AQILLA Cloud Accounting has become a G-Cloud 7 Supplier

Aqilla Cloud Accounting Solution has been confirmed as a G-Cloud 7 supplier and has now live on the Digital Marketplace. Aqilla has announced the news in its Website regarding the entry to G-Cloud. Aqilla Cloud Accounting has years of experience in providing solutions to public sector organisations. By successfully being confirmed as G-Cloud 7 supplier, Aqilla software will now have better access to public sector customers to supply cost effective financial systems that meets the demands of the modern public sector organisation. With this strategy, Aqilla will "deliver faster business benefits and reduce costs, as well as meet even more desirable environmental and sustainability targets". Through G-Cloud Framework many cloud-based suppliers like Aqilla can provide unique experience and cost-saving options that the public sector needs. Some of the benefits achieved with G-Cloud Framework are: Tender and procurement process is faster and effortless. Specific suppliers can be accessed all in one platform. All the supplier information is available online. The G-Cloud Framework initiative has started in 2012 as an agreement between Government and cloud-based technology suppliers. G-Cloud 7 is the latest iteration which went live in 23 November 2015. There are 2,566 cloud based suppliers %95 of which ar SME' s (Small Medium Size companies). Read more on Aqilla Cloud Based Account Solutions >>

Oracle CEO says nobody at Oracle could read customers’ data in the cloud.

Abu Dhabi: Oracle is planning to open its first cloud data centre in Abu Dhabi this year as it bids to keep pace with its growing customer base in the Middle East. The Abu Dhabi cloud data centre will be the tech company’s 22nd centre globally. The US company also plans to increase its sales resources in the region by hiring more than 250 sales professionals from the UAE. The move comes as the company has more than doubled its workforce in the Middle East in the past three years, two years ahead of predictions. In the course of 2016, Oracle plans to open new offices in Abu Dhabi, Dubai Internet City, Amman and Riyadh... When asked whether Oracle will stop support for on-premises (customers’ servers) as the focus is on cloud, Hurd said that Oracle’s portfolio was both on cloud and on-premises. Even though the applications and customers are migrating to the cloud, “we will keep supporting the on-premises licences as long as they use them. Even by 2024, there will be on-premises sales,” he said. Moreover, he said that low oil prices would not change “our commitment to our investment” in the region. “I do think that the overall lower revenue growth in companies will make an impact on IT spending and make them move to cloud. Moving to cloud is not just saving money, but it is also about innovation and simplicity at the same time.” Hurd said that cloud is a big deal as many companies have old infrastructure and there is a need for innovation. He added that there is a lot of pressure to do things such as increase security and adhere to governance mandates which are not innovative. Oracle currently offers more than 600 different cloud applications. According to Hurd, cloud is important because it offers a lower cost structure and a less complex environment. Security has been an issue when moving the data from the premises to the cloud. Regarding this, Hurd said Oracle’s M7 chip was a game changer. “We are putting the security [at] chip level and not on the software level. People are capable of hacking the software and so we decided [to put] it on the hardware level. Hacking the M7 chip is practically impossible,” he said. He said that Oracle is encrypting the data stored on the server for security reasons. To decrypt it, a customer needs an electronic key and that is with customers. Hurd said nobody at Oracle could read customers’ data in the cloud. More on >>Oracle to open cloud data centre in Abu Dhabi:

Microsoft Philanthropies at Work

DAVOS-KLOSTERS, Switzerland — Jan. 19, 2016 — Microsoft Corp. CEO Satya Nadella announced a new three-part initiative to ensure that Microsoft’s cloud computing resources serve the public good. As part of this initiative the recently formed Microsoft Philanthropies will donate $1 billion of Microsoft Cloud Services, measured at fair market value, to serve nonprofits and university researchers over the next three years. Microsoft’s three-part commitment focuses on ensuring the cloud can serve the public good in the broadest sense by providing additional cloud resources to nonprofits, increasing access for university researchers and helping solve last-mile Internet access challenges. “Microsoft is empowering mission-driven organizations around the planet with a donation of cloud computing services — the most transformative technologies of our generation,” said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, who on Wednesday will speak at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “Now more than 70,000 organizations will have access to technology that will help them solve our greatest societal challenges and ultimately improve the human condition and drive new growth equally.” Cloud computing has emerged as a vital resource for unlocking the secrets held by data in ways that create new insights and lead to breakthroughs not just for science and technology, but for the full range of economic and social challenges and the delivery of better human services. It can also improve communications and problem-solving and help organizations work in a more productive and more efficient manner. In September 2015, 193 heads of state and other world leaders unanimously adopted 17 sustainable development goals to achieve by 2030. This ambitious agenda — which includes ending poverty, ending hunger, and ensuring affordable, reliable and sustainable energy for all — will only be achievable with the benefit of significant inventions and technology innovations. The scale and computational power enabled by cloud computing will be essential to unlocking solutions to this list of some of the world’s seemingly unsolvable problems. “We’re committed to helping nonprofit groups and universities use cloud computing to address fundamental human challenges,” said Microsoft President Brad Smith. “One of our ambitions for Microsoft Philanthropies is to partner with these groups and ensure that cloud computing reaches more people and serves the broadest array of societal needs.” Specific elements of the new initiative include these: Serving the broad needs of the nonprofit community. A new global donation program will make Microsoft Cloud Services, including Microsoft Azure, Power BI, CRM Online and the Enterprise Mobility Suite, more available to nonprofit organizations through Microsoft Philanthropies. The program builds upon an already successful program that provides similar access to Office 365 for nonprofits. The nonprofit program for Microsoft Cloud Services will begin rolling out this spring, and Microsoft Philanthropies aims to serve 70,000 nonprofits in the next three years with these Microsoft Cloud Services. Expanding access to cloud resources for faculty research in universities. Microsoft Research and Microsoft Philanthropies will expand by 50 percent the Microsoft Azure for Research program that grants free Azure storage and computing resources to help faculty accelerate their research on cutting-edge challenges. Today this program provides free cloud computing resources for over 600 research projects on six continents. Reaching new communities with last-mile connectivity and cloud services. Microsoft Philanthropies and Microsoft Business Development will combine donated access to Microsoft Cloud services with investments in new, low-cost last-mile Internet access technologies and community training. By combining cloud services with connectivity and training, and focusing on new public-private partnerships, Microsoft Philanthropies intends to support 20 of these projects in at least 15 countries around the world by the middle of 2017. Providing nonprofits with better access to Microsoft Cloud Services, including the powerful Microsoft Azure platform, builds upon Microsoft’s longtime commitment to making cutting-edge technology available at no or low cost to organizations working on solving some of society’s toughest problems. In recent years, as organizations have increased their reliance on cloud computing, Microsoft has worked in partnership with a broad range of organizations focused on big challenges. The initiatives show the potential impact that increased access to the transformational power of cloud computing can have: Microsoft Research is working with the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) Biodiversity Research Program through the use of 700 wireless sensors, cloud technology and automated data-stream processing to understand how cloud forests work and study the impact of climate changes on the communities supported by those forests. Through a partnership with the University of Texas at Austin called Project Catapult, Microsoft makes advanced cloud computing technology available to researchers that have demonstrated the ability to deliver lower power and cost, higher-quality results, or a combination of both. In Botswana, Microsoft is partnering with the Botswana Innovation Hub, Vista Life Sciences, the United States Agency for International Development and Global Broadband Solutions to assist Botswana, the University of Pennsylvania and the Ministry of Health in leveraging cloud-based health records management and Internet access enabled by use of TV white spaces to remotely deliver specialized medicine, including cervical cancer screenings to women at rural healthcare clinics. “Access to technology is critical to the operations and services of NetHope and its 44 humanitarian nonprofit member organizations,” said NetHope CEO Lauren Woodman. “The power of cloud computing will create exponential value for all we do to serve the millions of people in our communities around the world.” Source >>

IT Fights Back Against Hackers

In 2015, headlines were riddled with reports of large scale hacking attacks stealing everything from government secrets to children’s birthdays and toy profiles. IT Executives cringed as they wondered what the chances were that they would be next. In 2016, as leaders, we need to resolve to take control of the issues so we can protect our organizations and our customers while delivering innovation. BMC and Forbes Insights reached out to executives in North America and Europe to get their point of view on these critical issues and begin to build a game plan to eradicate the problems from the root. 44% said security breaches occur even when vulnerabilities and their remediation have already been identified... 60% said operations and security teams have only a general or little understanding of each other’s requirements... 60% of North American firms and 37% of European firms expect to purchase or implement a SecOps solution in the next 12 months... The bottom line is that the flood waters of security breaches will continue to rise until something significant is done. 2016 needs to be the year for action. Check out the report and start building your strategy  SOURCE AT @BMC

Cloud is the number one IT skill required for 2016

New Technology has a big leap towards the cloud technology in the last 5 years and it is becoming ever more increasingly so. Hence the demand of IT market for competent IT professionals with cloud and big data skills is increasingly getting upper hand. Analysis by Recruitment companies on the IT required skills for 2016 is predicting the following results for 2016 on major 5 skill sets and cloud as being on the top of the list.  BIG DATA and CLOUD COMPUTING Due to increasing use of Social media and streaming, data loads are getting huge and analysis of this big data in any meaningful way is getting ever more important. Big data as structured or unstructured stored in cloud can’t be easily processed using traditional data analysis methods. The demand for individuals who have IT skills to collect and analyse this complex data from the cloud using cloud computing skills is increasing. BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE and ANALYTICS Businesses are always seeking new and intuitive ways to analyse large amounts of raw data to help identify and develop new strategic business opportunities for the future. By implementing this strategy based on the insights found it can give businesses a competitive market benefit and company stability for the future. Professionals with experience in BI, SQL, SAS and analytics are being sought after as companies look to be more involved in data analysis. MOBILE APP DEVELOPMENT  With smartphones becoming more advanced and continually revolutionizing the way we communicate and work, there will always be a demand for mobile developers to create new and exciting mobile apps for iOS and Android.  The app market shows no sign of slowing down. Programming languages for mobile such as Java still continue to be used for mobile development but the introduction of Apple’s programming language, Apple Swift for Apple iOS and watchOS could prove to be a valuable skill in developing new and ground-breaking apps.  DIGITAL MARKETING and SOCIAL MEDIA Not all skills need to be technical as many businesses have become dedicated to improving their digital marketing and social media presence online. The popularity of platforms like Facebook, Twitter or company blogs always require user engagement and unique content to keep users interested and up to date with company and PR related news.This means developing engaging content that informs existing customers and gains a new audience through shared content and search engine performance. Individuals skilled in are very high in demand due to the important of search rankings and content marketing. FRONT END DEVELOPMENT  Front end development skills continue to be a valuable asset to have with improvements to HTML, CSS, Javascript becoming more advanced and intuitive. HTML5 has steadily taking over Flash with popular websites such as Youtube and Facebook being in favour of HTML5 for its video player.  Another example is the increasing popularity of SASS (Syntactically Awesome Stylesheets) that boasts more features than any other CSS extension language out there. Open source Javascript libraries such as React are becoming increasingly favoured. Not far behind that is Grunt a JavaScript Task Runner which has also become a very sought after skill. Another popular HTML, CSS and JS framework is Twitter’s Bootstrap which has become quite prominent for the development of responsive mobile projects. Source >>