Doug Theis Leave your comfort zone.

And now for the good news.

Despite dire predictions of revenue losses in the wake of a leaked U.S. spy agency’s electronic surveillance program three years ago, U.S. cloud providers have instead “out innovated” local competitors to keep a firm grip on the European market, a market watcher says.

U.S. cloud providers were widely expected to be hurt by local business and regulatory efforts to safeguard European data following the 2013 release of documents linking U.S. tech firms to National Security Agency surveillance programs.

The Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, an industry think tank, said at the time that “U.S. cloud service providers stand to lose somewhere between 10 and 20 percent of the foreign market in the next few years,” in an August 2013 report about the impact of the leaks by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

Its low-end estimate for losses by U.S. cloud providers was $21.5 billion over the next three years, as European and Asian competitors took advantage of stricter data privacy and protection rules in local markets. Its high-end estimate for losses was $35 billion.

More of the Wall Street Journal article from Angus Loten

Is hyperconverged infrastructure a cloud alternative for server huggers? It’s interesting that all the benefits listed with hyperconverged infrastructure are the same benefits that cloud providers like Expedient have been providing to customers every day for the last 8 years. And the cloud services alternative removes the troubles associated with owning and operating your own hardware and data centers. So where is the value?

Hyper-Converged Infrastructure (HCI) is all about getting “out of the infrastructure business”, and focus on the business – just like Converged Infrastructure (CI). But, HCI is different from CI in several important ways:

You can start smaller. Much smaller.
You scale in smaller increments – which “de-risks” sizing small, and growing as workloads get added (and thus adding only what you need). This is fundamentally different economic curve.
It’s operationally simpler. Much simpler.
In our experience, a conservative observations is that HCI generally has about a lower capital cost than CI, but more importantly a big improvement (2x lower) operational/administrative operational cost. This is particularly impactful as there is no “migration event”, you can add/update/remove nodes and capacity easily and non-disruptively.

Like anything that is growing fast, there’s no doubt a bit of a hype-cycle around HCI – and at my last count 28 startups (I wager we will see HCI startup armageddon in 2017 – it’s just not sustainable… any takers?)

More of the Virtual Geek post

Some organizations rush into a cloud migration, assuming cost savings are a guarantee. But not all applications are meant for the public cloud, and moving them may cost you more.

Consuming resources only when you need them seems like the most obvious way to increase efficiency. While you can shut down a server to save pennies on power and cooling when it’s not in use, you can’t recoup any of the capital costs. And most OS or software licensing models don’t care how often you use the application. So, when you’re able to pay for the bundled resource, delivered as a service, only when you need it, of course you save money — except when you don’t.

Many applications just aren’t suited to run in a public cloud, for either technological or financial reasons, said David Linthicum, senior VP at Cloud Technology Partners based in Boston. To avoid paying more than they need to, organizations should carefully consider their application costs in an on-premises vs. cloud environment.

“It could be as many as 50% of applications in a traditional enterprise, and the average is about 30 to 40%,” Linthicum said. “You have to do the triage and understand the application portfolio — otherwise you will end up making dumb decisions and moving workloads to the cloud that will end up costing you more money.”

More of the SearchCloudComputing article from Nick Martin

Algorithms are already outperforming execs in key C-level tasks at a time when anti-hierarchical headwinds are blowing stronger.

In 2013, two University of Oxford professors published a study analyzing 702 different occupations. Of those, they determined that the role of chief executive fell within the 10% they deemed “not computerizable.”

There’s reason to think twice about that. Here’s why.

ANTI-HIERARCHICAL HEADWINDS
Broadly speaking, the push toward democratization is arguably one of the most potent social, technological, and economic forces today—one of the few, in fact, that runs powerfully through each of those fields. And while the motives and manifestations of this trend necessarily vary, examples abound.

Consider, for example, 42, a tuition-free coding school originating in France and now in Silicon Valley. 42 is essentially a university without instructors where students learn through what the founder calls “collaborative education.” Then there’s the U.S. Army’s recent science and technology Futures Project, “aimed at leveraging the collective wisdom and ability of the American public,” to help influence how the Army will use research and development investments to prepare defense forces for the world of 2040.

In 2013, two University of Oxford professors published a study analyzing 702 different occupations. Of those, they determined that the role of chief executive fell within the 10% they deemed “not computerizable.” There’s reason to think twice about that. Here’s why. ANTI-HIERARCHICAL HEADWINDS Broadly speaking, the push toward democratization is arguably one of the most potent social, technological, and economic forces today—one of the few, in fact, that runs powerfully through each of those fields. And while the motives and manifestations of this trend necessarily vary, examples abound. Consider, for example, 42, a tuition-free coding school originating in France and now in Silicon Valley. 42 is essentially a university without instructors where students learn through what the founder calls “collaborative education.” Then there’s the U.S. Army’s recent science and technology Futures Project, “aimed at leveraging the collective wisdom and ability of the American public,” to help influence how the Army will use research and development investments to prepare defense forces for the world of 2040.”

In 2013, two University of Oxford professors published a study analyzing 702 different occupations. Of those, they determined that the role of chief executive fell within the 10% they deemed “not computerizable.” There’s reason to think twice about that. Here’s why. ANTI-HIERARCHICAL HEADWINDS Broadly speaking, the push toward democratization is arguably one of the most potent social, technological, and economic forces today—one of the few, in fact, that runs powerfully through each of those fields. And while the motives and manifestations of this trend necessarily vary, examples abound. Consider, for example, 42, a tuition-free coding school originating in France and now in Silicon Valley. 42 is essentially a university without instructors where students learn through what the founder calls “collaborative education.” Then there’s the U.S. Army’s recent science and technology Futures Project, “aimed at leveraging the collective wisdom and ability of the American public,” to help influence how the Army will use research and development investments to prepare defense forces for the world of 2040.”

More of the FastCompany article from Liz Alexander