In a clear sign that Cloud Computing is moving rapidly up the technology adoption curve; there are numerous Cloud Computing conferences scheduled within the next 8 months.

Many of these conferences coincidentally overlap and there are now an equal number of conferences in Europe and Asia versus the USA.

Some of the more interesting conferences include:

CC Cloud Computing 2010
23-24 November 2010
Singapore

Cloud Computing AustralAsia
23-24 November 2010
Sydney, Australia

IEEE CloudCom Conference
30 November 2010 to 3 December 2010
Indianapolis, IN

Cloud Forum 2010
30 November 2010
Utrech, Nederland

DreamForce 2010
6-9 December 2010
San Francisco, CA

Cloud Expo NL
8-9 December 2010
Utrecht, Nederland

Cloud Expo Europe
2-3 February 2011
London, England

Cloud Connect
7-10 March 2011
Santa Clara, CA

Cloud Computing World Forum Middle East and Africa
9 March 2011
Dubai, UAE

Structure Big Data
23 March 2011
New York, NY

Cloud Computing China Congress
24 March 2011
Beijing, China

CIO Cloud Summit
10-13 April 2011
Scottsdale, AZ

Closer 2011
7-9 May 2011
Noordwijkerhout, Nederland

Cloud Expo New York
6-9 June 2011
New York, NY

Cloud Computing World Forum
21-22 June 2011
London, England

Structure 2011
22-23 June 2011
San Francisco, CA

IEEE Cloud 2011 Conference
5-10 July 2011
Washington DC

Google has announced a sewerbreaking new broadband project called TiSP (Toilet Internet Service Provider). TISP offers free high speed broadband to almost anyone in North America who has a modern plumbing system. (Septic Tank equipped homes are not included in the Beta roll out)

Like other services provided by Google, TiSP is a self-installed, ad-supported online service that will be free to any consumer with a WiFi-capable PC and a toilet connected to a local municipal sewage system. TISP requires 8 easy steps for setup in most homes and Google has already announced plans for an Enterprise Grade Version of TiSP.

TiSP is available in 3 versions;  a basic version “Trickle” that provides 8mbps speed free of charge; a surprisingly robust “The #2″ that includes 16mbps for $9.95 per month and a top of the line “Royal Flush” Service at 32mbps for 24.95 per month.

Expect the other major ISP’s to follow Google into the sewers with similar pricing and service arrangements (wait…..Cox, AT&T, Time Warner et al, have always flushed their customers down the drain with their broadband service offerings) soon.

The GSA RFQ focuses on Infrastructure as a Service with an emphasis on:

Cloud Storage Services
Virtual Machines
Cloud Web Hosting

The RFQ also includes a high level view of the Federal Cloud Computing Framework; found in the Draft National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Working Definition of Cloud Computing.

The RFQ and framework help Cloud Computing Service Providers understand the cloud computing vision that the Fed has adopted in addition to various interoperability, bandwidth and security standards that the Fed mandates. The Framework also outlines the Feds high level categorization of Software as a Service Applications and Platform as A Service.This helps the fledgling cloud computing industry in 3 ways.

First off, it helps put to rest some of the misgivings and fears that private industry and sceptics have held concerning the adoption of cloud computing. Once the Federal government adopts certain cloud computing standards in its own framework, it is safe to say that sceptics and holdouts in private industry will soon come around and adopt these standards as well.

Secondly, this RFQ will give the service providers who are chosen to provide cloud computing services to the GSA, real world use cases and examples that can be put to use in selling cloud services to private industry.

Finally, the detailed cloud computing requirements that the GSA outlines in the document give both established and startup cloud service providers a blueprint for services and standards that they should adopt in the future.

The scope of this initial RFQ may limit the chosen service providers to larger cloud providers who can provide the full breadth of services, but the trickle down effect of the Fed RFQ will surely help smaller Cloud Service providers at the state, local and private industry level.

Honda yesterday announced and demonstrated the prototype of its stealth Brain Machine Interface (BMI) with Asimo in Tokyo.

Long rumoured; the Brain Machine Interface has the potential to revolutionize the technology industry.

Google’s emergent Cadie has expressed interest in creating a clone army of Asimo’s powered by BMI to create bug free Software as a Service and Cloud Computing code to jumpstart Google’s late entry into the Enterprise software market.

Technology titans Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, HP and SAP have expressed interest in BMI powered Asimo’s as they see the tremendous benefit of having one programmers thought patterns (and valuable software code and Intellectual Property) replicated throughout their firms. BMI powered Asimo’s will eliminate the need for the technology titans to spend billions acquiring entire companies when they can just hire one person from a start up or acquisition target and leapfrog their competitors. As an added benefit Asimo’s do not require lunch breaks or caffeine and up to now have not attempted to unionize or ask for cost of living salary increases.

View Honda’s amazing demonstration of BMI starring Asimo.

President Barack Obama signed into law the sweeping US Economic Stimulus Bill on 17 February in Denver. One of the most anticipated sections of the Bill for the technology community was Broadband Stimulus. (With the other being Health IT stimulus provisions)

The lack of cheap, ubiquitous broadband connectivity throughout the US has been a large stumbling block that has prevented technology solutions such as Cloud Computing and SaaS from being adopted by a larger number of American businesses and consumers. The US has fallen far behind the rest of the industrialized world (and its key economic and technology competitors in the 21st century) in the past 8 years and now ranks number 15 in Broadband adoption worldwide.

The US Economic Stimulus Bill includes $7.2 billion dollars in broadband subsidies. The broadband subsidies are to be used to fund grants and loans that focus on areas of the country that are unserved and underserved by broadband providers, particularly remote and rural areas of the US in addition to underserved urban communities. A large portion of America’s economic engine and overall employment is driven not by Fortune 1000 companies but by SMB’s in rural and urban area of the US.

$4.7 billion dollars of the subsidy will be distributed via grant programs administered by the U.S. National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s (NTIA)  Technology Opportunities Program. (TOP) This is great news for those who like transparency in government as the NTIA’s TOP program’s grantees are searchable via the TOP Legacy Project. The remaining $2.5 billion of the subsides will be distributed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service in the form of grants and loans to broadband providers targeting service in rural areas. 

The final version of broadband stimulus is not without its drawbacks. Chief among them is the fact that minimum broadband speed requirements were removed from the final version of the funding. In the US broadband speeds average a mediocre 4.9 megabits per second, far lower than the average in South Korea which averages 49.5 megabits per second or Japan which averages 63.6 megabits per second.  The US will be in a mad scramble with Japan and South Korea to regain market share in the auto, electronics and countless other industries once the current recession ends and it will not help that the US will continue to be one step behind its trading partners and competitors in its broadband infrastructure.

But despite the drawbacks broadband stimulus could not have come at a better time for the US technology industry. Many jobs will be created by both large and small broadband providers to build out their broadband infrastructure, SaaS and Cloud Computing Service providers will have access to a larger pool of customers and industry stalwarts like Cisco and Sun will benefit due to increased purchases of hardware to support the broadband build out.

Requirements management has always been one of the facets of software development dominated by traditional packaged software solutions. Over the years, the solutions of choice have moved from commercial packaged solutions to open source solutions.

GatherSpace; headquartered in Santa Monica, was one of the first companies to move Software Requirements Management into an OnDemand Model. It offers a feature rich solution that has all the functionality that development teams are used to in packaged applications.

GatherSpace features include a software requirements hierarchy, iteration planning, use case functionality, built in Agile Software Development, bug tracking and very mature reporting options.

Pricing of the GatherSpace solution ranges from $15 per user per month with an annual contract to $25 per user per month with a 3 month contract. Gatherspace also offers an on-site deployment option that starts at $650 per user with a 10 user minimum. It will be a tough sell for some companies to commit to a 3, 6 or 12 month contract with an emerging company like GatherSpace and it would probably benefit them to initially offer month to month contracts like some of their competitors.

Gatherspace’s packaged software requirements competitors include IBM Rational Requisite Pro and FeaturePlan. OnDemand competitors Include Accompa, Rally Software and Artifact Software.

Kitchener, Ontario based IGLOO’s foundation began with a not-for-profit research centre called the Centre for International Governance(CIGI) founded by Jim Balsillie, Co-CEO of Research In Motion (RIM)

In 2003, CIGI, created a free online research network called IGLOO (International Governance Leaders and Organizations Online) that connected researchers, practitioners and educators around the world.

By 2008 Igloo.org had further evolved into a for profit firm with a focus on creating On Demand Corporate Social Networking software with Web 2.0 tools for content management, collaboration, social networking and administration.

IGlOO offers 3 versions of it’s Corporate Social Networking (CSN) software:

• Lite Edition
• Pro Edition
• Enterprise Edition

IGLOO’s Lite Edition contains IGLOO’s content management platform and social networking tools and is optimized for corporate pilots, or group work spaces for teams. Priced at $4,999 USD annually or 449 USD per month, the Lite edition comes with a basic self service support portal.

IGLOO’s Pro Edition is designed for company-wide networking and knowledge sharing. Pro Edition adds Corporate Social Networking tools, Blogs, Wiki’s and forums. Data Storage and Data Transfer are increased to 50 GB in the Pro Edition. Pro Edition is priced at $9,999 USD annually or $999 USD per month.

Available add on support packages for both the Lite and Pro Editions include a Silver level of Support for $1,000 USD per year and a Gold Level of Support for $2,500 USD per year.

IGLOO’s Enterprise Edition is designed for use outside of the corporate firewall and adds multiple domains, up to ten online communities, multinational deployment support and free silver level support. Data storage and data transfer clock increase to 100 GB in the Enterprise Edition. Pricing for the Enterprise Edition is based on a number of factors and is not disclosed on the IGLOO website.

IGLOO offers a Wizard based Setup for each of its edition’s. The Setup Wizard allows a user to choose what WEB 2.0 features will be used in the CSN, look and feel of the CSN in addition to administrator tasks such as permission setup and reporting.

IGLOO Web 2.0 tools are similar to tools in competing CSN offerings with the IGLOO differentiator being that the tools are a bit more polished than some of the newer entrants in the CSN Space.

IGLOO is utilized by 150,000 end users at customers including Amnesty International, Arizona State University, Deloitte, Motorola and the Royal Bank of Canada. Future updates of IGLOO will include features like social graphing, Microsoft Outlook integration, additional mobile device support and connectors to Enterprise Apps and Microsoft SharePoint.

IGLOO offers a very comprehensive Corporate Social Network solution that can fit any size non-profit or corporate site.  Smaller companies and non-profits may have a hard time digesting the pricing of the Lite Edition but the pricing of IGLOO’s offerings is in line with most of its competitors.

Heading back to Arizona today after a very interesting and informative Enterprise 2.0 2008 conference.

Had a chance to meet with the founders and CEO’s of a number of Enterprise 2.0 firms and have come away very impressed with the software solutions, business models, channel partner plans and ROI of most of the firms products.

There has been much speculation in the consumer Web 2.0 space as to when the bubble will burst on both the irrational valuations and fantastical (made up word:) revenue models based on advertising that consumer Web 2.0 has been built upon.

It not only is clear that Enterprise 2.0 firms are a different breed from their Web 2.0 brethren , it is also clear that many of these firms will not only survive the current economic slowdown but are thriving now that companies are looking for ways to contain cost. On Demand hosted solutions for the Enterprise are really gaining steam at the moment and look likely to increase in market and mind share based on the enthusiasm I have seen from attendees at the Enterprise 2.0 conference.

A few of the Enterprise 2.0 firms (and Enterprise firms like Sun and IBM) I had a chance to meet with whom I will post follow-up articles and reviews about over the next few weeks include:

• Liquid Planner
• Serena Software
• Atlassian
• GroupSwim
• Small World Labs
• Sun for Project SocialSite
• IBM for Lotus Connections and Mashup Center
• Oracle for Sales Prospector
• Aegeon for Spaceo.us
• Veodia
• Igloo
• WorkLight
• Bungee

Stay tuned….

In the three months since I posted an initial Review of Business ByDesign in the OnDemand Beat, there has been a flurry of announcements and activity relating to the roll out date of the product.

Larry Dignan and Dennis Howlett broke the news the week before the annual SAP Sapphire event, that the planned 2009 rollout of Business ByDesign was to be delayed by up to 18 months.

Vinnie Mirchandani and a few of the other Enterprise Irregulars had a chance to meet with SAP Co-CEO’s Henning Kagermann and Leo Apotheker at Sapphire 08 and found out that there were a couple of key reasons why SAP pulled back on the original planned release date.

These are valid reasons indeed to delay Business ByDesign’s launch and might in this case actually help lead to a better product.

But in the meantime one can be certain that Netsuite (with its recent OneWorld release) and other OnDemand ERP competitors wont sit still during the next 18 months and SAP will have quite a bit more work to do to gain market share and partner acceptance of Business ByDesign once released.

One of the factors that has so far hindered wider adoption of Cloud Computing and Software as a Service in the US is a lack of consistent and inexpensive broadband service throughout the entire US.

A new report from the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation ranks the US 15th (Yes that’s right 15th) globally for broadband adoption. The US ranked number 4 in 2001 so this drop off in adoption is very alarming considering that we are in the midst of a major fundamental change in enterprise computing with Cloud Computing and Software as a Service becoming more prevalent.

The ITIF broadband policy report measures 3  major factors; price, speed, and availability to come up with its rankings. 

The report has numerous recommendations to improve US broadband adoption and also has case studies from countries that rank both above and below the US in terms of adoption.

Three recommendations that I think may have an impact in the short term if adopted include:

• Enact more favorable tax policies to encourage investment in broadband networks, such as accelerated depreciation and exempting broadband services from federal, state, and local taxation.  (This will help immensely with making broadband less expensive for SMB customers and start-ups and give the incumbent Telco and Cable providers incentive to modernize their aging infrastructure)

• Continue to make more spectrum, including “white spaces,” available for next-generation wireless data networks. (This is critical as has been proven in Korea…more and more Enterprise 2.0 and Saas applications will be available via mobile devices)

• Expand the Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service Broadband Program and target the program to places that currently do not have non-satellite broadband available. (For the US to be more competitive in the future, Broadband access has to be universal throughout the US. Satellite broadband is relatively expensive and Satellite service is a still a bit spotty)

Unfortunately many of the recommendations in the report are based on government policy and that policy is always up to change depending on who occupies state and federal government positions.

But alas, a government broadband policy is crucial as the higher broadband adoption rates in countries like Sweden (pdf) South Korea (pdf) and Japan (pdf) were achieved via strong and focused government broadband policies.