Monthly Archives: January 2011

January 31, 2011 Posted in Business 1 Comment

TClouds–An Interesting Initiative for Cross Border, Secure and Open Clouds

By Ben Kepes

A friend alerted me to this interesting initiative out of Europe. Trustworthy Clouds (TClouds) is a grouping that, in their own words, “aims to build a prototype Internet scale ICT infrastructure which allows virtualized computing, network, and storage resources over the Internet to provide scalability and cost-efficiency”. A consortium between

January 31, 2011 Posted in Business 1 Comment

Fourth Quarter Earning–Billing and Subscription Hotting Up

By Ben Kepes

I’ve written pretty regularly about SaaS billing and subscription services and how, in my view, they’re an indicator for the greater cloud economy. Given that then it’s pretty interesting to see the results just announced by Aria Systems and Vindicia recently (Zuora is still in its current quarter and their

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January 28, 2011 Posted in Business Leave a comment

First CloudU Webinar–Podcast Now Available

By Ben Kepes

In a recent post on the Rackspace blog announcing the CloudU educational program I’m running this year, I explained the concept as follows; I’ve spent the last 15 years or so owning and running business in a bunch of different industries – from manufacturing to commercial property, from consulting to

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January 27, 2011 Posted in Meetup, Zendesk Nation 1 Comment

Enroll in CloudCamp, Feb. 2

By Ben Kepes

CloudCamp is not a conference. It is a place where attendees can exchange ideas, knowledge and information in a creative and supportive environment, advancing the current state of cloud computing and related technologies. As an informal, member-supported gathering, we rely entirely on volunteers to help with meeting content, speakers, meeting locations, equipment, and membership recruitment.

January 27, 2011 Posted in Business 1 Comment

Netsuite goes Native with Subscription and Billing

By Ben Kepes

Six months ago I posted about an interesting piece of news – that NetSuite had inked a preferred partnership agreement with subscription and billing provider Zuora. The news was interesting because rival subscription and billing provider Aria was already a preferred partner of NetSuite (Disclosure – see relevant information about

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January 26, 2011 Posted in Business 3 Comments

Cloud IS the Choice of the New SMB Generation

By Ben Kepes

Part of my excitement about the CloudU program I’m running this year is the expectation that through it we’ll reach true Mom and Pop SMBs and tell them about the benefits of Cloud Computing. The reality is that at the real coalface, Cloud is a new concept and by running

January 26, 2011 Posted in Best Practices, happy customers 1 Comment

Responding to Nightmare Customers

By Ben Kepes

A recent NPR article about a good Samaritan taking his mugger out to dinner got us thinking about angry customers. Yeah, the correlation might not be immediate, but check this out. Julio Diaz, a social worker, was recently mugged in the Bronx. After being robbed, Diaz offered his assailant, a teenager, his jacket and ended up buying

January 25, 2011 Posted in Business 1 Comment

Cirtas Bags Series B

By Ben Kepes

Cirtas, the cloud storage controller company, today announced that it has closed a Series B funding round totaling $22.5 million. This round has been led by newcomers Shasta Ventures and Bessemer Venture Partners, as well as returning investors Amazon, NEA and Lightspeed. As is also often the case in these

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January 24, 2011 Posted in Business 2 Comments

SMBs and Disaster Planning

By Ben Kepes

The other day ReadWriteWeb posted about a recent Symantec survey that showed some unsurprising, but still pretty scary statistics for small businesses. The survey found that 57% of SMBs have no disaster recovery plan and even 47% of midsize companies (those with between 100 and 1000 employees) similarly leave themselves

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January 22, 2011 Posted in case study, Zendesk Nation Leave a comment

More About Groupon’s Millionth Ticket (and Why It Rocks)

By Ben Kepes

A couple of weeks ago, we celebrated the millionth support ticket processed by Groupon’s customer support team. To us, the milestone was so significant, we thought it warranted a flight out to the company’s corporate headquarters in Chicago so we could deliver a giant green cake. When a company can offer that kind of customer support, it

The Author

Ben Kepes is a technology evangelist, an investor, a commentator and a business adviser. Ben covers the convergence of technology, mobile, ubiquity and agility, all enabled by the Cloud. His areas of interest extend to enterprise software, software integration, financial/accounting software, platforms and infrastructure as well as articulating technology simply for everyday users.

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