“Cloud Computing” Will Radically Transform Mobile Applications
Apple’s iPhone sparked an explosion in consumer awareness of mobile applications. New applications are proliferating and “app stores” are springing up. But most of today’s applications need handsets with robust computing power, limiting their potential market. However a new architecture based on software running in the cloud will drastically change the way mobile applications are developed, acquired and used. According to a new study from ABI Research, this will be a profoundly disruptive development that could eclipse the current mobile application model by 2014, delivering revenue of nearly $20 billion annually by the end of that year.
“Mobile application developers today face the challenge of multiple mobile operating systems,” says senior analyst Mark Beccue. “Either they must write for just one OS, or create many versions of the same application. More sophisticated apps require significant processing power and memory in the handset. Using Web development, applications can run on servers instead of locally, so handset requirements can be greatly reduced and developers can create just one version of an application. This trend is in its infancy today, but ABI Research believes that eventually it will become the prevailing model for mobile applications.”
This approach is not without challenges, chief among which is intermittent network availability. A cloud-based application stops working if you lose your connection. However new programming languages such as HTML 5 will enable data caching on the handset, allowing work to continue until cellular signal is restored.
“Cloud computing will bring unprecedented sophistication to mobile applications,” Beccue notes. “To mention just a few examples, business users will benefit from collaboration and data sharing apps. Personal users will gain from remote access apps allowing them to monitor home security systems, PCs or DVRs, and from social networking mashups that let them share photos and video or incorporate their phone address books and calendars.”
ABI Research’s new study “Mobile Cloud Computing” details the mobile applications that 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. Forecasts include subscribers and revenue by region and application category using mobile cloud applications.
Berkery Noyes Research Shows First Half 2009 Software Merger & Acquisition
In line with broad based M&A trends, deal activity in the Software Industry contracted in the first half of 2009 from levels in the same period of last year. However, the rate of contraction has not been nearly as dramatic as in other Information Industry segments. Total transaction volume in the first half of 2009 decreased by a modest 10 percent over the first half of 2008, from 374 to 336 deals. Total transaction value in the first half of 2009 decreased by 28 percent over the first half of 2008, from $24.46 billion to $17.78 billion.
Financial buyers were sidelined during the first six months 2009, with the majority of transactions, 95 percent by volume and 85 percent by value, being strategically motivated. This ratio is consistent with trends shown in the first half of 2008. On a more positive note, there are subtle signs that private equity and other financial buyers may be getting back in the game. The proportion of financially motivated transactions increased during the first half, to 51 deals from the 49 announced during the first half of 2008.
Last October, Oracle's Larry Ellison stated, "If times are tough, there are other opportunities... including making acquisitions that cost less." Remaining committed to that strategy, Oracle lead software M&A activity in the first half of 2009 with the largest number of announced deals: five; and the largest single transaction: the $5.64 billion pending acquisition of Sun Microsystems.
ClickSoftware Acquires SaaS Capabilities for Field Service
ClickSoftware Technologies Ltd., a provider of mobile workforce management and service optimization solutions, has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the assets of AST (marketed as The Contractor Office).
ClickSoftware will acquire all the assets of AST including its technology, customers and employees. Under the terms of the definitive agreement, the consideration for the transaction is about $1.7 million in cash, most of which ClickSoftware will pay at the closing of the transaction, and a small amount of which will be paid contingent upon the achievement of certain targets. The closing is subject to certain closing conditions, and is expected to occur in July.
"Our vision is to provide field service management solutions for every size of service business from five employees to 50,000," said Dr. Moshe BenBassat, chairman and CEO of ClickSoftware. "In order to meet the needs of small service businesses, we recognized that we needed to provide an affordable but powerful Web-based field service management solution. Through this acquisition, we now have the platform, experience and capabilities to provide exactly that," he added.
"I am very pleased to see AST and The Contractor Office brand become part of ClickSoftware. Our companies share a unified vision of leading service businesses to excellence and a shared focus on customer satisfaction, leading-edge technology and innovative deployment models," said Tamir Oren, CEO of AST. "Our customers have made it very clear that reliability, trust and ease of use are key criteria for small businesses. Becoming part of the ClickSoftware team serves to address these criteria as well as greatly extending AST's reach and visibility in the market," he said.
Synergy Global Solutions selects Geminare, Inc. for First Cloud-Based Storage Service to Deliver Zero System Downtime to SMBs
Synergy Global Solutions, the second largest Managed Services Provider in the US based on the number of managed seats, has chosen Geminare's cloud-based storage service for their Small and Medium Sized Business (SMBs) clients. The solution combines the power of Amazon's S3 data storage infrastructure with real-time data replication to deliver robust archiving and high availability in one integrated platform.
"With this service we can offer our 75,000 managed Desktops access to highly scalable, reliable, fast and cost-effective storage, with the significant and unique ability to continue working without disruption during an unplanned outage or scheduled maintenance," said Clark Crook, president, Synergy Global Solutions. "Best of all, our clients have the capacity to add these capabilities on the fly, without investing in new infrastructure, staff or software."
"Clients can automatically compress and archive selected directories and files into the Amazon Cloud for up to seven years, and pull down saved, deleted or archived versions at any time through Geminare's secure portal," said Joshua Geist, president and CEO of Geminare, Inc. "In addition, because the Cloud Storage service is based on the Geminare Continuous Availability Architecture, clients can failover their servers and run directly from the cloud when needed".
This archiving capability enables SMBs to meet the strictest compliance standards, easily and without specialized expertise while protecting their onsite data from accidental deletions, modifications or corruption. Real-time replication ensures that, in the case of an unplanned outage, users are instantly redirected to a mirror version of their fileserver, which is immediately available at a secure Top Tier data center. Business continues as usual.
Corus Selects Univa for Private HPC Cloud
Corus Automotive has chosen Univa UD, provider of software solutions for enabling dynamic IT environments, to provide them with a solution for private cloud enablement of high-performance computing (HPC) applications.
This single solution includes Univa UniCluster 4.1 and Univa UniPortal 5. The UniCluster 4.1 HPC stack features Sun Grid Engine workload management, Oracle Enterprise Linux operating system, and the UniCluster suite of cluster and cloud management software. UniPortal 5 provides a Web-based user cockpit, delivering engineering and technical computing applications on-demand in a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) environment.
The integrated Oracle-Sun-Univa private cloud solution will optimize computational workload and make HPC computing simpler and more flexible via SaaS delivery of applications over the web. Univa increases the value of the solution by supporting all components, so users have a single path for support of the Oracle, Sun and Univa products.
Corus, a global manufacturer of steel products and services, selected the Univa solution for the Automotive Engineering team to create an internal environment for more easily submitting, executing, tracking and monitoring HPC workload, providing their users all necessary functionality to run HPC applications.
Private cloud computing is a form of cloud computing in which smaller, cloudlike IT systems within a corporate firewall offer on-demand, web-based computing services to a closed internal network.
The integrated solution includes UniCluster, Univa’s leading HPC systems management software product that provides a superior alternative to commercial cluster schedulers by integrating a range of technologies into a single, unified stack. Available for download at www.Grid.org, UniCluster includes expanded systems management functionality that automates repetitive and homegrown administrative tasks, significantly reducing time to value and TCO for cluster owners.
The solution also relies upon UniPortal, powered by NICE EnginFrame, which provides a user-friendly portal to easily access computing resources, data, licenses, batch applications and interactive applications. UniPortal’s evolutionary framework and security features fit the most demanding IT environments and easily blend with corporate Intranets, Extranets, enterprise portals and single-sign-on solutions.
InfoNow Secures $5 Million Series B Financing to Bolster Its Leadership in Channel Performance Optimization
InfoNow Corp., a provider of software as a service (SaaS)-based solutions for Channel Performance Optimization, has closed a $5 million Series B Preferred Stock financing. Vedanta Capital led the Series B financing, with existing investors Sequel Venture Partners and Sevin Rosen Funds both participating and increasing their investment in the company.
The infusion of new capital will help InfoNow extend its product and market leadership in delivering real-time channel visibility, agility and control, which are key to helping finance, sales, marketing and channel operations executives achieve their objectives. Building on its recent release of InfoNow 2.0, which included industry leading solutions for Channel Incentives Optimization, Pricing Compliance, Channel Inventory Optimization and the InfoNow Global Trading Partner Registry, InfoNow will use the funding to continue to accelerate global sales and marketing activities, as well as to extend its investment in product development.
“Increasingly, companies are looking to their indirect sales channels to help open new markets, accelerate time to value, and provide a competitive advantage in the marketplace,” said Tiffani Bova, Research VP, Gartner. “As a result, especially in today’s challenging economic environment, successful enterprises are looking for solutions that deliver real-time channel visibility and actionable insights that help identify the strategies that will optimize channel performance.”
InfoNow pioneered Channel Performance Optimization, and is the only complete solution provider in the market today. Its on-demand SaaS offerings help global technology manufacturers achieve sustainable competitive advantage and boost EPS by growing channel revenues while reducing costs. Based on its patented automated matching engine, InfoNow’s solutions deliver real-time, accurate and complete channel POS and inventory data as well as actionable insight into channel performance.
Since securing the Series A financing in October 2007, InfoNow has significantly added to its SaaS technology infrastructure and solution capabilities, accelerated its industry leadership over smaller competitors who rely on manual or low-technology approaches, and grown in revenue and customer acquisition despite the current recessionary market conditions. |
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