Citrix Synergy in Los Angeles New Innovations to Equip People with Mobile Workspaces

May 20, 2014, Tuesday - Citrix Synergy, held in Los Angeles, California this year, concluded on a successful note.

The annual flagship industry conference by Citrix, held from 6 – 8 May at the Anaheim Convention Center, unveiled new mobility technologies and strategies that will provide support for people to work better from anywhere with mobile workspace solutions. The latest solutions also promise IT teams comprehensive control and management capabilities across the entire enterprise’s IT infrastructure.

The IT industry is witnessing a rapid explosion of new and heterogeneous devices and app platforms, coupled with the rising trend of consumerization, BYOD and an increasingly digitally-savvy generation who prefer to work whenever, wherever and however they choose.

Brad Peterson, Steve Daheb, and Catherine Courage at the Synergy 2014 Keynote.

Citrix Synergy focused on the four key aspects of solutions that businesses need in order to equip their people with mobile workspaces to enhance productivity and achieve strategic differentiation in today’s dynamic and mobile world.

Virtualization: Synergy discussed state-of-the-art mobility solutions for enabling IT to transform any Windows app or a complete desktop into a secured, on-demand cloud service. Major focus areas included how to optimize user experience on any device with new approaches to desktop and app virtualization, Windows app migration, virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), remote desktop session (RDS) and client virtualization, including administration, service delivery, security and mobility.

Mobility: Synergy provided in-depth coverage of the latest mobility trends and how innovations and technologies are able to empower people to work from anywhere, all while providing IT with full configuration, security and management control of apps, data and devices. Key topics included mobile app and device management, app stores, mobile security, social and real-time collaboration, mobile data access and workshifting.

Citrix CEO Mark Templeton at the Synergy 2014 Keynote.

Networking: Synergy covered the latest developments in network virtualization, load balancing, software-defined networking, disaster and site recovery, app security and multi-tenancy in private and public clouds. Key topics included how businesses can be ensured of the best mobility, performance and availability by accelerating and securing enterprise applications across LANs, WANs, the internet and cloud.

Cloud: Synergy explored an extensive range of topics from automation, orchestration, and networking, to access and management for compute and application services.

Key focus was on automated, elastic, “anything-as-a-service” clouds that enable businesses to ensure the best security, performance and reliability, be it running off an on premise enterprise datacenter, or in an external cloud.

This month’s news update from Citrix highlights new and innovative ways for customers to advance and mobilize their businesses and employees by delivering desktops, apps, data and services to any user, on any device, over any network or cloud, via a single solution and in a secure fashion.

Citrix Workspace Suite
Citrix Workspace Suite is a new, single, flexible solution that unites virtualization, mobility, networking and cloud services technologies to improve employee productivity, simplify IT and fully secure enterprise content. The full suite of solutions supports multiple corporate or personal devices per user and provides instant secure access to all apps, desktops, data and services over any network, while simplifying how organizations manage their end user computing environment. Various technologies, such as application and desktop virtualization, mobile application and device management, native mobile productivity apps, enterprise file sync and share, WAN optimization and access gateway enable comprehensive management of application, desktop and mobile infrastructures. According to Gartner, the mobile workspace market is expected to grow 15 times in the next three years as organizations embrace business mobility.  With the spurt of new devices and app platforms, combined with the rapid growth in consumerization, mobility and BYOD initiatives, organizations are driven to find a way to manage and secure the diversity of today’s IT environments. With Citrix Workspace Suite, businesses can enable their people with comprehensive, secure and personalized mobile workspaces, and empower them with an unprecedented level of freedom, flexibility and choice in the way they work.

Citrix XenMobile enterprise mobility management and mobile productivity apps
The new release of Citrix XenMobile enterprise mobility management (EMM) solution is accompanied with new workflow-driven mobile productivity apps -- WorxNotes, WorxEdit and WorxDesktop. The EMM solution offers significant enhancements in user experience, platform security and support, as well as management integrations that improve scalability and speed time to value for business. The new workflow-driven mobile productivity apps are key business apps with intelligent integrations that seamlessly work together, resulting in a simple and intuitive user experience. Today, mobility is a top priority for organizations from healthcare providers to government institutions. Organizations recognize the need to securely deliver mobile workspaces that provide all the business tools and information their employees need, whether they are in the office, or on the move, in order to stay agile and drive business growth.

New ShareFile Connectors
The new ShareFile StorageZone Connectors help businesses by establishing direct and secure mobile access to data in its original location behind the corporate firewall. In addition, the new ShareFile Personal Cloud Connectors allow users to access their Box, Dropbox, Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive accounts from ShareFile itself, providing enterprises with the flexibility to determine how and where users store files. In a nutshell, the new and enhanced Citrix ShareFile delivers the broadest storage access for users and gives users the ability to access and edit files from multiple data sources on their mobile devices with a single access point. At the same time, businesses have more control over their data encryption keys. This results in increased productivity and security.

Citrix NetScaler MobileStream
The now available NetScaler MobileStream technology delivers the most advanced cloud and mobile networking capabilities, significantly improving mobile network and application performance, along with network visibility, while tightening security for both the enterprise and the end user.  IT teams have started to embrace a mobile-first agenda, with the explosion of mobile devices in business and the exponential growth of consumerization. The technology improves mobile performance by virtually eliminating the impact of sporadic connectivity caused by legacy communication technologies and website designs, and transparently leverages wireless and cellular connectivity with intelligent dual network mode technology. This results in mobile apps loading and running five times faster, enabling employees to maximize productivity as well as enhance user experience.

Citrix Advances Innovation in Business Mobility
At Citrix Synergy™, Citrix unveiled advancements toward its vision of providing ways for people to work better from anywhere with mobile workspace solutions. At this week’s conference, attendees will learn about how new offerings based on Citrix virtualization, mobility, networking and cloud services technologies can further enable secure delivery of apps, desktops, data and services to any user, on any device, over any network or cloud.

Citrix Announces Workspace Services, Cloud-based Platform for DaaS, Virtual App Delivery and Mobility
At Citrix Synergy™, Citrix announced Citrix Workspace Services™, the first platform for designing, building and delivering mobile workspaces. The cloud-based platform allows both partners and customers to rapidly build and offer desktops-as-a-service (DaaS), virtual application delivery and mobility services from any cloud. Citrix leads the DaaS market today serving over 350,000 subscribers, growing 50 percent annually, through over 1,500 service providers who offer hosted desktops and applications. Building on this momentum, Citrix is introducing new capabilities for its partners and customers. Citrix Workspace Services is a cloud-based platform that enables partners, enterprises and independent software vendors (ISVs) to quickly and simply design and deliver mobile workspaces that allow people to work better and increase business productivity, agility and efficiency. Workspace Services builds upon a full range of Citrix technologies including the open architecture of Citrix XenApp® and Citrix XenDesktop® virtual app and desktop delivery, the market-leading user experience of Citrix HDX™ technologies, the most robust mobility solution with Citrix XenMobile®, a comprehensive data fabric with Citrix ShareFile® and a global customer care service with Citrix GoToAssist®.

Citrix ShareFile Secures Files for Today’s Mobile Workspaces
At Citrix Synergy™, Citrix announced new Citrix ShareFile® features that deliver the broadest storage access for users and the most choice for IT. The new features give users the ability to access and edit files from multiple data sources on their mobile devices and businesses more control over their data encryption keys, resulting in increased productivity and security. These capabilities are available in the company’s secure file sync and sharing solution ShareFile, Citrix XenMobile® and the new Citrix Workspace Suite.

Citrix and Cisco Join Forces to Power Mobile Workspaces
At Citrix Synergy™, Cisco and Citrix announced they are bringing their industry-leading technologies together in a tested and validated enterprise mobility infrastructure solution. The Cisco® Mobile Workspace Solution with Citrix – including the new Citrix Workspace Suite™ also announced today at Synergy – simplifies how organizations provide highly secure and optimized access to apps, data, communications and services on any device from networked locations.

Quest and Citrix Collaborate to Deliver DaaS for Business
At Citrix Synergy™, Citrix announced that Quest, one of the first and largest desktop-as-a-service (DaaS) providers, has aligned with Citrix to offer services using Citrix market-leading DaaS technologies, including Citrix XenApp® and Citrix XenDesktop® virtual app and desktop delivery, to provide workspaces-as-a-service for businesses. Citrix technology provides a complete mobile workspace solution that securely delivers apps, desktops, files and services to any user, on any device, over any network. Quest brings a deep understanding of managed and cloud services to its customers, providing customizable services to the healthcare, financial services, higher education, government, and manufacturing industries. Quest services are built on the Cisco Desktop® as a Service solution, which includes Citrix technology and brings scalability, performance advantages and simplified management to the Quest platform.

Citrix Unveils Latest XenMobile Release and Technology Preview of New Mobile Productivity Apps
At Citrix Synergy™, Citrix announced a new release of its Citrix XenMobile® enterprise mobility management (EMM) solution and a technology preview of new WorxNotes™, WorxEdit™ and WorxDesktop™ workflow-driven mobile productivity apps. The new XenMobile release includes significant enhancements in user experience, platform security and support, as well as management integrations that improve scalability and speed time to value for business. The new workflow-driven mobile productivity apps from Citrix are key business apps with intelligent integrations that seamlessly work together, resulting in a simple and intuitive user experience. For example, people can join a meeting directly from their calendar, take notes and distribute them to all participants with just a few simple taps. As a result, mobile employees can be more productive on their tablets and phones, while IT retains control.

Citrix Introduces Industry’s Most Comprehensive Mobile Workspace Solution
At Citrix Synergy™, Citrix announced the new Citrix Workspace Suite, which unites its market-leading virtualization, mobility, networking and cloud services technologies to make it even easier for people to work anywhere. Providing instant, secure access to all apps, desktops, data and services from any device over any network, Citrix Workspace Suite enables businesses to empower people to choose when, where and how work gets done, giving them a new level of freedom, flexibility and choice.

Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop Extend Lead in Mobile Workspaces
At Citrix Synergy™, Citrix is providing an early view of upcoming releases of Citrix XenApp® and Citrix XenDesktop®, the company’s industry-leading solutions for delivering Windows in the mobile-cloud era. New versions of XenApp and XenDesktop were released in March 2014, and Citrix is continuing a brisk pace of innovation in its flagship products to drive even higher levels of security and user experience for mobility and cloud on the unified platform for virtual Windows apps and desktops. At the conference, Citrix will provide an early view of refinements that enhance security capabilities, provide high-performance HTML5 browser-based access from any device, enable fast log-ons, simplify roaming apps across multiple devices and support for the latest USB 3.0 peripherals, as well as many more real-world, customer-driven features. In addition, Citrix is releasing a private technology preview of tools that will facilitate migration to the latest releases for existing customers. XenApp and XenDesktop are cornerstones of the new Citrix Workspace Suite, which unites its market-leading virtualization, mobility, networking and cloud services technologies to make it even easier for people to work anywhere.

Citrix Unveils NetScaler MobileStream Technology
At Citrix Synergy™, Citrix announced the availability of NetScaler® MobileStream™ technology, which significantly improves mobile network and application performance along with network visibility, while tightening security for both the enterprise and the end user. With the explosion of mobile devices in business and the relentless growth of consumerization, IT has started to explicitly embrace a mobile-first agenda. In fact, according to industry analysts, 77 percent of enterprises state that providing mobility support for employees inside and outside the office is a strategic network priority. NetScaler MobileStream improves data security and mobility support, delivering the most advanced cloud and mobile networking capabilities in the industry. Coupled with the broader Mobile Workspace Suite, only Citrix offers the purpose-built mobile networking functionality that creates a complete end-to-end solution for truly empowering mobile workstyles.

Autodesk Wins 2014 Citrix Innovation Award
At Citrix Synergy™, Autodesk was announced as the winner of the company’s 9th annual Innovation award, designed to recognize visionary customers who are using Citrix solutions for delivering mobile workspaces to drive business innovation and IT simplicity. Autodesk used Citrix solutions to harness virtualization technology and create a new cloud-based development environment that has resulted in a faster, lower-cost, and higher quality process.  Autodesk engineers now have access to on-demand development resources via self-service; and without the need for physical hardware, engineers are able to work from anywhere. In addition, as Autodesk accelerates the development of next-generation, cloud-based tools for design, engineering, and entertainment; engineers can work on multiple projects in parallel and easily collaborate between different locations.

Citrix Podio Gives Users More Power to Design and Customize Their Workflows with the New ‘Creator’ Release
Citrix announced significant enhancements to Podio, the popular productivity and work management tool in its mobile workspace portfolio. The platform’s redesigned look and feel empowers any user to dramatically reimagine the way they organize their everyday work. Improvements include a faster user interface, intuitive new drag-and-drop design and more powerful ways to automate and link tasks within Podio.

New IBM Kenexa Talent Suite Taps Big Data To Energize Today’s Workforce

Cloud-Based Software to Combine Social Business Capabilities, Watson Foundations and Workforce Science to Modernize Human Capital Management

ARMONK, N.Y., January 28, 2014 –IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced the software-as-service (SaaS)-based IBM Kenexa Talent Suite that allows Chief Human Resources Officers (CHROs) and C-Suite executives to gain actionable insights into the deluge of data shared every day by their workforce. As a result, organizations can now streamline, modernize and add precision to hiring practices, increase workforce productivity and connect employees in ways that impact business results.

Organizations around the world today are on a mission to identify and hire top talent. By hiring precisely the right employees and then arming them with powerful social tools, businesses can more effectively manage and develop their workforce and put them into the position to succeed.

With the IBM Kenexa Talent Suite, HR professionals can look at large volumes of employee data – such as work experience, social engagement, skills development and individual interests – to identify the qualities that make top performers successful. Organizations and teams can then use those models to pursue candidates through additional targeted social marketing on social recruiting sites, where job seekers matching the profile are automatically connected with opportunities matching their skills.

Customers can accelerate the onboarding and the integration of new hires through IBM Connections capabilities. This helps employees share information and find the right experts to accelerate learning and increase productivity and engagement, while at the same time providing a way for leaders to more effectively manage their teams. Through analytics and reporting, line of business leaders can better understand emerging employee trends and more effectively manage each individual career path in areas like skill attainment, performance appraisals, compensation, succession planning and more.

“We know people are the lifeblood of an organization, and business success on today’s stage requires not just talent but social capabilities that can energize, empower and nurture each team member so they can reach their full potential,” said Craig Hayman, General Manager, Industry Cloud Solutions, IBM. “By combining social, behavioral science and analytics in the cloud, we give businesses a clear path to empower their most valued asset – employees.”

Interested customers can complement the Suite with Watson Foundations, a comprehensive, integrated set of Big Data and Analytics capabilities that enable clients to find and capitalize on actionable insights. Watson Foundations provides the tools and capabilities to tap into relevant data – regardless of source or type – and apply a full range of analytics to gain fresh insights in real-time, securely across an enterprise.

Using Watson Foundations customers will be able to conduct a deeper level of analysis on key workforce-related data, identify trends within the workforce, predict future trends and proactively take action. Executives can also look at the profiles and work performance of their top employees and determine the appropriate type of rewards needed to keep them engaged.

According to an upcoming IBM C-Suite study that surveyed 342 CHROs representing 18 industries, many businesses are not taking full advantage of the insights delivered by workforce big data and analytics. The study found that just over half of organizations are using workforce analytics, with far fewer applying predictive analytics to optimize decision making and outcomes in areas such as sourcing and recruiting (7 percent), employee engagement and commitment (9 percent) and talent development (10 percent), retention (13 percent).

The CHRO study also found that human resources executives are in the early stages of applying social approaches within the organization. Currently, 66 percent are regularly using social for their recruiting efforts, but only 31 percent are using it for knowledge sharing and 41 percent for learning.

Today leading businesses such as AMC are benefiting from IBM talent management software. AMC, one of the world’s premier entertainment companies, uses recruitment technologies from IBM to gain a deep understanding through data analytics of what it takes to succeed at the organization. AMC then uses that knowledge to attract candidates who are more likely to succeed once they're hired.
“Harnessing the power of data gives us a better picture of what top talent looks like in our industry. IBM’s talent management solutions allow us to use data in new ways so we can make better informed decisions that have a greater impact on our business,” said Heather Jacox, Director, Diversity, Recruitment & Development at AMC.

The IBM Kenexa Talent Suite includes the following:

    · Talent Acquisition: Includes recruitment, skill and behavioral science-based assessments and onboarding. These integrated functions are designed to provide a deep understanding of what the best talent looks like and then how to attract, hire and engage them.
    · Talent Optimization: Includes performance management, succession planning and compensation planning to empower and get the most out of employees.
    · Social Networking:  Increases productivity with expertise identification and knowledge discovery – connecting employees and accelerating the time to productivity.

What 2014 will mean for the ASEAN Enterprise

December 16, 2013, Kuala Lumpur - 2013 was a period of significant change in the IT industry across ASEAN as a host of new, innovative technologies – including cloud, big data, and mobility platforms – took hold in each country, albeit as different rates of adoption.

For example, 2013 saw private clouds gain traction this year, replacing PCs as the choice location to store data and access services.

What these technologies offer enterprises operating in these emerging markets are a combination of internal operational efficiencies and savings, and more importantly, the opportunity to create new revenue streams.

2014 will see the continuation of these trends and the emergence of others. For example, enterprise mobility management and Bring Your Own (BYO) initiatives will take firm hold in ASEAN enterprises in 2014. Indeed, the number of personal devices – ranging from smartphones and tablets to desktops and laptops – that will be used for work will grow. This will make it imperative for enterprises to develop strategies for managing data that take this into account.

Mark Micallef, Area Vice President, ASEAN, Citrix, shares his insights on four key trends and provides some examples of how enterprises have leveraged and benefited from them in the ASEAN region.

1. Embracing mobility at the workplace 
According to Gartner’s predictions of 2014 strategic trends, through to 2018, the growing variety of devices, computing styles, user contexts and interaction paradigms will increase access and mobility for employees. Enterprise policies on employee-owned hardware usage need to be thoroughly reviewed and, where necessary, updated and extended. Specific technologies will be needed to ensure employees and contractors have secure access to “everything, everywhere” regardless of device type (desktop, laptop, tablet, or smartphone) or of ownership (corporate or employee owned). This also provides end users with choices on the best way to complete their work tasks.

This is in line with the Citrix ‘Mobility in Business’ survey report released in 2013 where 47 percent of companies globally now have a formal mobility strategy in place with an additional 35 percent to follow suit within the coming year. This is becoming increasingly necessary, especially with the rapidly expanding use of mobile devices, mobile apps at the workplace, and file sharing and storage among employees.

One great example of how a global organization embraced this is Carlson Wagonlit Travel (CWT). As an international leader in business travel management, its Singapore team was looking for a way to provide clients with the most updated travel schedules. It worked with Citrix to create a ‘One CWT’ initiative, which involved an upgrade of the company’s existing IT environment to create a common platform to enable better control and delivery of desktops, applications and data, enhancing employee user experience, regardless of their location or device.

Through the ‘One CWT’ singular model, CWT employees were ensured business continuity and smooth operations with zero interruptions, supported by the integrated Global Server Load Balancing (GSLB) feature, which automatically switches employee access to the nearest datacenter to increase access speeds, boosting efficiency for the mobile CWT employee, regardless of which region they are working from.

The redundancy brought about by the implementation also meant lower bandwidth consumption and increased cost efficiency and elimination of single points of failure. This is also useful for a number of call centers which may suffer from poor network access.

2. Building new processes for mobile apps and applications
Gartner also believes that through 2014, improved JavaScript performance will begin to push HTML5 and the browser as a mainstream enterprise application development environment. Gartner recommends that developers focus on creating expanded user interface models including richer voice and video that can connect people in new and different ways.

Apps will continue to grow while applications will begin to shrink and building application user interfaces that span a variety of devices require an understanding of fragmented building blocks and an adaptable programming structure that assembles them into optimized content for each device.

For businesses, new processes must be put into place to provision, manage and secure these new applications and with tailored solutions for mobile, web and SaaS apps, enterprises can benefit from necessary security and control to allow users on both corporate and BYO mobile devices to use these apps while keeping corporate data secure.

Bank OCBC NISP, the fourth-oldest bank in Indonesia, faced a challenge in managing and controlling the applications and databases at its branches. Citrix helped to eliminate the complex updating and versioning of applications at each of the branches, translating into substantial savings in communication costs between the branches and the head office.

Overall, the productivity, control and availability were significantly improved while operating costs were reduced. Now, it takes only two days to get a new branch ready for operations – compared to seven days before – as the IT team simply has to upgrade its systems or applications just once on the servers at the head office.

3. Putting the house in order for the Internet of Everything
The Internet is expanding beyond PCs and mobile devices into enterprise assets such as field equipment, and consumer items. Most enterprises and technology vendors have yet to explore the possibilities of an expanded Internet and are not operationally or organizationally ready.

At Citrix, over the past few years, we have seen the number of Internet-connected devices rise exponentially, and for organizations, this means extending management technologies to these devices to ensure control and security. However, the real challenge is the number of devices that now are accessing the Internet.

Organizations need to scale network performance on-demand for cloud-like elasticity, expand capacity seamlessly to meet application traffic growth, consolidate core network capabilities like load balancing, security and acceleration for all datacenter applications and ensure smooth, reliable connectivity for all devices. Therefore, a cloud orchestration platform is required to scale up and out as all of these new devices – and their associated applications – come online.

4. Entering the era of personal cloud
The personal cloud era will mark a power shift away from devices toward services. In this new world, according to industry analysts, most people use three or more devices on a daily basis. Users will use a collection of devices, with the PC remaining one of many options, but no one device will be the primary hub. Therefore, collaboration and file sharing technologies are required to allow users to attend meetings, socially collaborate, and access and share data at any time. Access to the cloud and the content stored or shared from the cloud will be managed and secured, rather than solely focusing on the device itself.

In 2013, Mydin Mohamed Holdings, Malaysia’s largest retail chain, showed the industry why it is the leader in the country with the implementation of a personal shopping system called Sam’s Self Scan, which incorporates cloud based asset and software monitoring to connect with customers, providing real-time deals and also help check-out their purchases with greater ease.

2014 will see the workplace of the future – one increasingly defined by a mobile workforce used to operating on multiple devices at multiple locations – take root in ASEAN. To build a workplace that will satisfy this generation of workers, enterprises will need a mobility strategy that covers the entire gamut from mobile device management (MDM) to mobile app management (MAM), and the infrastructure through which mobility is delivered, such as network performance and access. Other priorities will also include the increased use of SaaS and web apps and tools to support remote employees, such as tools for secure file sharing, collaboration and remote help desk services.

Gartner Says Malaysia IT Spending on Pace to Reach MYR 61.9 billion in 2013, up 6.4% over 2012

Kuala Lumpur, July 29, 2013 — In Malaysia, total IT spending is forecast to reach MYR 61.9 billion in 2013, up 6.4 percent over 2012. The forecast is made up of – Telecommunications services (33.9 billion), Devices (13.3 billion), IT services (9.8 billion), Software (3.3 billion), and Data Centre Systems (1.7 billion) (see table 2).

Worldwide IT spending is projected to total $3.7 trillion in 2013, a 2 percent increase from 2012 spending of $3.6 trillion, according to the latest forecast by Gartner, Inc. Last quarter, Gartner's forecast for 2013 IT spending growth in U.S. dollars was 4.1 percent. The 2.1 percentage point reduction mainly reflects the impact of recent fluctuations in U.S. dollar exchange rates; growth in constant currency is forecast at 3.5 percent for 2013, down only slightly from last quarter.

The Gartner Worldwide IT Spending Forecast is the leading indicator of major technology trends across the hardware, software, IT services and telecom markets. For more than a decade, global IT and business executives have been using these highly anticipated quarterly reports to recognize market opportunities and challenges, and base their critical business decisions on proven methodologies rather than guesswork.

"Exchange rate movements, and a reduction in our 2013 forecast for devices, account for the bulk of the downward revision of the 2013 growth," said Richard Gordon, managing vice president at Gartner. "Regionally, 2013 constant-currency spending growth in most regions has been lowered. However, Western Europe's constant-currency growth has been inched up slightly as strategic IT initiatives in the region will continue despite a poor economic outlook."

The forecast for spending on devices in 2013 has been revised down from 7.9 percent growth in Gartner's previous forecast to 2.8 percent (see Table 1). The decline in PC sales, recorded in the first quarter of 2013, continued into the second quarter with little recovery expected during the second half of 2013. While new devices are set to hit the market in the second half of 2013, they will fail to compensate for the underlying weakness of the traditional PC market. The outlook for tablet revenue for 2013 is for growth of 2.8 percent, while mobile phone revenue is projected to increase 7.4 percent this year.

Table 1. Worldwide IT Spending Forecast (Billions of U.S. Dollars)

	2012 Spending	2012 Growth (%)	2013 Spending	2013 Growth (%)	2014 Spending	2014 Growth (%)
Devices	676	10.9	695	2.8	740	6.5
Data Center Systems	140	1.8	143	2.1	149	4.1
Enterprise Software	285	4.7	304	6.4	324	6.6
IT Services	906	2.0	926	2.2	968	4.6
Telecom Services	1,641	-0.7	1,655	0.9	1,694	2.3
Overall IT	3,648	2.5	3,723	2.0	3,875	4.1

Source: Gartner (July 2013)

Table 2. Malaysia IT Spending Forecast (Billions of Malaysian Ringgit)

	2013 spending
Devices (mobile phones, PCs, printers	13.3
Data Center Systems (servers, storage, network equipment)	1.7
Enterprise Software	3.3
IT Services	9.8
Telecom Services (fiex, mobile and data)	33.9

Source: Gartner (July 2013)

Enterprise software spending is on pace to grow 6.4 percent in 2013. Growth expectations for customer relationship management (CRM) have been raised to reflect expanded coverage into e-commerce, social and mobile. Expectations for digital content creation and operating systems have been reduced as software as a service (SaaS) and changing device demands impact traditional models and markets.

Telecom services spending is forecast to grow 0.9 percent in 2013. Fixed broadband is showing slightly higher than anticipated growth. The impact of voice substitution is mixed as it is moving faster in the consumer sector, but slightly slower in the enterprise market.

Gartner's IT spending forecast methodology relies heavily on rigorous analysis of sales by thousands of vendors across the entire range of IT products and services. Gartner uses primary research techniques, complemented by secondary research sources, to build a comprehensive database of market size data upon which to base its forecast. The Gartner quarterly IT spending forecast delivers a unique perspective on IT spending across hardware, software, IT services and telecommunications segments. These reports help Gartner clients understand market opportunities and challenges.

Introducing Progress Pacific: Freedom for Cloud and Mobile Apps

Fundamental New Development Approach Provides Choice of Data Sources, Deployment Environments and Business Logic Tools

Singapore, June 12, 2013 - Progress Software Corporation (NASDAQ: PRGS), today introduced Progress® Pacific™, a powerful, easy-to-use platform for building and managing “connected apps” on any cloud, mobile or social platform. Connected applications integrate with real-time data from multiple sources for faster business reaction, analysis and problem solving. Progress Pacific is a fundamental new approach that gives businesses and independent software vendors (ISVs) the freedom to choose the data sources, deployment environments and business logic tools that best fit their needs.

This new platform is the foundation of a major PaaS (platform-as-a-service) transformation Progress previously announced to address customer and partner demand in one of the fastest growing IT markets. Today, businesses of all sizes are experiencing unprecedented market pressures and are turning to rapidly developed software applications for competitive advantage. These are typically confined to a specific service platform and are insufficient without integrated access to data from disparate SaaS, relational database, Big Data, social, CRM and ERP systems. Progress Pacific will uniquely solve this problem and eliminate lock-in with the industry’s most comprehensive set of integrated capabilities, including:

 Rapid Development using a “Cool” Technology: Powerful, standards-based business applications can go from idea to reality faster with innovative point-and-click, drag-and-drop tools in a standard browser, saving time and money while also providing deployment freedom. To enable this, Progress has acquired Rollbase, Inc., a privately held independent software vendor based in Saratoga, CA, that was recently named “One of the Cool Vendors in PaaS” by Gartner, Inc.* Over 10,000 users are using custom Rollbase™ applications in10 languages globally. See demo.

 Connection to the Most Data Sources: A comprehensive set of SaaS, relational database, NoSQL, Big Data, social, CRM and ERP sources can be tapped into for automated, context-aware applications. Technology from Progress DataDirect®, the world’s leading data connectivity provider, helps to unlock an application’s full value by allowing faster integration, analysis and decision making. See demo.

 Unique Hybrid Deployment Options: Unlike other vendors where deployment options are restricted to either cloud or on-premise, Progress Pacific offers developers the opportunity to create cloud apps that can be deployed in multiple environments (cloud, on-premise, hybrid) as well as connect to existing applications. By working harmoniously with current applications, including those using OpenEdge®, Corticon® and other technologies, critical data is accessible, business logic is preserved and investments are protected.

Availability:
The Progress Pacific platform will be generally available later in Progress’ fiscal third quarter with the Rollbase product available immediately.

Oracle Launched Data Centre in Singapore for Cloud Services

New Facility in Singapore Caters to Demand from Regional SaaS Customers

Kuala Lumpur, 05 April 2013 - Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ: ORCL), the world's leading IT solution provider, today launched its data centre in Singapore to meet the growing demand for Cloud-based services, as well as offering Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) for customer in the region.

According to Yen Yen Tan, Senior Vice President, Applications Sales, Asia Pacific, Oracle Corporation, “This new Singapore data centre is our latest data centre investment in the fast-growing Asia Pacific market, where demand is strong for cloud-based solutions.”

Yen Yen Tan, Senior Vice President, Applications Sales, Asia Pacific, Oracle Corporation.

Oracle Cloud is the most comprehensive cloud in the world being used each day by more than 25 million users and more than 10,000 organisations.

Housed at Equinix, The Oracle Cloud data centre in Singapore will give customers and partners subscription-based, self-service access to the Oracle Fusion Applications, which are including Enterprise Resource Planning, Human Capital Management, Talent Management, Sales and Marketing, Customer Service and Support

The new facilities use Oracle Engineered Systems including Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud, the company's flagship engineered system for running business applications and the Oracle Exadata Database In-Memory Machine, which is ideal for high-end OLTP, large data warehouses, and database clouds.

“The new data centre in Singapore underscores Oracle’s ongoing commitment to offering cloud solutions to our customers. Locating the data centre here will help customers to enjoy the benefits of the Oracle Cloud, while continuing to meet Government regulatory requirements and help to ensure sovereignty of sensitive data,” ends Leslie Ong, Managing Director, Oracle Singapore.

What is interesting in the "cloud" market?

The other day I found an interesting solution in the Single Sign Оn to the Internet.

This is the Identity and Access Management solution, which called EZLogin, and it's available as a service (SaaS).

I've little tested it, the more so because the solution has a test-period (by the way, the beta version is free). I've decided to share with you my impressions.

EZLogin offers following the comforts of use:

• Launch all apps directly from EZLogin without any other logins.
• No need to long-time and complex settings.
• Available both for external and internal cloud services.
• Opportunities to buy, manage, suspend and renew your subscriptions to SaaS from EZlogin.

Let's discuss each of them.

First of all, the launch all apps are provided via Single Sign On technology. With the help of this technology, a user logs in once to the service EZLogin and gains access to all applications without any credentials to each application.

It's really good. You can see a list of the applications from the catalog.

Upon initial entry to the application (trying to McAfee) the service requires a password and login, but at another entrance, no additional passwords are required. It's really easy.

In my opinion, this is particularly important for companies that use many different applications. Of course, single sign-on requires an increased focus on the protection of the user credentials. Therefore EZLogin provides the access to apps in conjunction with strong authentication like OTP (one-time will be launchedpassword). It can be through e-mail or by mobile phone.

Another advantage is the lack of long-time and complex setting. Yes, the service is simple, and has a special section HOW TO with some instructions, and Support for customer questions.

EZLogin is open to add new applications. So it's in future, concerning the service for both internal and external applications. Companies can cooperate to EZLogin.

Opportunities to buy, manage, suspend and renew your subscriptions to SaaS from EZlogin will be launched before the New Year. I will check for updates of the service.

Overall, the service left a positive impression. The idea is interesting.

 

If the service has all claimed functions, it can be very promising and will turn a convenient product for a business audience.

Try the beta version of EZLogin here.

Gartner Says Worldwide Software-as-a-Service Revenue to Reach $14.5 Billion in 2012

Analysts to Reveal Latest Global IT Spending Forecast on April 5

KUALA LUMPUR, March 28, 2012 — Worldwide software as a service (SaaS) revenue is forecast to reach $14.5 billion in 2012, a 17.9 percent increase from 2011 revenue of $12.3 billion, according to Gartner, Inc. SaaS-based delivery will experience healthy growth through 2015, when worldwide revenue is projected to reach $22.1 billion.

"After more than a decade of use, adoption of SaaS continues to grow and evolve regionally within the enterprise application markets," said Sharon Mertz, research director at Gartner. "Increasing familiarity with the SaaS model, continued oversight on IT budgets, the growth of platform as a service (PaaS) developer communities and interest in cloud computing are now driving adoption forward."

Although growing interest has been observed in vertical-specific software, the most widespread use is still characterized by horizontal applications with common processes, among distributed virtual workforces and within Web 2.0 activities.

"The top issues encountered when deploying SaaS vary by region," Ms. Mertz said. "Limited flexibility of customization and limited integration to existing systems are the primary reasons in North America. In EMEA, network instability is the issue most frequently encountered, whereas longer-than-expected deployments are the top issue in Asia/Pacific. Vendors are more aggressively pursuing SaaS buyers outside traditional markets by offering local-language availability, forming alliances and constructing data centers to accommodate local requirements."

North America, specifically the U.S., currently represents the largest opportunity for SaaS, and it is the most mature of the regional markets. SaaS software revenue is forecast to total $9.1 billion in 2012, up from $7.8 billion in 2011. Consistent with other regions, North America shows the highest SaaS deployments in expense management, financials, email and office suites. Use of Web conferencing is higher in North America than in other regions, in part because of a highly distributed workforce.

In Western Europe, SaaS revenue is forecast to surpass $3.2 billion in 2012, up from $2.7 billion in 2011, while SaaS revenue is Eastern Europe is projected to reach $169.4 million, up from $135.5 million last year. Gartner analysts said SaaS adoption in EMEA is currently running at two speeds. In Western Europe, the most developed subregion, SaaS offerings and adoption rates are rapidly increasing as North America-based SaaS vendors further penetrate the region and the number of local European SaaS vendors increases. In Eastern Europe and the Middle East and Africa, which are small and emerging markets overall, the potential opportunity for SaaS is more in the medium to long term due to ongoing infrastructure challenges that vendors need to overcome if they are to be successful in these regions.

SaaS revenue in Asia/Pacific is on pace to reach $934.1 million in 2012, up from $730.9 million in 2011. Overall, SaaS adoption in Asia/Pacific has been fragmented. Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) is a combination of mature markets, such as Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan, and emerging markets, including China, India, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines. SaaS financial (accounting) applications are most popular, particularly in China and India. The next-highest SaaS usage is for ERP functions — such as expense management and employee performance management — followed by office suites, email and the CRM sales function.

While the Japanese economy is still struggling and IT budgets are limited, the demand for SaaS solutions is increasing due to their lower implementation costs and faster deployment times. SaaS revenue in Japan is forecast to reach $495.2 million in 2012, up from $427 million in 2011. Gartner forecasts that growth of the SaaS market in Japan through 2015 will be led by CRM and email/groupware, which already have actual demand. Users have found that using SaaS reduces the burden of application management, increases the ease and agility of deployment, and reduces initial costs of implementation. In addition, since the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, users have looked to SaaS adoption as a defense against future power outages and disasters. However, many companies are still concerned about SaaS-related issues, such as data security risk, true cost-effectiveness and the difficulty of linking with other systems.

SaaS revenue in Latin America is forecast to total $419.7 million in 2012, up from $331.1 million last year. In Latin America, SaaS has become most popular to deploy in the areas of email, financial management (accounting), sales force automation and customer service, and expense management. While regional adoption will be positive, it is fully expected that Brazil and Mexico will drive a majority of adoption and revenue opportunities. In the next two years, buyers are most likely to purchase SaaS solutions in packaged CRM, procurement and ERP applications.

Gartner defines total software revenue as revenue from new licenses, subscriptions, and software maintenance and technical support services that include license sales to update/upgrade an existing license to a new version, telephone support and on-site remedial support. SaaS is primarily a software delivery and management approach that exists in established markets, such as CRM or ERP.

Additional analysis is available in the Gartner report "Forecast: Software as a Service, All Regions,
2010-2015, 1H12 Update." The report is available at http://www.gartner.com/resId=1949616.

Gartner analysts will announce the latest overall worldwide IT spending forecast on April 5. The findings will be available on the Gartner Quarterly IT Spending Forecast site at www.gartner.com/quarterly-it-forecast. The forecast will include a breakout of IT spending by hardware, software, services and telecom.