March Madness

By Scott Lechner
March Madness has always been one of my favorite sporting events. This year the bracket challenge transcended sports and found its way into technology, as Virtual Strategy Magazine announced its own March Madness. The competition puts 64 vendor-contributed ‘2011 trend’ articles against each other. Readers choose the winning articles, which then move on to the next round. The competition has been going on since last week and four Kulesa Faul clients were included: uptime software, Model Metrics, Dell KACE and CloudShare.

I am huge fan of both sports and technology, so seeing them together makes me a happy man. Take a look and vote for your very own Final Four leading 2011 prediction!

Behind the Paywall: Will you Pay up?

By Kelly Indrieri
The time we’ve been dreading has come...no, not Armageddon, although it may seem like it recently. Actually, I'm talking about paying for online news content. This isn't entirely new, but the New York Times, one of the most well-respected newspapers in the world, just announced this week that beginning March 28 home delivery non-subscribers will have to pay up or go elsewhere for their news. The options are many though, non-subscribers will still be able to access up to 20 online articles for free each month, but will have to take out their wallets and pony up either $15, $20 or $35 a month to get more.

Paying for news content online is a sticky situation and many media corps are still trying to figure out what it will look like exactly. Offering some content for free and then often layering a confusing payment model for other content seems to be the new normal. For instance, WSJ has been doing it for years, Rupert Murdoch recently unveiled a paid iPad-only publication and now the New York Times is throwing their hat in the ring. The question I have is with all of the free content out there, including bloggers and online news sources like CNN and MSNBC, will people really pay for their news or is this a losing game for the big media conglomerates? Me personally, I think I’ll stick to CNN and my free 20 New York Times articles and save my money for the latte I like to drink with my morning news. How about you? Will you pay up or go elsewhere?

Cloud Connect 2011

By Danielle Salvato
This week, my colleagues and I attended the annual Cloud Connect conference in Santa Clara. Produced by TechWeb, Cloud Connect is an intimate, niche conference that brings together the entire cloud ecosystem to better understand the transformation defining the technology industry.

This particular conference has received a good amount of buzz this year, with large IT trade publications and reporters covering the latest and greatest and more than 3,000 techies visiting the Expo floor and daily sessions (up 50 percent from last year’s event!). There were 70 or so exhibitors, including Rackspace, Electric Cloud, Apica, and RightScale, as well as IBM, Intel and VMware.

While Cloud Connect didn’t provide extravagant lighting, sumo wrestlers or endless free SWAG like the recent RSA conference, attendees were treated to some pretty snazzy light-up yoyos from a leading cloud testing and performance monitoring vendor, Apica. Here is a photo of our very own Cathy Wright demonstrating her yoyo skills with the company’s CEO, Sven Hammar. (Fun fact: Cathy was a yoyo champion in the 4th grade!)

We’re steeped in the cloud every day here at Kulesa Faul. Our growing cloud practice includes Model Metrics, Meraki, Host Analytics, Apica, Jitterbit, RainStor, and Soonr⎯companies that are directly focused on developing interesting products and defining new opportunities as more businesses move to the cloud. To learn more about our client successes, please visit Kulesa Faul.

Technology and the Breakdown in Human Interaction—Take II

By Julie Tangen
Technology brings us together in so many ways, but from a social standpoint, what are the repercussions of its advances? Do gadgets, like iPhones, shut out the world around us and are we on the verge of a breakdown in human interaction? I posed this in a blog a few years back.

Since then I’ve come to realize how powerful technology can be for deepening relationships. Thanks to my iPhone I can watch my little nephew take his first steps via video chat. I can check in with family members more frequently via text. I’m able to respond to client and editor requests quickly, no matter where I am. My iPhone has also helped to expand my business and social network. For instance when I meet someone out and about I can immediately connect through Facebook or LinkedIn and start developing a friendship with that person, where as five or ten years ago their business card might have been filed away in my rolodex with other interesting people I’ve met along the way.

I’m typing this while waiting for my latte, by the way. Am I missing an opportunity to chat with the person in line next to me because I’m so focused on my iPhone? Maybe. But I’ve been able to create more meaningful friendships with the people who make my coffee because we’re now connected through Facebook.

Do you find that your iPhone/iPad/gadget opens you up to new people and experiences?

RSA 2011

By Kristina Molfino
If the expo floor of this year’s annual RSA Conference in San Francisco is any indication of the state of our economy, I would say we are headed up! Hundreds of vendors were out in full force this week at the Moscone Center, showcasing their latest and greatest security technology. The fresh, electric, excitement that had been lacking the past few years is back. Huge exhibits, signs, lighting, sumo wrestlers, SWAG…they were all back.

I met some new people and saw some familiar faces, but overall, walking the expo hall was refreshing. The cherry trees aren’t the only thing blooming in the city – IT security is alive!

Can there be an Apple without Steve?

By Cathy Wright
The recent story of Apple CEO Steve Jobs taking medical leave was big news. Some media outlets (and the stock market) seem to think Apple is doomed without him. I don't agree. Not to diminish Mr. Jobs amazing contributions to the resurrection of Apple, but it's a huge company now thanks to him. I find it hard to believe its entire future still rests on the vision of a single person.

And let's be honest here, Mr. Jobs has been dealing with his unfortunate health issues for some time. I very much doubt he's been putting in 12 hour days working with the product development team this past year. And yet Apple has been rolling along very nicely indeed, which I guess says something about the caliber of people he has hired beneath him.

Disney made it without Walt, and I predict Apple will make it even if Mr. Jobs is forced to step down. Come to think of it, I believe Steve owns a big hunk of Disney also. I'm certain he'd give it all up in exchange for being healthy again. I wish him a speedy and total recovery.

Forecast Remains Cloudy

By Kelly Indrieri
The forecast calls for continued clouds in 2011 and the attendees at this week’s Dreamforce conference could not be happier. After eight years putting on this conference, Salesforce saw its biggest crowd yet with over 30,000 people participating at the cloud computing event of the year.

Two Kulesa Faul clients, Jitterbit and Model Metrics, participated in the show and saw amazing success with news that included the first cloud computing Groupon offer from Model Metrics and Jitterbit showcasing CloudReplicate, which gives Salesforce customers the ability to access their data in a relational database of choice on Amazon EC2.

While the day saw amazing news across the show floor, the nights were reserved for Stevie Wonder, parties, a cloud crawl and Bill Clinton! It’s truly the premier conference in the enterprise IT world with a mix of innovation and fun without the software, of course.