Cloud computing is the next big thing in
IT. Insiders tell BR whether this new
technology is flying high locally or still
up in the air
»page 8-15
CLOUD
SERVICES
SHOW SILVER
LINING
CLOUD
SERVICES
SHOW SILVER
LINING
Cloud compu
bursts onto I
While many companies are starting to see the silver lining of clou
neering stage. The appeal of cloud is that it adapts: it can suit the
serve entities in the public sector. An ecosystem has already start
are still a lot of information gaps and misconceptions about what
∫
OTILIA HARAGA
Market status
The value of the worldwide cloud com-puting market is set to reach a total of USD 150 billion by 2014, according to Gartner. This means that it will have doubled within four years from 2010, when it totaled USD 68 million.
A local bird’s eye view is offered by Pierre Audoin Consultants (PAC), which predicts that by 2015, the Romanian cloud computing market will see a 40 per-cent boost.
However, PAC does not provide a concrete value for the cloud market in Ro-mania. This is because there are several types of cloud – the most important be-ing public and private.
“The public cloud in Romania gener-ates rather small business, falling in the mostly free-of-charge category of services. The private cloud is generally dedicated to large companies in utilities, telecom, retail and the banking system, and its adoption in Romania is slightly on the up. These companies are in fact the first en-tities that will adopt this technology,” Valentin Tomsa, general manager of SAP Romania, tells BR.
In developed states, the degree of cloud adoption is higher than in Romania. “The reality is that cloud needs are lower
in Romania than in Western Europe or the United States. IT projects for the
Ro-manian market rarely need higher com-puting power on demand and also seldom need capacities to simultaneously cater for a very numerous public,” Alexandru Lapusan, CEO of Zitec, tells BR.
Still, IDC estimations are that the lo-cal cloud computing market is set to grow at least five times faster than the IT market at large between 2011 and 2015. IDC also predicts, in a survey carried out for Microsoft, that 14 million new jobs
will be created in the world by 2015. “In the case of emerging economies, the pace will be faster. The split will be pret-ty much equal among large companies and SMEs. Moreover, the split will be equal across the various industries,” Daniel Rusen, product manager for Office 365 at Microsoft Romania, tells BR.
Together with mobility and business intelligence, cloud computing represents
On cloud nine: cloud computing can offer companies an
“We expect that on the
short term solutions will
become hybrid, so they
will include public cloud,
private cloud and
on-premise components”
Serban Prejoianu,
Gecad Net
uting
IT scene
f cloud computing, the uptake of these services is still in the
pio-it the interests of both a corporation and an SME, but can also
started to form around cloud, but like any untrodden path, there
what cloud can do and when it is suitable.
“one of the three priorities over the next years in the technological development of companies,” Tomsa adds.
Today, 40 percent of all the busi-nesses surveyed by KPMG are aware of the existence of the cloud – with 19 per-cent of them currently evaluating the pos-sibilities and 21 percent actually using or testing the technology, Aurelia Costache, partner in advisory at KPMG, tells BR.
Large organizations have already mi-grated email, CRM, components of HR, point of sale, hosting, and other applica-tions to a cloud environment.
Another 13 percent of companies are beyond the testing stage and are now transitioning core business processes. “Even more striking, one in ten enterprises
are already running core IT functions in the cloud,” she says.
When did you begin to implement cloud solutions?
The first cloud client was a law office al-most two years ago. It was also the first commercial imple-mentation of the Mi-crosoft BPOS (the actual Office 365) service in Romania. Cloud computing was an area we had been thinking about for a while before Microsoft launched a commercial version. We had thought of various scenarios to implement this and Microsoft came with the product just in time. We started developing the skills right away.
What are the most important cloud proj-ects you implemented in the last two years?
One was for Provident Financial Romania – the biggest Office 365 implementation in our country with over 350 users using the whole range of products along with au-thentication in the local network. The second one was for Sustainanalytics – a multinational company that uses a hybrid implementation of Microsoft 365. Why hy-brid? Because we integrated the solution of local authentication, the local commu-nication solution Lync 2010 (used for IM, audio/visual conferences and call centers)
INTERVIEW
and products in cloud from the Office 365 suite such as Exchange Online and Share-point Online
How much does cloud contribute to pro-ductivity growth and employee mobility?
For those who don't have them, the change can be radical. Think about how much you can gain from constant email access, cal-endar or document access. Also, think about how much not having to travel to at-tend a meeting will change your situation. For SMEs, the opportunities of using this technology are extraordinary, as they have access to the newest technologies and tools, at a price which is no longer unaf-fordable for them.
How can a company access cloud tech-nology?
There are two options. One is contacting a partner like Pras, which can implement all the technical settings for the client. There are cases of simple implementation, in which we do not charge additional costs to those required by Microsoft. In cases of complex implementation, the costs in-volved are smaller than those paid for local similar implementation.
The second options is by accessing www.microsoft.com/office365.
A solid partner for cloud solutions implementation
Paul Roman, Managing Partner, Pras Consulting AD VER T ORIAL
“Cloud computing is evolving and we expect it to be implemented on a large scale in three-four years. We believe that the cloud will be most advantageous to the government, healthcare and educa-tion sectors, as the stakeholders include large sections of society. However, com-panies will be the first to adopt the cloud,” says Costache.
Local advantages
In Romania, the adoption of the cloud is going well, “due especially to promo-tion efforts made by Microsoft Romania. There are also many projects on other cloud platforms used by Romanian com-panies, especially Amazon AWS – but it is worth mentioning that Amazon is not making efforts to promote cloud services and instruct technical or business teams in Romania. There are several resellers of cloud services but they are only focused on selling SaaS services (software-as-a-service), for example Google Apps,” Lapusan tells BR.
Microsoft is currently investing in an array of programs meant to promote cloud usage on the Romanian market, especially among SMEs. “The Microsoft team working with software developers for the adoption of cloud platforms is estimating an investment in excess of 250,000 in 2012 in cash grants, training sessions and use of cloud com-puting for Romanian developers,” says Rusen.
Programs include BizSpark, which targets software start-ups that can ben-efit from three years of access to software, training and visibility, free of charge. Secondly, there is BizSpark Plus, which al-lows the most promising start-ups to consume cloud services worth up to USD 60,000. Thirdly, the program Your Busi-ness, Your Fame is a regional competition of software programs in which the Mi-crosoft Romania investment is USD 20,000.
A survey carried out by Vanson Bourne for Microsoft in Europe (on 2,100 managers and entrepreneurs in 21 Euro-pean countries), which also includes 100 Romanian entrepreneurs, found that 70 percent of local managers believe IT is critical for business development; 37 percent of them also believed that they would be using cloud-based solutions this year.
The context is favorable for the
adop-tion of cloud computing in Romania, also for other reasons.
Vasile Voicu, coordinating director for product management for the Romt-elecom business segment, says that the current economic situation also plays an important role since it puts pressure on companies to reduce the total costs of IT&C services.
“Using services in this category, com-panies eliminate initial CAPEX invest-ments, transforming them into opera-tional OPEX costs. Users pay a fixed monthly price for using cloud services, so the total expenses are predictable and un-der control,” he comments. At this point, there are three types of cloud computing services: software as a service (SaaS), Infrastructure as a Service (IaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS). “The first of these is the most advanced,
since it has become known as the best al-ternative to in-house traditional solu-tions from the point of view of quality, flexibility, scalability and costs,” says Voicu.
Additionally, the necessary technical conditions for cloud adoption are in place already.
“Romania has one of the fastest broadband internet speeds in Europe and in the world, it hosts data centers and has very high competences in IT,” Madalin Bratu, cloud computing leader at IBM SEE, tells BR.
As more and more companies transfer to cloud, “the difference will be made by the speed of access and work in the cloud,” Cristina Costachescu, marketing director of UPC Business, tells BR.
Daniel Rusen, product manager for Office 365 at Microsoft Romania
“The Microsoft team
working with software
developers for the
adop-tion of cloud platforms is
estimating an investment
in excess of 250,000 in
2012 in cash grants,
training sessions and use
of cloud computing for
Romanian developers”
Daniel Rusen, Microsoft
What are Maguay’s competences in cloud technology?
Maguay has devel-oped its compe-tences in cloud computing, and can successfully deliver Private Cloud proj-ects.
Apart from the expe-rience on Microsoft System Center products, Maguay has de-veloped competences on virtualization so-lutions – becoming VMWare Enterprise Hyper-V partner, and also on solutions of IT process automatization, Microsoft Self Service Portal.
Meanwhile, Maguay is the most important system builder of servers, being certified as Intel Server Local Leader and Intel Tech-nology Provider Platinum, guaranteeing that we offer the most appropriate hard-ware infrastructure.
Besides, the ability to deliver Private Cloud projects, gives Maguay the possibility to offer to the Public Cloud providers the appropriate infrastructure, server-opti-mized equipment for data centers, which support complex virtualization solutions.
What are Maguay’s strengths in Cloud Computing Technology?
Primarily, the hardware and software com-petences mentioned previously.
What is more, the new Maguay eXpert-Server is our most powerful strength, for Private Cloud projects (where we can also offer design and implementation), but also for Public Cloud Projects.
The new eXpertServer Maguay, build on Intel® Xeon® processors, E5 series, is the optimal solution for increasing to about 80 percent performances and improving by about 50 percent energy efficiency, com-pared to previous server generations. We consider that the server, physical or vir-tual, offered in cloud or at the beneficiary’s HQ, is a vital component of IT infrastructure. Maguay servers are addressed to users who need complex, high availability solu-tions and correct price/performance ratio. We offer, for instance, but are not limited to: enterprise-type storage solutions, Data-Center optimization and consolidation by offering server virtualizations solutions and desktop virtualization solutions.
What are the benefits of the Private Cloud solutions offered by Maguay?
Private Cloud Computing projects are be-coming more popular because the concept is gaining increased awareness, and also as companies discover the real benefits of this technology.
An increased number of companies have chosen Private Cloud solutions to consoli-date and upgrade the IT infrastructure, managing to obtain the following:
- Cost reduction: virtualization and consol-idation eliminate the need for acquiring new servers, and reduce the operating and maintenance costs.
- Increased availability: with hardware
re-INTERVIEW
sources available without additional costs the necessary redundancy is ensured. - Improved operational efficiency: the ac-tivity of the IT department is greatly simpli-fied once virtualization technologies are introduced.
- Improved infrastructure control: by ac-cessing the monitoring server all data are centralized.
- Faster response time from the IT depart-ment: the Self Service Portal allows for the quick creation, control and allocation of re-sources for the development and testing departments.
Implementing a Private Cloud solution of-fers companies the possibility of using their hardware resources more efficiently, also providing their users with diverse services, applications and processing speed as soon as needed. The Private Cloud solution allows for savings in hard-ware acquisition costs, and especially in maintenance costs. It allows for backup availability in case of critical applications malfunctioning. With this solution, the IT department shifts from being focused on support and maintenance into a dynamic department, which can quickly answer all the demands of the organization it is part of.
What are Maguay’s most relevant projects launched in the last year?
l We will mention the following two projects:
E-learning solution implementation at Ovidius University Constanta in partnership with Economic Academy Studies Bucharest, Alexandru Ioan Cuza Iasi Uni-versity and West Timisoara UniUni-versity. This project is another example where Maguay has implemented an academic e-learning system that helped the students to gain practice internships in a virtual company’s network. The system is very complex and contains several technologies that meet the main areas of virtual companies’ activ-ity like banking, production, travel and commerce. Our solution includes a com-plete e-learning portal built on Microsoft SharePoint platform, Enterprise Re-sources Planning solution based on Mi-crosoft Dinamycs Nav technology and a business simulation solution based on TOPSIM products. The system is designed to allow over 1,000 concurrent and au-thenticated users.
lThe Private Cloud project we developed for Electrica Serv is consolidating and up-grading of its IT infrastructure. Based on Microsoft technology, this project elimi-nated issues associated with the geo-graphical dispersion of the eight Electrica Serv branches, with the variety of applica-tions used and with the hardware re-sources limitations. The cloud solution ensured the maximum level of redundancy and availability of the IT system.
From private to public cloud
computing solutions
Eduard Pughin, Operations Manager, Maguay AD VER T ORIALMost likely, it will be larger companies and firms with at least ten employees that will migrate faster to cloud, because they will be able to use all the capabilities of the product.
Meanwhile, small companies and freelancers will appreciate certain func-tions, such as online storage and the flexibility brought by a monthly fee, ex-plains Costachescu.
Serban Prejoianu, general manager of Gecad Net, predicts that on the short term solutions will become hybrid, so they will include public cloud, private cloud and on-premise components.
“The applications that are considered non-core, which do not contain sensitive data such as electronic mail, can be mi-grated to an external environment, free-ing companies from the investments they would have to make into hardware and resources for the implementation and maintenance of such a solution in-house,” says Prejoianu.
Hey, you, get onto my cloud!
One category of companies that have most to gain from cloud usage is SMEs, which have so far been largely unable to take advantage of IT systems and solutions due to the high up-front costs of equipment and infra-structure.
These companies are known to face issues “in the management of their sup-ply chains, financials, inventories, cus-tomer relationships, and human re-sources,” Costache tells BR.
Benefits for this business segment in-clude scalability, flexibility, and the fact that it is an on-demand service.
At the moment, the use of cloud computing is rather low among SMEs but over the next two years there will be a slight growth in its adoption in this segment, since SMEs’ IT expenses can be cut by up to 30 percent, Tomsa es-timates.
Very importantly, one of the perks a company can get from cloud usage is a boost in the efficiency of its IT personnel. “Generally, IT professionals spend 70
per-cent of their time on system maintenance
and only 30 percent on strategic actions that can bring real value to the company,” Tomsa adds.
With the increasing usage of cloud computing also comes greater staff mobility. “Employees can bring their own equipment to work, they can work from home or the other way round – while they are at work, they can perform certain tasks for personal rea-sons, such as online shopping,” says Rusen.
In conclusion, cloud can influence the entire flow of the business process within an enterprise. “Cloud is breaking down barriers in the supply chain, as well as creating more effective and timely in-teraction between clients and suppliers. It is delivering speed, agility and cost re-ductions for IT and other functional ar-eas within the enterprise.
The transformative impact of cloud can readily be seen across the business in areas such as HR (human re-sources), CRM (customer-relationship-management) and IT infrastructure,” ar-gues Costache.
But there is a greater picture than just what each individual player can get out of cloud: changes on the labor market will not cease. “Cloud sourcing may im-pact existing organizational roles and could require new skills or make others redundant.
lMicrosoft Romania recommends its clients access the website www.microsoft.ro/cloud or other specialized websites such as www.office365.ro
l UPC clients who take out a Business Fiber Power internet subscription or an Office Pack receive a free of charge Microsoft Office 365 usage license.
l Gecad clients can start using cloud services provided by the company by accessing http://gecadnet.ro/e and can find out more details at
http://virtualdesk.ro/#/home.
l IBM Romania supplies managed services to local and regional clients in two ways: via the one-to-one model, through which it offers a dedicated
infrastructure to each client, and via a one-to-many model. Clients can choose to administer their own applications or let IBM specialists do it.
l Romtelecom Business Solutions provides unified communications services as part of the My Office package
(http://www.romtelecom.ro/solutii-business/servicii-itc/my-office/).
l BitDefender clients can access cloud-based security via the website http://www.bitdefender.com/cloud and residential clients via the online stor-age Safebox solution at
http://www.bitdefender.com/solutions/safebox.html.
A practical guide to taking
up cloud services
“Like our neighbors in the
former communist bloc in
the Balkan region, we are
reticent about letting
someone specialized to
do some of our work and
we still have a fear of Big
Brother”
Madalin Bratu, cloud
computing leader,
IBM SEE
GECAD NET is one of the most im-portant Microsoft partners on cloud solutions. What is your focus? On which cloud tech-nologies do you have best compe-tencies?
GECAD NET is a Gold Certified Mi-crosoft partner that embraced Office 365 from its launch date. Additionally, our cloud portfolio includes a broad range of migration and customization services as well as several business ap-plications based and developed on Mi-crosoft cloud technology.
Can you tell us which are cloud serv-ices’ main advantages for a small client, say with 30 users? How about a larger company, with 100 users or even 1000 users?
The main advantages are, for customers of any size, both on financial side as well as for the flexibility of such solutions. For example, Office365 allows the cus-tomer to pay only for what’s being used. If, for instance, the business demands
INTERVIEW
today that starting from tomorrow they need to accommodate additional users and offer them e-mail, document collabo-ration and videoconference, you can acti-vate these services with just a few clicks, without any additional hardware and soft-ware acquisitions or involving additional personnel for technical setup and configu-ration. There is no software investment; all the expenses are OPEX and only for what‘s being used.
For medium and enterprise sized busi-nesses on the other side, the optimal so-lution is a combination of both cloud and conventional applications installed and managed on-premises.
In your opinion what is the reason for slow cloud technology adoption in Romania?
The adoption is not as slow as it may seem, and there are a few factors that positively influence this business model. The poten-tial users still have concerns about data security, especially about confidentiality and availability. After a thorough analysis it’s obvious that cloud solution providers offer a high level of data security accord-ing to international information security standards. Such a level can be assured on-premises only with high costs.
Companies without dedicated information security staff can now benefit, through Of-fice 365, of a very robust disaster recovery solution, backup, antivirus and anti-spam, confidentiality and security policies. Moreover, another important benefit is high availability of data and applications (99.9 %).
What happens with the cloud documents which are accessed by several users if a worker from a utilities company acciden-tally cuts the internet or power cable?
Well, then you should switch to the backup connection. The fast growing rate of cloud services from recent years was also facil-itated by Internet becoming a commodity. The costs associated with a redundant in-ternet connection are much lower than those involved in implementing and main-taining a local datacenter be it of a small size.
We also must add your team availability as a Microsoft partner, among the bene-fits. Can you please detail the services you, GECAD NET, are providing for cloud-based technology customers?
Our team dedicated to cloud customers consists of 8 Microsoft certified specialists, which provide customers with the whole
range of services starting from consul-tancy for finding the best fit solution, to migration, customization and mainte-nance. In addition to that we will be shortly launching a range of cloud-based business applications that ad-dress various business needs such as HR and Staff Management, Purchase, IT and Infrastructure Management, Re-porting, etc.
How will evolve, in your opinion, cloud technologies and services market in the next year?
Companies are eager to scale their IT investments according to business needs. Whether they need to grow or shrink the number of sales people for instance, it is very important to be able to adjust the IT spending accordingly. I think that in the next year even more SMB companies will adopt cloud serv-ices as it is easier for them to migrate from existing systems and licenses or pirated software to the cloud.
Office365: The smart way to control your software investment
AD
VER
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ORIAL
Alexandru Molodoi,
CTO GECAD NET
When considering what skills are needed to succeed, we think of a role-based approach, with the new roles be-ing cloud architect, cloud security spe-cialist and cloud infrastructure manag-er,” says Costache.
Some voices on the market even ven-ture to predict that the effects will be drastic, with many jobs becoming obso-lete.
But others disagree. “I think the theory that says the labor force will be affected by the adoption of cloud services is wrong. By this logic, any technology that improves econom-ic performance will have a negative im-pact on the labor force, so we would not make any progress at all,” says Lapusan.
The clash of mentalities
Since Romania is in the pioneering stage of using cloud services, this also raises some challenges for companies that are part of the cloud ecosystem.
First of all, potential clients need to be educated on the advantages that cloud can bring them on the medium and long term.
They need to learn about the financial impact of the investment as well as the difference between using cloud and tak-ing the more classical approach of ustak-ing an in-house solution.
Prejoianu explains that many firms do not take into consideration the hidden costs of using a solution on-premise.
He is not the only one. “When you take into account all the costs included in an in-house service – personnel, space rental, equipment, maintenance,
elec-tricity, cooling – the cloud always wins, and by a long distance,” says Lapusan.
However, it is not all smooth sailing in this process as mentalities are a hard wall to crash down.
“Like our neighbors in the former communist bloc in the Balkan region, we are reticent about letting someone
spe-cialized to do some of our work and we still have a fear of Big Brother,” explains Bratu. There are other concerns as well. “Depending on third-party providers raises the stakes for many users, particularly when they are accus-tomed to overseeing and managing crit-ical issues such as security and
per-formance. Importantly, security is a chal-lenge inside and outside the cloud. Breaches across the spectrum of providers, organizations and global cor-porations happen in and out of the cloud,” Costache tells BR.
continued onpage 15
What type of cloud services does your company provide? What are the most important cloud projects launched until now by BIT Software?
BITSoftware is developing and implementing ERP, CRM, BI solutions, addressed to companies activating in different industries (retail, distribution, production, services, telecom, agricul-ture, etc.)
- SocrateOpen, a complex ERP & CRM solution, can be deployed on premise or on cloud. SocrateOpen Cloud Edition is available on both public cloud (Amazon Web Services) or private cloud (IBM SmartCloud Enterprise or private cloud infrastructures)
- SocrateBI - is a latest generation business intelligence solution designed for companies of all sizes interested in having an integrated reporting, analysis and notification solution. SocrateBI is powered by MicroStrategy, the leading BI platform on the market, and is also available for deployment on cloud.
- GoogleApps - a set of web-based office tools, including powerful, intuitive applications like Gmail, Gtalk, Google Calendar, Google Docs, Google Groups and Google Sites, helping you to reduce your IT costs and help employees collaborate more effectively. BITSoftware is Google Apps authorized Reseller and offers also other installation, migration, training services in order to help compa-nies successfully use Google Apps.
What are your estimations concerning revenues from this technology for the following year?
We estimate to make with our cloud so-lutions, at least 40% of the total 2012 turnover.
How can customers access the cloud services offered by your company?
From the commercial point of view, now the customers have to sign a contract with BITSoftware or BITSoftware’s authorized partners and in the close future, the solutions will be available for purchasing also on Google marketplace. The solutions can be used based on an annual subscription fee per user. For SocrateOpen Cloud Edition, for example, the installation process takes about 5 minutes once the subscription has been acquired.
PARTNER CONTENT
Interview
Anca Cazacu, Marketing
Manager, BIT Software
AD
VER
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ORIAL
In the current economic environment, the pressure of reducing costs and enhancing productivity in each industry, has increased. Until now the ERP system was a critical business application for meeting these objectives. But the tradi-tional ERP solutions became expensive, due to high infrastructure, maintenance and upgrade costs.
And here is the alternative: ERP com-bined with cloud computing technology, a recent innovation that helps you solve the issues related to the traditional use of on premise ERP.
A cloud ERP offers the possibility to adapt and use the IT resources depending on your company real needs. Moreover, you get the same flexibility and security as using an on-premise ERP, but the total cost of ownership is significantly reduced.
SocrateOpen ERP&CRM Cloud Edition Convenient, Comprehensive, Flexible, Low Cost
SocrateOpen is the first ERP&CRM solu-tion available both on public and private cloud. With SocrateOpen running on the Cloud, enterprises of all sizes can leverage this deployment options and the convenience of on-demand computing services.
Convenience of Utility Computing
SocrateOpen ERP/CRM solution is built for deployment on both public or private cloud.
On public Cloud, the Amazon EC2 Cloud, a virtual computing environment for en-terprise applications, provides an “elastic” computing infrastructure over the inter-net, that is secure and scalable on-de-mand. No more dedicated computer rooms or internal hardware maintenance. Focus on running your business on SocrateOpen, and let the cloud suppliers deliver computing capacity when and where you need it.
Comprehensive
The advanced technology and rich func-tionality covering both enterprise re-source planning (requisitions, orders
management, purchasing, sales, open items, payables and receivables, materials management, warehouse management, manufacturing, accounting and financials, project accounting, reporting) and customer relationship management (leads and opportunities management, marketing cam-paigns, service management) make SocrateOpen a complex solution used already by medium and large companies from different industries. Now, companies of all sizes can utilize these same ERP capabilities to run their business operations on the Cloud.
More Flexible than SaaS
A Software as a Service (SaaS) deployment typically means sharing a hosted instance and database with other customers. With SocrateOpen on the Cloud, you get your own private and secure instance of SocrateOpen. So you have complete flexibility to customize the solutions, as well as a full control over changes and upgrades. And you can do that quickly and easily with SocrateOpen’s data dictionary and automated upgrade tools.
Low Cost
SocrateOpen Cloud Edition replaces tradi-tional upfront license fees and high ongoing maintenance costs with a low user-based subscription fee. And with Amazon EC2 or
IBM SmartCloud, you only pay for what you use and have no upfront capital costs for hardware and IT infrastructure. With SocrateOpen Cloud Edition you will be able to reallocate your IT budget and reduce dramatically your total cost of ownership, by spending less on software and hardware, which in turn will allow you to realign your budget to more strategic areas of the com-pany – those that will drive profit and bottom line results.
Services and support
SocrateOpen Cloud Edition is delivered based on an annual subscription, including applica-tion support, installaapplica-tion assistance, bug fixes and access to the automated migration tool. BITSoftware delivers also implementation, development, customization services for an additional cost.
Integration with Google Apps
SocrateOpen Cloud Edition has a rich web interface and is fully integrated with the authentication mechanisms provided by GoogleApps. So, once you will log in GoogleApps suite, you can access SocrateOpen Cloud Edition immediately. GoogleApps widgets can be exposed in Socrate ERP/CRM in order to access impor-tant information such as the GApps docu-ments, calendar, email and ERP/CRM data can be accessed from GoogleApps suite. Socrate reports can be exported to GoogleSheet and different ERP/CRM information can be exposed in GoogleSites, preserving the security model.
About SocrateOpen
SocrateOpen is a complete ERP/CRM solution, developed by BITSoftware, based on the Compiere platform. SocrateOpen is an application addressed both to Romanian and international companies, ready for the global economy: multi-organization, multi-currency, multi-accounting, multi-tax, multi-language, local-ready.
SocrateOpen lets you automate all your fi-nancial, distribution, sales, manufacturing and services processes quickly and easily by employing an innovative Model Driven Architecture (MDA) to enable broader appli-cation adaptability, faster customization, without programming.
Increase efficiency and reduce costs with
SocrateOpen ERP&CRM Cloud Edition
BIT Software Zambilelor nr. 4 St, Brasov tel: +40 (0) 268 314446; +40 368 412121 fax +40 (0) 268 314447 email: [email protected] [email protected] web: www.bitsoftware.eu About BITSoftware
Based on more than 19 years of experience in the field, BITSoftware is de-veloping and implementing fully functional ERP, CRM and Business Intelligence solutions which allows companies to im-prove productivity and provide better services to customers by streamlining and automating processes to achieve smart growth and sustainability goals.
BITSoftware is one of the first companies in Romania which launched an open source ERP& CRM system – SocrateOpen - which can be used on premise or on cloud, and one of the first Romanian com-panies which developed an ERP - Socrate+, used at the moment by more than 150 companies.
BITSoftware is Microstrategy reseller, and has developed, based on Microstrategy, the Business Intelligence suite -SocrateBI.
BITSoftware is authorized reseller for the communication and collaboration suite, Google Apps, offered based on an annual subscription and sustained through pro-fessional installation and migration serv-ices, users training and integration with other applications.
Cloud services providers
RANK
COMPANY
NAME
CONTACT DETAILS
CLOUD SERVICES
CLIENT LIST
1
Appnor MSP
Web: www.appnor.com/contact, Email: [email protected], Tel: (+4) 021 569 46 50, (+1) 650 318 18 11
Cloud Servers, Private Cloud, VoiP&Hosted PBX, Implementation of Google Apps for Business (Google Docs, Gmail, Calendar), Postini Mail Serv-ices, Chromebooks, Geo and GSA
www.appnor.com
2 Bit Software
Web: www.bitsoftware.eu Email: [email protected], Tel: (+4) 0268 314446 fax (+4) 0268 314447 Address: 4 Zambilelor Street, Brasov
SocrateOpen ERP&CRM, SocrateBI, GoogleApps www.bitsoftware.eu
3 Gecadnet
Web: www.gecadnet.ro, Tel: (+4) 021 303 2070 10A, Address: Dimitrie Pompei, Bucharest
Migration, Configuration, Sharepoint customiza-tion, Administracustomiza-tion, Maintenance - Microsoft Of-fice 365 Solutions/ SaaS Business Applications for: HR, IT, Finance
Romanian-American Foundation, Access Capital Partners, CSC Auto, Pinum, Vlamir Impex, Com-puter Games Online , AMCHAM, Siel Invest, Acces Control, Best Business Travel, etc
4 Maguay
Web: www.maguay.ro, Email:
[email protected], Tel: (+4) 021 210 38 33, Address: 23 Bratului Street, Bucharest
Development of Private Cloud Projects, Solutions for consolidating and developing IT infrastructure, Server-optimized equipment for Public Cloud Serv-ices
Electrica Serv. More on www.maguay.ro
5 Microsoft
Web: www.microsoft.ro, Tel.: (+4) 021 204 70 40, Email:[email protected], Address: 3-5, Piața Presei Libere, City Gate Building, South Tower Bucharest
Office 365, Microsoft Dynamics CRM online , Win-dows Intune, WinWin-dows Azure, WinWin-dows Server Hyper-V
www.microsoft.ro
6 Pras Consulting Web: www.pras.ro, Email: [email protected],Tel.: (+4) 0372 705 618, Address: 102-110
Dorobantilor Street, Bucharest
Microsoft Office 365, Microsoft Windows Intune, http://www.udocx.com/
Provident Financial Romania, Sustainalytics, Dragomir and As-sociates, Pracctice Limited UK, Bacania Veche
7 Softline Romania
Web: www.softline.com.ro, www.softline-group.com, Email:
[email protected], Tel: (+4) 021 387 34 40, Address: Muntenia Business Center, 16 Splaiul Unirii, Bucharest
Softline Cloud Solutions- Te asteptam sa vorbim cloud computing! , Microsoft Office 365, Google Apps, Panda Security, Zscaler
Wide range of clients from do-mains such as: transport, serv-ices, construction, architecture, media, education, consultancy
8 Teamnet International
Web: www.bringmore.ro, Email: [email protected], Tel: (+4) 021 311 66 31, Address: River Place, Riverview House, 319 Splaiul Independentei Street, Bucharest
M.O.RE Platform available for SMEs (11 applications)
Over 100 clients, mainly SMEs -Ellas Division, Webplay, Medias-cope, Teo Consult(TEO Drivers School), Caralux, Austrian Vil-lage, Prisum, Valmed Freemex
9 TotalSoft
Web: www.totalsoft.ro, Email:
[email protected], Tel: (+4) 021 335 17 09, Address: Global City Business Park, 10 Bucuresti-Nord Street, Building O2
Charisma Business Solutions - Charisma ePro-curement, Charisma Cost Control, Charisma HR Document Management, Charisma Workflow, Charisma Office Automation
www.totalsoft.ro
10 UPC Romania Web: www.upc.ro, Tel.: (+4) 031 101 8100,
Address: 62D Nordului Road, Bucharest
Microsoft Office 365 - offered free of charge to new UPC Business Clients, who purchase Business Fiber Power Solutions or Office Packs services
www.upc.ro
11
Verasys International
Web: www.verasys.com, Email: [email protected], Tel: (+4) 021 301 04 60, Address: World Trade Center, Montreal Square no.10, Bucharest
Public Cloud Services provided by Microsoft www.verasys.com
14 Zitec Com
Web: www.zitec.com, Email:
[email protected], Tel: (+4) 031 710 01 14, Address: 1A Intrarea Binelui, Fortuna Building, Bucharest
Development of personalized software solutions on cloud computing infrastructure (Amazon AWS, Mi-crosoft Azure), technical consultancy for cloud computing services
Zipongo.com,
VideoPublishing.com, NY.tv, Wadja.com, HotelPeeps.com
15 BitDefender
Web: www.bitdefender.ro, Tel: (+4) 021 206 34 70, Address: West Gate Park, Building H2 24 Preciziei Street, Bucharest
Cloud Security for Endpoints, Security for Virtual-ized Environments, Amazon Web Services
www.bitdefender.ro
16 Genesys Systems
Web: www.genesys4s.ro, Email: [email protected], Tel: (+4) 021 242 0542, Address: 8 Dimitrie Pompeiu Blvd,
Bucharest
Microsoft CRM Online Call centers, art galleries, distri-bution and trading companies
17 IBM
Web: www.ibm.com/ro/ro, Email:
[email protected], Tel: (+4) 021 405 81 00, Address: Bucharest Business Park, 1a Bucharest-Ploiesti National Road
IBM Smart Business Development and Test on the IBM Cloud, IBM LotusLive, IBM Smart Analytics Cloud, IBM Smart Business Storage Cloud, IBM Smart Business Desktop on the IBM Cloud
www.ibm.com/ro/ro
18
Novensys Corporation Web: www.novensys.com, Email:
[email protected], Tel: (+4) 031 2281 000, Address: 313 Unirii Splai, Bucharest
ERP (Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Microsoft Dynamics
AX), CRM (Microsoft Dynamics CRM), WMS www.novensys.com
19 Star Storage
Web: www.star-storage.ro, Email:
[email protected], Tel.: (+4) 021 242 13 95, Address: Pipera Business Tower, 6E Dimitrie Pompei Blvd, Bucharest
IaaS – Infrastructure as a Service (Cloud Servers), Storage as a Service, BaaS (Back-up as a Service), Business Continuity Services (Backup and replica-tion), Hosted Archiving (Files, e-mail, electronic archives), Managed Private Cloud
Top companies from retail and banking, public sector, national and international companies
lMovement from CAPEX to OPEX model impacts existing budgeting, forecast-ing, and reporting processes
l Outdated tax laws and regulations create uncertainty when characterizing the various cloud transactions
l Cloud ROI and cost/benefit analysis are complicated by need for knowledge of existing cost of delivery and future use of service
l Cloud adoption introduces rapid change in the organization
l Cloud sourcing may impact existing organizational roles and could require new skills or make others redundant
l Business resiliency/disaster recovery needs and plans will change and re-quire updating
l Risk of creating independent silos of information perpetuate the problem of data integrity, quality, and insight
l Business can bypass the IT function to implement technology solutions, pos-ing challenges for IT governance
l Cloud delivery models dramatically change how IT delivers technology servic-es to support businservic-ess requirements
l Lack of visibility of the cloud service providers’ operations inhibits analysis of compliance with pertinent laws and regulations
l Lack of industry standards and certifications for cloud providers creates risks l Lack of clarity of ownership responsibilities between cloud vendor and user company
*Source: KPMG
Risks and challenges in adopting
cloud computing
continued frompage 12
When asked by KPMG about the main challenges and concerns they faced in adopting a cloud environment, 44 per-cent of end-user respondents cited se-curity, while 29 percent expressed con-cern about overall cloud performance.
Moreover, one fifth of companies cit-ed concerns over interoperability or in-tegration.
Other key concerns include IT gov-ernance, loss of control over customer data and availability.
Most often, problems are linked to the internal IT staff in a company, who “refuse to analyze lucidly the advantages
of the cloud, having the mentality that ‘if the server is in my headquarters, it is safer’,” Lapusan tells BR. “From the fi-nancial, security and efficiency point of view, this argument does not stand up, but it is very hard to change mentalities of this type.”
He also cites legislative issues. “Legislation is far behind technological
evolution, but I am convinced suppliers of cloud services can adjust to these limitations. Nobody can stop progress, not even outdated laws,” he says.
The Zitec official shares how the company has been contacted on various occasions by SMEs from Romania as well as Eastern Europe more widely and the United States, which had kicked off projects based on cloud computing, with the clear intention of minimizing their in-frastructure costs.
“However, they were faced with prob-lems in the quality of performance and also confronted with financial issues. The bill did not fit their expectations,” says Lapusan.
So, even though SMEs have begun to understand the advantages of cloud, very often they have started projects in cloud without being ready.
“Had they trained their team or taken up consultancy services before starting the project, they would have gained enough time and posted a better per-formance and they would have really benefitted from the financial benefits of-fered by cloud computing,” concludes La-pusan.
