CHICAGO- Feb 2012- On Thursday, February 16, Delivered Innovation co-hosted “State of the Cloud 2012: What Business Executives Need to Know” at the Illinois Technology Association. The event had over 70 registrants, with professionals ranging from companies such as Google and Motorola to mid-market SMEs such as First Communications and Hexistor.

The presenters included Brad Desent of Apex Consulting, Chris Kabat of MPS Partners, and Michael Topalovich, CTO of Delivered Innovation. Topics of conversation centered around old cloud vs. new cloud discussions, leading cloud offerings (PaaS, IaaS, and SaaS), and which cloud applications are useful in running your business, such as Remember the Milk, Google Docs, and Quickbooks.

Justin Hartung, Enterprise Deployment Manager at Google, stated that the turnout of the event, “shows how much the cloud has grown, and how important it is for businesses today to educate themselves on cloud benefits.”

Russell Pease, Strategic Accounts at Windstream, shared his thoughts, “the event was great; it’s interesting to see so many industry experts participate in a cloud discussion and give their own definition of cloud computing since everyone’s is slightly different.”

For a full review of the event, read Delivered Innovation’s blog.

More about Delivered Innovation
Founded in 2006, Delivered Innovation (DI) designs and develops on-demand SaaS business applications. Utilizing leading cloud computing technologies and leveraging strategic partnerships, DI helps clients address complex business challenges and create revenue opportunities by automating business processes, extending the functionality of existing CRM enterprise systems, and introducing new business capabilities within Salesforce.

DI understands the critical nature of getting services to market quickly in order to capture first-mover advantages. Additionally, DI understands that it is just as important for services to be well-designed, highly functional, and high performing in order to drive rapid adoption and growth. With DI’s innovative approach to SaaS application and design, they have completed over 125 successful projects, ranging from innovative startups to global 500 companies.

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Media Contact
Jessica Buhrman | Social Marketing Manager | jbuhrman/deliveredinnovation.com

This week, Delivered Innovation co-hosted an event at the ITA, “State of the Cloud: What Business Executives Need to Know.” The presenters included Brad Desent of Apex Consulting, Chris Kabat of MPS Partners, and our own CTO, Mike Topalovich. We were impressed by the outcome of the event, and received positive feedback from our attendees. If you would like the run down of the event, click the link below. Thank you to everyone who attended!

• State of the Cloud Event Recap

Salesforce.com recently announced an alliance with Deloitte, one of the largest consulting firms in the world. The goal of the alliance is to provide, “multinational companies with software, mobile and open cloud computing technologies for the social enterprise.” Deloitte can also help salesforce.com increase their presence in the cloud computing market share by having access to Deloitte’s large customer base, comprised mainly of large enterprises. Deloitte’s customers are looking to “work more effectively and more efficiently,” and the possibilities with cloud computing and Salesforce might just be the key.

• Salesforce.com to Widen Cloud Computing Reach with Deloitte Partnership

Cloud computing is very cost effective, but also comes with a lot of risk and security worries. With these in mind, how are higher education institutions implementing cloud computing? Currently, United States’ universities implement the cloud for three essential reasons: to lower the cost of hardware and maintenance, expand access to research and academic outputs, and grant access to Web 2.0 applications for students and teachers.

• Cloud Computing: Its Benefits, and How it is Implemented by Universities

Before deploying a cloud service, it is important to asess the risks and ask the right questions. CloudTweaks offers a few important questions to ask that will help you get you started: Who is managing my data? What access controls are in place? Is the data secured? Where is the data actually located? Are they here to stay? Each of these questions will give you a better idea where your data is going, how it is being kept secure, and what would happen to your data if the company shuts down or is acquired by someone else.

• Security Questions to Ask Your Cloud Service Provider

There is a great discussion in LinkedIn regarding marketing automation in Salesforce, Stephanie Kimball posted the question to the Salesforce Power Users Group: “Looking for a great email marketing software that integrates with Salesforce, we are currently using Exact Target and are not happy with it. Any suggestions?” The discussion has over 40 participants, with Exact Target, MailChimp, and Marketo in the lead for most suggestions. If you have any input, post your thoughts through the link below.

• Looking for a Great Email Marketing Software that Integrates with Salesforce

State of the Cloud 2012 was a full house, with attendance ranging from professionals at Google and Motorola, to SMEs such as First Communications and Hexistor. Our three presenters, Brad DeSent from Apex Consulting Group; Chris Kabat from MPS Partners; and Delivered Innovation’s own Michael Topalovich, spoke on leading cloud capabilities.

In response to the event, Justin Hartung, Enterprise Deployment Manager at Google, stated that the turnout of the event “shows how much the cloud has grown,” and how important it is for businesses today to educate themselves on cloud benefits. Russ Pease, Strategic Accounts at Windstream, shared his thoughts, “the event was great; it’s interesting to see so many industry experts participate in a cloud discussion and give their own definition of cloud computing since everyone’s is slightly different.”

We were very excited about the turnout of the event, and would like to share with you what we learned:

Brad DeSent was the first to take the stage and presented on the old vs. new in cloud computing. Old news- cloud computing discussions were centered around public vs. private clouds, what the difference is between SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS, and what essential characteristics such as on-demand service and resource pooling that the cloud provides. Today, discussions circle around topics of mobility due to releases in tablets, smart phones, and mobile apps, security and backup for cloud services, and “cloud by default” deployments in offices, such as Salesforce, Microsoft Office, and Google Docs.

Chris Kabat helped bring to light our understanding of PaaS, IaaS, and storage as a service. A couple big players in Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) are Google and Amazon EC2; in Platform as a Service (PaaS) there are Amazon, Windows Azure, Force.com, and Google; in Storage as a Service (which is a relatively new term), there are Dropbox, Google, and Rackspace, to name a few. Each of these players have unique offerings to consumers, and when exploring cloud possibilities, it is important to investigate and compare options.

Some interesting statistics:

• 72% of professionals feel more positive about cloud computing than they did 1 year ago

• Cloud computing is predicted to stay in progressive growth mode, with 53% of professionals wanting more clarity around cloud offerings, and 47% wanting more clarity around deployments.

Lastly, our CTO took the stage. Running 100% in the cloud for the past two years, Mike Topalovich gave a run down of the cloud applications that Delivered Innovation uses on a daily basis. Topalovich gave us a quick demo of Evernote for note taking and web clipping, Remember the Milk for task management, Quickbooks for finance management, and Google Docs for document and project collaboration. With these tools, Delivered Innovation has been able to more effectively run our business, making accessibility to information quicker and easier than ever before. Some other applications to consider for your business are Dropbox for storage, Expensify for expense management, DocVerify for document management, Basecamp for project management, and ZenDesk for an online help desk.

With so many cloud applications, there comes an issue with integration- how can you integrate one application with another? Better yet, how can you integrate five applications into one? Topalovich answered this question by stating that applications can be integrated into PaaS services, such as the Force.com platform. That allows for the application to be integrated into a SaaS environment, in this example it would be Salesforce. The added benefit being paying a one time fee for integration and customization, then having it available for full usage. This cuts down on management of different cloud applications, as you could manage them in one place, in one dashboard.

Thank you to everyone who attended our event, we enjoyed your feedback and look forward to seeing you again soon! If you have any further questions or comments about this event, please comment below, or email me at jbuhrman/deliveredinnovation.com.

Join our CTO, Michael Topalovich, and 10k other Salesforce enthusiasts at this year’s Cloudforce on March 15 in San Francisco. This year’s theme is (you can probably guess it) the Social Enterprise! Expect to hear guests from Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Accenture, and Burberry discuss how they are taking advantage of the Social Enterprise , as well as register for 40 breakout sessions, attend the Expo, and network with thousands of professionals. Use the link below to register today.

• Cloudforce Social Enterprise Tour

Salesforce.com is home to over a million applications running on Force.com, Database.com, and Heroku. These platforms are all targeted towards a specific type of application: Force.com for developers who are creating data-centric applications similar to CRM, Heroku to run custom apps that can be rewritten in multiple languages, and Database.com for unifying Force.com and Heroku under a common set of cloud services. According to Byron Sebastian, CEO of Heroku, the reason why salesforce.com is so successful in the cloud is not the type of cloud platforms offered, but rather, because salesforce.com “allows them to concentrate on building the application rather than worrying about managing the servers the application runs on.” If you need Force.com application help, let us know and we might be able to help.

• Salesforce.com: A Million Cloud Apps and Counting

Have you voted for Delivered Innovation’s two panels at Techweek? If not, what are you waiting for?

• Techweek 2012- Vote for Delivered Innovation!

Deloitte has formed an alliance with salesforce.com to “provide multinational and international companies with the software, mobile, and open cloud computing technologies for the social enterprise.” Paul Clemmons, Principal at Deloitte and leader of their cloud market offering and emerging solutions line, will be the lead in the global alliance. Deloitte argues that their clients are looking to work more effectively and efficiently, and a switch into cloud computing and salesforce.com will represent the solution catalyst.

• Deloitte Partners with Salesforce.com

Results for salesforce.com’s fiscal 4th quarter and full year 2012 financial results will be released on February 23, after the market closes. The company plans to host a conference call at 5:00 PM eastern time to discuss the financial results with the investment community. A live web broadcast of the event will be available on the salesforce.com Investor Relations website at www.salesforce.com/investor.

• Salesforce.com Announces Timing of It’s Fiscal Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2012 Financial Results Conference Call

Our “State of the Cloud 2012: What Business Executives Need to KNow” event at the ITA is this upcoming Thursday, February 16! Our CTO, Mike Topalovich, is excited to join in on the cloud panel next to Brad DeSent of Apex Consulting Group, Inc., and Chris Kabat of MPS Partners, to discuss the evolving cloud computing landscape. The event is free, and held at the ITA (200 S. Wacker, 14th floor) starting at 9am on Thursday, February 16. Register using the link below, and we’ll see you there!

We are excited to announce that Delivered Innovation is in the running for two Techweek panels this year! The more votes, tweets, Likes, and LinkedIn shares we get, the more likely you will be seeing our panels at Techweek. If you can, take 10 minutes and review our panels and give us a big, fat vote. Voting ends Thursday, February 16.

Panel 1: Growing up on the Cloud
This panel will feature executives from companies with business models that were enabled by the cloud, speaking to how cloud computing technology allows them to provide products and services that would not be possible without leveraging cloud architecture. Moreover, they will discuss how the cloud has changed and where they see it going in the next 5 years.
Speakers include: Curtis Chambers, Head of Engineering at Uber; Alan McIntosh, CIO of Groupon; Chad Thibodeau, Director of Product Management and Alliances at Cleversafe; Mike Topalovich, CTO of Delivered Innovation.
Vote Now!

Panel 2: To “Like” or Not to “Like”: Should Your Company Turn to Social?
In this panel, you will learn how social can help your employees get their jobs done faster, improve efficiency, and increase employee satisfaction as well as create a forum for them to collectively develop new programs and services to enhance both the client experience and that of their work environment.
Speakers include: Jennifer Cloyd, VP of Sales/Marketing at Omega; Jessica Buhrman, Social Marketing Manager at Delivered Innovation; Starr McCaffery, Owner of Sound Solutions; Joe Bastain, Sr. Learning and Development Consultant at ACS Corporation.
Vote Now!

More about Techweek:
Techweek’s goal is to, “spotlight the big ideas and disruptive products in each [technology] industry.” To do this, Techweek holds a 5-day conference and 5-day expo at Chicago’s Merchandise Mart. This year’s conference will include over 500 speakers across 200 panels and 12 tracks, ranging across every vertical of technology innovation. The conference will be held on June 22-26, 2012, and you can register for the conference here.

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