A Cloud for a Cloud

Once again people find themselves stranded, away from their home, family and work, due to the cloud of volcanic ash that keeps on hovering over the UK and Western Europe.

(Image link from Telegraph.co.uk)

Many companies who have sent their employees overseas for a business trip face more than just greater travel expenses due to the unplanned visit extension (in some cases even paying high volcanic premium). They also face lost work days of those employees. For most employees those lost workdays costs the company much more than the extra nights at the hotel and the employees Per Diem.

"Be stirring as the time; be fire with fire; Threaten the threatener and outface the brow Of bragging horror" (The Life and Death of King John, William Shakespeare)

Like fighting fire with fire, we find ourselves fighting cloud with cloud.

Cloud computing enables employees remain active both socially and professionally at anytime, anywhere, as long as there is electricity and internet connection.

The already mundane cloud computing software and technologies, such as email, IM, VoiP, and social networks enable people to maintain, to some extent, their online routine even when stranded away from home.

Companies that consume their business applications in the form of SaaS, are able to get their employees working and contributing even when they are far away from the office.

Companies that were wise enough to have also their internal systems available as rich internet applications (RIA) on a private cloud are able to get their employees fully engaged in the company's daily routine while sitting in their hotel room or in a coffee shop.

Business continuity is very much dependant not only on the servers being operational 24X7 but also on one's flight back home. Extending the reach of the companies' IT system through cloud based computing mitigates the risks of cloud dependent commuting.

The Magic Software Israel Annual Conference 2010

Last week, I had the true pleasure of attending the annual conference of Magic Software Israel.

To say the least, it was a very successful event. It was perfectly executed, and with great content.

I was very pleased to see many new and young faces that have joined the Magic community and attended the event.

A few of the conference attendees

Eyal Pfeifel, Magic Software's new CTO, had two presentations in this event and he did a great job in presenting uniPaaS RIA and seeded much excitement with the new horizon of both uniPaaS and iBOLT in his products roadmap presentation.

Eyal Pfeifel, Magic Software CTO, delivering one of his presentations

Two customers stories where presented in the event. One was of Menarva, a young software house that had successfully developed and delivered Software-as-a-Service applications using uniPaaS RIA. Ido and Doron, the co-founders of Menarva, shared their experience in becoming a SaaS vendor which goes from the competitive advantage uniPaaS RIA gave them by enabling them to come out with a genuine SaaS offering in the shortest time possible, to the do's and dont's of establishing a SaaS offering.

The other customer story was of VISA Credit Cards. Doron Bonim and his team were able to improve existing workflows of their sales people by replacing spreadsheets and offline updates with a highly tuned RIA to automate and optimize their assignments, to fully synchronize the sales people work and to provide management proper view and control.
Against management skepticism, who did not believe they could finish the project in six months, they eventually finished the project in two calendar months, with the workforce of 4 developers who were already engaged with other projects during those two months - quite amazing.
This is a true evidence of the unmatched productivity of uniPaaS.

Much credit must go to Aric Mifano, VP Marketing of Magic Software Israel, and Tamar Hartal of Magic Software Global marketing for outstanding event production.

I, myself, had the pleasure of contributing to this event just a few hours of my time in making a short invitation clip. I had the great pleasure of doing this clip together with Lior Manor, one of the best and world renowned (and nicest) magicians.

Lior Manor, captivating the audience

Lior Manor was the anchor of the entire event and he did a marvelous job. Not only did he deliver the company's messages very elegantly, he also managed to link his mind reading acts to each presentation very professionally. His was highly entertaining.

The clip was done in Hebrew, so I have subtitled it in English for your convenience.