IT Strategic Consulting Services

My hectic schedule prevented me from putting together an update in May. Now that the Summer is in full-bloom in New England and the Spring conference season is behind us, there is a little more time to take stock of the current state of the on-demand services market, including Cloud Computing, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and Managed Services.

In fact, it has been the growing number of requests for THINKstrategies' perspective on these trends which has kept me increasingly busy for the past few months. The market is rapidly evolving, moving toward a new stage that I've termed "Cloud 2.0".

During this period, I've presented to senior executives from some of the largest enterprises in New England at the State of Cloud Conference in Boston; moderated panels of tech industry leaders at the SIIA and OpSource All About the Cloud Conference; and assured the owners of various channel organizations at CompTIA's Annual Membership Meeting and Everything Channel's Public Sector Xchange Conference , about of the 'cloud' and how to avoid being 'dis-intermediated' by this unprecedented transformation process.

During the last two months, I've also spoken at a number of corporate events, including Citrix's Synergy User Conference, Tech Data's TechSelect Partner Forum, Pervasive Software's Metamorphosis 2010, and SAP's Sapphire Conference.

In addition to growing requests from companies and conferences for THINKstrategies' perspectives, I have also been asked to contribute my point-of-view ito a widening array of online publications. The most recent media outlet to ask me to contribute on an ongoing basis is TechWeb's Internet Evolution which examines the future direction of the Internet.

This new writing opportunity is perfectly aligned with the original mission of THINKstrategies which I founded in 2001 to help organizations understand the business implications of the shift in the technology industry from product-centric to services-driven solutions, and help them capitalize on the exciting new opportunities, as well as cope with the challenges created by this transformation process.

I have consulted with and spoken to hundreds of companies of all sizes about how they can leverage today's 'on-demand', 'cloud' service alternatives to achieve their corporate objectives. In addition, THINKstrategies has been an active supporter of many industry events and associations aimed at educating users, vendors and investors about business benefits of these services.

Click here to listen and watch many of my recent presentations, or view a series of online industry overview presentations I'm producing regarding important industry trends via Brainshark, an easy-to-use, online authoring and distribution tool.

In addition, THINKstrategies' SaaS Showplace and Managed Services Showplace sites continue to grow and remain the top-ranked, online directories and best practice resource centers in their respective markets according to Google.

Thanks to AppFirst for being our newest sponsor of the SaaS Showplace.

THINKstrategies continues to promote the business benefits of cloud computing and SaaS with its Cloud Computing Business Value (CCBV) Award and Best of SaaS Showplace (BoSS) Award programs. You can read more about the awards programs below.

Since our last Update, we have added over 400 new subscribers to this newsletter, bring the total to over 12,800, including IT/business decision-makers, IT solution providers, technology investors, and business and industry press!

Please contact me if you'd like to learn more about THINKstrategies' consulting, strategic marketing and education services. Or, you can watch my overview of THINKstrategies' services to hear about the ways we help our clients achieve their business objectives.

Finally, I hope you will support my annual cycling ride to combat cancer -- the Pan Mass Challenge. This is my fourth year participating in this extraordinary event and encourage you to help us fight this terrible and deadly disease.

Thanks for your continued support!

Jeff Kaplan

Managing Director

THINKstrategies

Getting Ready for Cloud 2.0

Last month, I was asked by InformationWeek to contribute an article which provides THINKstrategies' perspective regarding the state of the cloud computing in the publications Global CIO forum section.

I used this occasion to publish a commentary which discusses a topic which has been the focus of many of my presentations over the past few months -- the maturation of the cloud computing industry to a new stage I call "Cloud 2.0".

Click here to read the user and vendor implications of this transition in the cloud computing industry.

My InformationWeek article caught the attention of other media outlets which asked me to elaborate on my ideas, including Datamation and Internet Evolution.

You can also hear me discuss the business implications of the Cloud 2.0 phenomenon on a eBizQ podcast.

Contact me if you'd like to discuss how these trends might impact your business, or if you would like to have me present THINKstrategies' perspectives to your management team, staff, customers or partners.

THINKstrategies SaaS and Cloud Computing Award Programs