, this is true, particularly if those servers reside in the US. Personally I don't understand why the US Government is considered to be such a threat to legitimate business but rest assured, I've seen the reactions. People clearly don't want their data to be snooped. The problem is that the details of these laws...

Collaboration is the main buzzword in the computer industry these days and there are offerings from all the major vendors; IBM/Lotus, Microsoft and Google. Their collaboration bundles have all recently leapt from the desktop into the web 2.0 cloud and seem to be the answer to all our business problems - but are they? I think that the answer is very industry specific. I have no doubt that collaboration is a boon for the computing industry and I can see how the sharing of code and the discussion of bugs and product features can provide huge benefits. I can see similar benefits for project management in other industries such as mining and manufacturing too. The benefits for big business, particularly big "distributed" businesses with offices all around the world are obvious but it's one thing to look at collaboration within the business. External business-to-business collaboration however is a whole new ballgame. It's what collaboration is really all about. Who doesn...