MSP News Weekly Podcast for the week ending August 29, 2014. This is a compilation of stories and analysis on noteworthy items in the managed services and cloud computing profession.
Gartner: Global Security Spending to Grow 7.9% in 2014
Organizations around the world will spend just over $71 billion on securing information technology. Increases in mobile usage, cloud computing, and social media are part of the reasons behind this increase. The research firm projects that in 2015 information security spending will increase to a rate of 8.2% or just over $76 billion.
Amazon Cloud Pop-up Stores
It looks like Amazon is bringing back it’s pop-up store concept, except this time, they are hoping to promote cloud computing through these retail like stores. The first one will be in San Francisco. According to Ariel Kelman, vice president of worldwide marketing for Amazon Web Services, the public cloud computing giant will be targeting its pop up stores around the world where there are high concentrations of new startups. Seems to make sense.
While physical stores have obviously worked well for Apple (Microsoft is trying to mimic Apple in this regard) it remains unclear whether Amazon’s approach will translate into more cloud computing users and adoption. We will see.
IBM Launches First SoftLayer Facility in Australia
SoftLayer is planning on launching its first ever data center in Melbourne, Australia. IBM has committed to opening 15 new data centers around the world, which is part of a roughly $1.2 billion investment into cloud computing. The Melbourne facility will be able to accommodate approximately 15,000 physical servers.
BYOD in California: For Better or Worse?
California governor Jerry Brown this week signed into law a bill that will require smart phones sold in California must be equipped with a “kill switch” in order to wipe the devices in the event of being lost or stolen. While this may seem like a no-brainer for MSPs who currently manage mobile devices on behalf of customers, this new law does raise several questions. First, how will other states react to the law (will they adopt similar legislation)? Second, will this law make doing business in California just a bit more complicated and expensive? Third, will the law interfere with existing IT policies being managed by MSPs, which in some cases, may actually be better than what the law prescribes?