Customer Facing Web Apps With Peak Demands: Sweet Spot for Cloud Deployment

Every IT executives is looking at cloud solutions; the challenge is where to start. Well here is my suggestion. Identify customer facing web applications that have sharp variations in demand. Some notable examples are Domino’s Pizza and NFL.com on Super Bowl Sunday, IRS.gov around April 15th, online retailers right after Thanksgiving, etc. In the past IT professionals might have configured …

Prediction from Angelbeat 2012: Telephone/Handset Sales Will Drop Sharply by 2020, driven by BYOD

It seems clear that bring-your-own-device (byod) initiatives are being rapidly embraced by IT executives, who will increasingly spend money on thin client/VDI solutions and middleware software platforms to support consumer devices in the enterprise. Good news if you sell these solutions, potentially tricky for Microsoft and Intel who have grown accustomed to the 3-4 PC refresh over the past ten …

About CEO – Ron Gerber

Ronald J. Gerber is the CEO of Angelbeat, Founder of Gerber & Company, and serves on the Board of Directors and is a former President of the Harvard Business School Club of Greater New York. Angelbeat has held over 350 technology symposiums on throughout North America since its founding in 1999. Angelbeat is the largest technology event company in North …

Microsoft Nokia (not RIM) Partnership – Why It Might Work – Demise of the $100 Laptop

So I was right about Microsoft making a big deal to expand its mobile footprint but wrong about the partner (Nokia, not RIM). At first glance this partnership seems good on paper but would have too many executional problems to work: 1) Nokia-Microsoft cultural battles (entrenched Scandinavian workforce animosity towards Microsoft only grew with the hiring of the ex-Microsoft executive …

Cloud Risks to Client-based Apple iTune vs Microsoft Office

Cloud-based services present major challenges – and opportunities – for Apple’s iTune and Microsoft’s Office client platforms. If you could find all your songs at an Internet Radio site accessed via a 4G/WiFi connection, then do you really need to store all the songs on your iPod? Similarly, if all of your word processing and spreadsheets were available from a …

2011 IT Mergers & Acqusitions: Top Two Predictions

While generally hesitant to predict this rapidly changing IT world, I have been asked and now offer my two top acquisition predictions for 2011:

1. Cisco Buys a VAR/Systems Integrator: Cisco’s main competitors in servers/data center offerings – IBM, HP/EDS, Dell/Perot – all offer professional services to complement hardware. With these global giants now ex-Cisco customers and pushing their in-house brands, Cisco buys its …

IBM 1970, Apple 2010: The Value of Closed Systems

IBM achieved tremendous success in the 1970′s by creating a closed and highly integrated mainframe architecture, controlling all IT elements including chip-sets, hardware, terminals, middle-ware, application software, network connections, etc. Now look at Apple. Their strategy of controlling hardware design and underlying software worked great with the iMac. With the recent expansion into displaying mobile advertisements, designing iPad chip-sets and …