[kictanet] Day 10/11 of 12- BPO Discussions, Strengths and Weaknesses (Observations from USA and UK); and Trends and Niches

[Luvisia Bakuli]

Thanks Catherine-- wil stick to the subject line next time. Had posted
as I rushed out the door in the morning.

The article that I forwarded addressed trends abd potential niche
market as defined by IBM. Just like UNESCO leads the way in social
culturall trends, IBM seems to pick winning markets.  Luvisia Bakuli

On 6/15/09, Catherine Adeya <elizaslider at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Thanks Luvisia,
>
> However, may I request all not to change the subject header for ease of
> discussions, we will flesh out the relevant content as we go along. So note
> inside the body of your discussion that you will focus on niche areas but do
> not change the subject header.
>
> Thanks for your input, very insightful.
>
> Much appreciated,
>
> Nyaki (Moderator jointly with Walu)
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Luvisia Bakuli <luvisia.bakuli at gmail.com>
> To: elizaslider at yahoo.com
> Cc: eMatete at gmail.com; KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions
> <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
> Sent: Monday, June 15, 2009 2:45:19 PM
> Subject: Re: [kictanet] Niche Markets
>
> For those looking for niche areas, the following article might generate
> some ideas. DBL
>
> ____________________
>
>
> June 15, 2009
>
> I.B.M. to Help Clients Fight Cost and Complexity
> By STEVE LOHR
>
>
> In 2000, the Linux operating system was a hot technology, but it had not
> spread much beyond scientists, researchers and computer programmers.
> Then I.B.M. declared that it would back Linux with investment, research
> and marketing, and the technology moved swiftly into the corporate
> mainstream.
>
> The same thing happened with the personal computer in the early 1980s,
> when I.B.M. endorsed that upstart technology and entered the market.
>
> Starting this week, I.B.M. is returning to the same playbook,
> introducing some initial products and services and a roadmap for its
> stable of corporate and government customers to comfortably embrace
> cloud computing.
>
> Cloud computing — in which vast stores of information and processing
> resources can be tapped from afar, over the Internet, using a personal
> computer, cellphone or other device — holds great promise in the
> corporate market. The cloud model, analysts say, has the potential to
> cut the costs, complexity and headaches of technology for companies and
> government agencies.
>
> Already, Amazon.com, Google and Salesforce.com, among others, offer
> cloud-based Web services to companies, including e-mail, computer
> storage and customer management software. But many big companies and
> government agencies have been reluctant to get on board because of
> traditional corporate-computing concerns like the security of data,
> reliability of service and regulatory compliance.
>
> “I.B.M. knows how to do all of those things,” said Frank Gens, chief
> analyst for IDC, a technology research firm. “Its strategy is all about
> making cloud computing safe for enterprise customers.”
>
> Even if I.B.M. succeeds in its bid to make cloud computing more
> palatable for big corporations, there is no guarantee that it will be
> the main beneficiary of the trend. After I.B.M. helped create the PC
> industry, lower-cost competitors ended up dominating the business.
>
> In the cloud market, I.B.M. plans to take a tailored approach. The
> hardware and software in its cloud offerings will be meant for specific
> computing chores. Just as Google runs a computing cloud optimized for
> Internet search, I.B.M. will make bespoke clouds for computing workloads
> in business.
>
> Its early cloud entries, to be announced on Monday, follow that model.
> One set of offerings is focused on streamlining the technology used by
> corporate software developers and testers, which can consume 30 percent
> or more of a company’s technology resources.
>
> The second set is virtual desktop services, in which personal computer
> software, either from Microsoft or open-source alternatives, is run on
> remote servers and piped to simple desktop machines equipped with
> screens and keyboards. I.B.M. found in tests with clients that such
> virtual PCs, with little desktop processing or storage, can use 70
> percent less power than conventional PCs and reduce technical support
> costs by up to 40 percent,.
>
> Both the software development and desktop services are being offered as
> an integrated bundle of hardware and software for a cloud running inside
> a corporate or government data center, or as a cloud service hosted in
> an I.B.M. data center.
>
> Other offerings are planned, I.B.M. executives said, including clouds
> fine-tuned for data storage, and clouds for business analytics, which is
> software that analyzes data for patterns of customer behavior, market
> trends and other potentially valuable information.
>
> I.B.M. calls its approach of fine-tuning hardware and software for
> specific jobs “hybrid computing.” And it will open a Hybrid Computing
> Research lab later this year, inviting industry and university
> scientists to work cooperatively on new application-specific designs
> intended to improve performance by 100 to 1,000 times compared with
> today’s systems.
>
> The fresh look at computer design is being prompted by the surge in
> Internet data, from social networking to smartphone applications to
> sensors monitoring food shipments and electrical use. By 2011, IDC
> estimates, there will be one trillion Internet-connected devices, up
> from 500 million in 2006.
>
> “This huge explosion of data is driving a movement to design systems
> around workloads because it is the only way to deliver the computation
> needed, and it’s far more energy-efficient,” said Kunle Olukotun, a
> computer scientist at Stanford.
>
> I.B.M. had an initiative, begun in early 2008, called Blue Cloud, which
> mainly involved adapting its server computers for cloud technology. Most
> major technology suppliers have cloud-related hardware and software
> products, including Cisco, Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems and Dell.
> But I.B.M., analysts say, is going further by offering simplified,
> integrated stacks of hardware and software, as well as cloud services.
>
> I.B.M.’s cloud strategy, the company said, is the culmination of 100
> prototype projects with companies and government agencies over the last
> year, and its research partnership with Google.
>
> “The information technology infrastructure is under stress already, and
> the data flood is just accelerating,” said Samuel J. Palmisano, I.B.M.’s
> chief executive. “We’ve decided that how you solve that starts by
> organizing technology around the workload.”
>
> One of I.B.M.’s test beds for cloud computing has been the Interior
> Department’s National Business Center, a service center that handles
> payroll, human relations, financial reporting, contracting services and
> other computing tasks for dozens of federal agencies. The center runs
> two large data centers, one in Northern Virginia and another outside
> Denver.
>
> Douglas J. Bourgeois, the center’s director, said he is introducing
> several cloud-style applications over the next nine months including
> Web-based training, and staffing and recruitment software. And in tests
> with financial and procurement software, the cloud-computing environment
> has delivered efficiencies of 40 to 60 percent in productivity and power
> consumption, he said.
>
> “For us, like other data centers, the volume of data continues to
> explode,” Mr. Bourgeois said. “We want to solve some of those problems
> with cloud computing, so we don’t have to build another $20 million data
> center.”
>
>
>                Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
>
>
>
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