For a lot of small-business owners, “cloud computing” is the latest IT buzzword to leave them scratching their heads. To demystify things, here’s a primer for companies looking to wade into cloud services for the first time.

What are cloud services?

Broadly speaking, any service or program sent over an Internet connection can be considered a cloud service. An outside vendor runs the servers and software, so the buyer doesn’t have to worry about the technical issues in-house and can focus on its own business.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703580904574638391318085158.html?mod=rss_Today’s_Most_Popular

Everybody’s talking about it. Here’s what you need to know.

The rock critic Jon Landau once wrote a rather ugly sentence that changed his life and that of his subject: “I saw rock ‘n’ roll future, and its name is Bruce Springsteen.” My claim is a bit thinner: I think I’ve found the cure to the plague… of tech conference deaths.

http://www.cio.co.uk/opinion/veitch/2009/12/01/tech-conferences-coming-back-sharper-and-fitter/

Springsteen was lauded for going back to basics: simple songs about falling in love, breaking up, driving cars and falling in love all over again. Something similar is happening in the conference world. So, in short, I have seen the future of tech shows — and it says ‘keep it simple, stupid’.

Cloud computing is poised to win the title of most popular, and populist, buzzword of 2009.

It certainly is gaining traction outside of IT. In fact, the idea of cloud computing has become so popular that executives and employees who don’t even work in the IT department are starting to ask for it by name.

Budget-minded CEOs are telling IT managers to look into cloud computing to reduce the amount of expensive hardware running their data centers; CFOs are interested because they’ve heard the model can slash costs associated with new IT projects; tech-savvy employees are asking for it because they think it sound

http://news.idg.no/cw/art.cfm?id=226A4A10-1A64-6A71-CE31AA8F95E41D64

Cloud computing is poised to win the title of most popular, and populist, buzzword of 2009.

By facilitating integration with hosted applications, cloud computing has permanently changed what you can expect from a contact center, and in turn, has changed what customers can expect in terms of sales, support, and service. Hosted offerings have enabled businesses to access a wide range of technologies over the Internet, without going through the costly processes of licensing software, purchasing hardware, building infrastructure, and dedicating internal resources to maintain and upgrade their technologies. In turn, companies can focus on their customers and improving business processes instead of maintaining complex call center infrastructure.

Cloud computing promises to move several industries toward becoming better, faster, and cheaper, but it will do the most good in areas where companies are shackled to expensive hardware and software that are confined to a physical location. The old call center exists in this kind of environment. Those that have made the leap into a hosted call center, however, have found they are not only freeing up budget and technology staff for better uses, but they are also freeing agents who can provide better service and reducing customer frustration. Since we began offering the first on-demand call center in 2000, three prominent trends that take full advantage of the flexibility of cloud-powered customer care have emerged:

http://www.destinationcrm.com/Articles/Web-Exclusives/Viewpoints/Contact-in-the-Cloud–57659.aspx

Three trends to adopt today for the cloud-enabled contact center.

Even mighty Microsoft didn’t become a leading enterprise software provider by itself; it had a lot of help from third-party developers and partners to build its software solutions into what they are.

Now Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), a relatively new player in the enterprise space, is starting to attract the same kind of third-party support it will need to win over a bigger slice of the enterprise application pie.

Its newest ally is LTech, which specializes in cloud computing solutions and is an authorized Google partner. Today LTech released its Single Sign-On for Google Apps, which includes support for ActiveDirectory and LDAP to help better ensure the continuity of end-user accounts.

http://www.internetnews.com/software/article.php/3848541

LTech’s Single-On for Google Apps enhances IT security, while an update to Power Panel for Google Apps extends lifecycle features.

Cloud computing is perhaps the most talked-about shift in the technology industry today. The concept of running applications from the cloud is quickly evolving from a futuristic vision to a commercially viable alternative for mainstream business. A recent survey of global 2,000 companies revealed that 30 percent are already using cloud infrastructure to host their applications, and another 20 percent plan to do so by next year.

This shift to the cloud started some years ago when companies began to invest in cloud-based business applications such as human capital management and CRM . With the proven success  of these initiatives, the next logical step is cloud-based business transactions.

http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/Is-Your-E-Commerce-Operation-Ready-for-the-Cloud-68408.html?wlc=1256156391

Cloud computing really took off when companies started using it for applications like HR and CRM. The next step is cloud-based business transactions. Moving your e-commerce systems to the cloud has implications beyond IT — it actually speaks to the fundamentals of your business.

What It Is: Storing data in the cloud, also known as data as a service or DaaS, is gaining attention within IT departments. A recent CIO.com survey found 46 percent of IT decision makers are giving cloud storage a look. It’s particularly appealing for data backups, according to Charles King, an analyst with Pund-IT. DaaS is cheaper than building a second data center. Backup storage could pave the way for companies using cloud vendors as collocation providers for any IT service or application, including CRM, ERP and data storage, says King.

Why The Hype: Companies that provide managed services for applications?such as Amazon and 3Tera?are looking for ways to increase revenue and use their facilities for more than hosted apps and secondary services, such as holding CRM data. So the marketing buzz is at full tilt, with seemingly every cloud services provider looking to add storage to its portfolio of offerings.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2009/09/24/urnidgns002570F3005978D88525763B005CC14B.DTL

Certain kinds of data will probably never make it to the cloud, King believes, including financial information and sensitive government documents.

alesforce.com (CRM) recently said that its cloud computing applications were selected by the General Services Administration’s (GSA) cloud computing storehouse named Apps.gov. This online cloud computing site introduced by GSA will help US government organizations to buy and use the cloud computing applications already agreed upon by GSA.

Salesforce.com enters the Government cloud computing segment in a big way with this deal, although many cabinet-level government agencies are already using the company’s services. The positive news comes just after the company’s introduction of Service cloud 2, an enhanced version of service cloud computing that provides better solutions to customers. This includes Salesforce knowledge, Salesforce Answers and Salesforce for Twitter. Salesforce is thus blazing all guns to make its cloud computing services available to customers across all segments

http://seekingalpha.com/article/161884-salesforce-gets-government-contract

Salesforce.com enters the Government cloud computing segment in a big way with this deal

The Care Services Efficiency Delivery team (CSED), part of the Department of Health, has adopted Really Simple Systems hosted customer relationship management (CRM) software to assist in managing and

maintaining its working activities and client histories. By ensuring complete transparency across the CSED team, Really Simple Systems eases internal communication, ensures the effective sharing of information and provides team leaders with a complete view of activity.

Innovative transformation

http://www.crm2day.com/content/t6_librarynews_1.php?news_id=126291

With 150 councils in England each seeking to maximise efficient delivery of adult social care, effective management and deployment of its limited resources were clear objectives to be achieved with CSED’s implementation of a CRM system.

Star, a provider of on-demand computing and communication services for UK businesses, has launched a new programme enabling partners to add on-demand Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution to their portfolio. Star’s programme has no set-up fees and no long term contracts in order to help partners acquire new customers quickly and easily. This means resellers not only benefit from the recurring revenue of an on-demand service but will also sell their own professional services to implement, migrate, configure, support and maintain the solution.

Star CRM is a powerful way for resellers to enhance their customer value. The on-demand service, optimising Microsoft Dynamics technology, is designed for any reseller that would like to offer hosted CRM under their own brand. This includes resellers who may already deliver on-premise Microsoft Dynamics CRM but wish to provide an alternative that is much more accessible to the market in terms of cost and time to implement. It is also ideal for CRM consultancies, many of which are looking to open up new revenue streams by adding hosted CRM to their offering.

http://www.it-director.com/channels/reseller/news_release.php?rel=13008

The Star CRM service is designed to provide companies of all sizes with the tools to build a customer-centric business philosophy and culture to support effective marketing, sales and customer service processes.