What is it that enterprises want in the cloud, and in their cloud provider? While the specifics may vary a bit from company to company, there are some general conclusions that can be drawn.

In a new white paper from the industry research firm Ovum, the "what do we want" question is addressed, in part through a survey of 200 IT decision makers. Asked to rate the factors that influence their decision to invest in cloud services, the leading reason is cost cutting, both in the IT department itself and across the entire operation.More...

Always advancing in providing ways for enterprises to leverage the advantages of the cloud, Sprint has introduced a new IaaS solution that offers an appealing combination of security, flexibility, and simplicity on top of a truly cloud-aware network.

Sprint CloudCompute, announced Monday, integrates the power of CSC's virtualized utility-based computing solution in the cloud with a robust, reliable, and secure network. As a solution, CloudCompute enhances an organization's IT agility. It makes it possible to quickly turn up additional computing resources when needed, or dial them down just as quickly once particular missions are accomplished. More...

If we weren’t able to visit with you this week at Interop, or perhaps you skipped the show, you may have missed our announcement about CloudCompute. This new cloud offering provides a secure, private network and seamless connectivity, on-demand provisioning and management, and a single contract and invoice for all services. CloudCompute gives enterprises the ability to operate a more efficient network, paying only for what is used among a range of virtualized solutions.  If you want to know more, read on about CloudCompute.

You never know what you might find, even in familiar places, when you go exploring. I'll bet most of you didn't realize that from right here at Seamless Enterprise, you're only a click away from a most interesting graphic about cloud usage and savings.

It's true. Here it is, and in a very easy-to-read format, you can pick up a lot of information about how companies are using the cloud, the effect on their IT departments and IT performance, the savings they're seeing, and security concerns. The information comes from an international survey of 3,645 IT decision makers. More...

The best recommendation for any technology is the success of the company using it. We all learn more from seeing how someone else is putting a technology or a solution to work – and seeing real benefits – than we do from all the marketing materials a vendor can throw at us

With that in mind, we recommend you browse on over to this particular case study in the use of Managed Network Services. It's about Excelitas Technologies and how that company's search for a reliable network provider brought it to Sprint.

In a nutshell, Robert Ersoni, Excelitas' IT Director, wasn't just looking for a high-performing network. He wanted visibility into that network and he wanted to offload the routine duties from his staff, freeing them to focus on more strategic objectives. More...

Besides the dawn of tablets and other Internet-related sensations, what else is poised to grow exponentially in the short term? The answer, says Gartner, is Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), expected to grow more than 40 percent in the next four years, reaching more than $72 billion in revenue (from less than $10 billion in 2012).

IaaS is one of three general pillars making up cloud computing services. The other two include Software-as-a-Service and Platform-as-a-Service. Says Techtarget, IaaS is a “provision model in which an organization outsources the equipment used to support operations, including storage, hardware, servers and networking components. The service provider owns the equipment and is responsible for housing, running and maintaining it.”  More...

There was an interesting mini-debate in the March 25 Network World about whether the cloud is ready for mission-critical applications.

This side-by-side argumentation featured the "yes" position being argued by the CIO of IEEE, with the "no" position argued by the CTO of a financial trading company. You can take a look at the points each person made here.

After looking it over, we'd have to say that in many ways they are both right (do we have a future in politics, or what?). But we're not trying to just straddle the fence. For the vast majority of companies, with the right communications network in place, the answer is going to be yes. But specifically, for a financial trading company, we can understand why that type of organization would hold out for no at this time. More...

When it comes to picking a hotel for your business trip, if all your choices are similar in pricing and quality, but one has attentive concierge service, wouldn't it make sense to choose that one?

Maybe you'll need help picking the best nearby restaurant, or want to score tickets to a basketball game in town at the last minute. That's when you really appreciate the value of a concierge. More...

Sprint's cloud-based Microsoft Office 365 service offering has earned some well-deserved recognition, in the form of a North American Customer Value Enhancement Award in Mobile Communications and Collaboration from Frost & Sullivan.

This annual award recognizes excellence in products and services that create value for customers and enhance their ROI. In bestowing this award on Sprint, Frost & Sullivan emphasized that the "Microsoft Office 365 solution reflects a sharpened understanding" of smaller and mid-sized business needs. They went on to describe it as "the most attractive offering in a hotly contested field." More...

When your business depends on data and collaboration – and whose doesn't anymore? – it's understandable if you emphasize caution in how you change the way your people work with that data. That includes where it's kept, how you access it, and how you protect it.

So it's no surprise that a recent Forrester Wave white paper about cloud strategies found that even with online collaboration becoming much more appealing as business dynamics evolve, there is a certain amount of business customer uncertainty when it comes to committing to these collaboration solutions. More...