trends

The cloud storage and collaboration space is more competitive than ever before. Google recently rolled out its new cloud-based document and storage solution and faces competition not just from cloud companies such as Box and Dropbox, but from Apple, Microsoft and Amazon as well. Here’s a brief comparison of the big players:

Amazon Cloud Drive: 

• Storage: 5GB free (purchases from the Amazon MP3 Store don’t count towards storage limit)
• Mobile Integration: Cloud Player for Android, no official iOS app
• Desktop Integration: Amazon MP3 Uploader/Downloader for music
• Pricing: $1 a gigabyte per year
• Collaborative Editing: No
• File Size Limitations: 2GB

iCloud:

• Storage: 5GB free, 20GB is $40 a year, 50GB is $100 a year
• Mobile Integration: Built into iOS 5
• Desktop Integration: Mac OS X 10.7.x and Windows 7
• Pricing: $40/$100 a year
• Collaborative Editing: No
• File Size Limitations: No

Box:

• Storage: 5GB free, up to 50GB for personal accounts, 1TB for business and unlimited for eneterprise
• Mobile Integration: iOS, Android, and BlackBerry
• Desktop Integration: Mac, Windows, web
• Pricing: Personal accounts start at $9.99 a month for 25GB, business plans start at $15 a month (at least 3 users required)
• Collaborative Editing: Yes, more robust editing for business accounts
• File Size Limitations: 25MB – 100MB for free accounts, up to 2GB for business accounts, up to 2GB for business accounts

Dropbox:

• Storage: 2GB free and 500MB per referral, paid plans up to 100GB
• Mobile Integration: Android, iOS, BlackBerry
• Desktop Integration: Windows, Mac, Linux, web
• Pricing: $100 a year for 50GB, $200 a year for 100GB
• Collaborative Editing: No, but many cloud document services integrate with Dropbox
• File Size Limitations: None for desktop, 300MB for web uploads

Microsoft SkyDrive:

• Storage: 7GB free (25GB for users who signed up before April 22, 2012), Up to 100GB
• Mobile Integration: Official apps for Windows Phone 7 and iOS, unofficial Android apps, mobile web access
• Desktop Integration: Windows, Mac and web
• Pricing: Additional storage available for $0.50 a gigabyte, 100GB of additional storage is $50 a year.
• Collaborative Editing: Yes, with Office Live Web Apps
• File Size Limitations: 2GB (300 megabytes for web uploads)

Google Drive:

• Storage: 5GB free, up to 16TB
• Mobile Integration: Android, iOS (coming soon)
• Desktop Integration: Windows, Mac, web
• Pricing: $30 a year for 25GB, $60 a year for $100GB
• Collaborative Editing: Yes with Google Docs
• File Size Limitations: 10GB

“Enterprise software player SAP has unveiled aggressive plans to grow its presence in the database software and mobile apps markets…” read the full post on siliconrepublic.

A survey of the Center for european economic research (ZEW) in cooperation with Creditreform came to find that e-commerce is used rather for buying purposes than for sales. The survey concentrated on the association for sourcing of payment in advance.

Usually the term e-commerce refers to the selling and buying processes that are conducted via the internet.

The imbalance of selling and buying processes is especially apparent in the software and IT sector:

Nearly 64% of the companies working in the IT- and software sector say that they have ordered products and services on the internet last year. In contrast to that just 29% of these companies sold their products or services online. Mirna Sarbu, scientist at the ZEW announces: “The companies of the software- and IT-service branch are with 81% leading in buying via the internet.”

Considering the usage of e-commerce for selling products, providers of telecommunication services are leading. Nearly 58% of these corporations offer opportunities for their customers to buy their products online.

Generally the e-commerce processes peaked out in 2010. Market-leading companies like amazon, facebook, google or ebay as well as younger online-shops like zalando.de shape the online trading.

What experiences have you made regarding e-commerce? Feel free to leave a reply!

Based on: www.marktundmittelstand.de

At the trade fair CeBIT 2011 hardware producers will exhibit trend-setting innovations of the IT sector. The exposition takes place from 1st to 5th march in Hannover. Here are some gadgets that might impress at this years CeBIT:

The CeBIT (short for Centrum für Büroautomation, Informationstechnologie und Telekommunikation) is the worlds largest trade fair for communication technologies. And this year it’s going to be all about tablets: More than 80 implements will compete with the Apple iPad. Needless to say there are going to be numerous smartphones presented. So databased internet applications and social networking will be a great deal of the CeBIT as well as tridimensional displays on computer- and notebook-monitors. Flatscreen televisions and mini-displays of hand-held devices will imply tridimensional displays more often -but one will need 3-D-glasses still at all times.

Other novelties will be:

• the latest version of the google-software Android 3.0
• 6840 LTE: The first Fritz!Box with LTE-support
• an biodegradable mouse, the Fujitsu M440 Eco
• a 24-inch-full-HD-monitor with VA-LED-technology will be presented by BenQ as well as an interactive projector-chart
• a retro DECT-telephone called “Grundig Sixty”

Do you have more information about CeBIT innovations that you would like to share? Feel free to add a reply!

Article based on:  www.computerbild.de

According to the latest study of Lünendonk the freelance IT business is booming.
But instead of IT departments, IT-experts are booked by buying departments more often.

The crisis is over. The German economy grew by an average of 3.7 percent in 2010. Even for projects that were suspended during the crisis money seems to flow again.

Just good news for IT freelancers: Internal IT departments are overstrained and companies are increasingly reliant on external support. Compared to 2009, the demand for IT professionals increased by 11.5 percent in 2010.

The development over the last 3 years:

Due to Lünendonk there were a high number of project requests in 2008. The crisis in 2009, made the number of project requests drop. However, in 2010 the industry experienced a boom of project requests for IT professionals again.
Until 2015, experts for the IT freelance market expect an equally high, annual market growth of over 17 percent! For 2015 until 2020 an average growth of about 14 percent per year is expected.

Three ordering fields: the IT areas, the buying departments and other specific departments

The purchasing department is not only discussing charges. Increasingly they are the ones who are contacting the recruitment agencies of freelancers directly: 33.5 percent of the project requests are already made directly by the purchasing department.
Next to the IT and the buying department the individual departments already rank third when it comes to booking IT freelancers – with 19.2 percent.

Of course we would like to hear your experiences. What was the most interesting department you have worked for?

So we have already started into the new year and haven’t been talking about IT trends? Good that others have been quick and precise: By the end of last year CIO published their list on the hottest topics in the IT world in the year 2011. Here is an overview of what is believed to change the IT sector in the year that has already started:

1. Tablets
These devices will not only be used for business but even more in the private. The market for tablets will flourish this year, while the iPad will stay market leader.

2. Oracle will buy salesforce.com
Software vendor salesforce.com and its small and medium sized business customers will finally be bought by Oracle. This will open the field in small and medium sized businesses for Oracle and in turn salesforces CRM software will find its way to larger businesses.

3. IBM or HP will buy SAP
Being independent is getting more difficult…and it would would fit IBMs as well as HPs strategy to be building highly integrated systems.

4. Flash memory
The use of flash memory in enterprises will boom. Flash memory will become less expensive and the demand for data centers will grow over the next years.

5. Wikileaks
Wikileaks won’t be stopped and will go on in 2011.

6. Cyberwarfare
According to CIO Cyberwarefare will become reality. Cyber espionage and online sabotage will play an increasing role in warfare.

7. Clouds
More and more business applications will be moved to the cloud. Especially start-ups will play an important role in the process of migrating data to the cloud. The topic of connectivity will also be driven by the cloud.

8. Social media
Social Media will reach a maturation stage in 2011, which leads to a different use: not only non-profit organizations will use social media channels to spread their word, also profit enterprises will find their way to make use of social media. The challenge of misused data will remain.

9. U.S. congress takes tech break
There will be no important tech-related legislation passed this year by the U.S. congress.

10. Steve Ballmer believed to leave Microsoft
The CIOs prediction concerning CEOs is that Microsofts Steve Ballmer won’t stay CEO.

What are your predicitions for this year? Anything to add or any points here you wouldn’t share? We are looking forward to your opinions on this.