Consumer technologies, specifically the sleek user-friendly devices conjured by Apple and Google, have done what those of us weaned on green screens thought impossible – they have made technology desirable, but more importantly they have raised the profile of service management and in particular the need for robust asset and configuration management and the CMDB has moved even higher up the agenda.

With sales of smartphones up 72 percent in 2010 and mobile devices ringing cash registers to the tune of $1.6 billion last year according to analyst Gartner, consumer …

Organizations should consider SaaS and Cloud if they don’t want to be the ‘Polar Bear on the Melting Glacier of IT’

A recent survey from Gartner has suggested that from April through to July 2010, Cloud-Computing services consumed from external service providers was estimated to be 10.2% of the spending on external IT services.

The reality is that the cloud market, and that includes Software as a Service (SaaS) is evolving rapidly, with 39% of survey respondents worldwide indicating they allocated IT budget to Cloud Computing as a …

A recent article in Infoworld reporting on a Gartner SOA and Application Development event suggested that SaaS “will have a role in the future of IT, but not the dominant future that was first thought.”

There’s more to it than that and it requires a clear understanding of what SaaS actually means. No, SaaS isn’t the answer to all problems. The ‘right’ SaaS is actually one that combines SaaS values with adapted, value-added software. In other words, what is coming to be known as  ‘2nd Generation SaaS.’

How have these …

IT organizations are under continuous pressure to operate efficiently and effectively and to do so with transparency and an explicit value proposition, according to Eric Spiegel of Suntiva Consulting writing on CIO Update. But this is increasingly difficult when every budget line item is closely scrutinized.

One avenue IT managers can take, suggests Spiegel,  is to focus on process improvement. While these initiatives are primarily focused on IT development practices based on quality-focused frameworks like the capability maturity model integration (CMMI) and the rise of professional organizations like …