Big Bang! Public Cloud Explodes to $200bn in 2016

If we needed any further evidence of the impact ‘The Cloud’ is having, then look no further than the latest report on the subject from analyst firm Gartner.

Gartner’s 2015 Cloud Adoption Survey identifies the take up is being driven by cloud system infrastructure services currently growing at 43 percent a year, with estimates that cloud services are set to increase to $208.6bn in 2016. This is up from $178bn in 2015.

Why are they growing? Money – specifically the cost savings. Organizations are hailing a 14 percent reduction in budgets as a consequence of adopting public cloud services.

Challenges still remain, however. Market limiters, such as concerns over security and privacy, keep the right foot of adoption hovering over the brake.

How do you feel about using public cloud services?

Tapping into the Potential of the Public Cloud

By 2018, the public cloud market will hit $160 billion (Gartner). To get in on this action, many channel partners are looking to evolve. Instead of being one-time system integrators providing opportuniunistic cloud service transcations, they aspire to become managed service providers (MSPs) offering ongoing, value-add cloud services to customers.

That’s easier said than done.

Managing a customer’s entire cloud life cycle, especially as the adoption of cloud platforms and services increases, is a daunting, or even impossible, endeavor for most partners. Most do not have the resources, know-how or tools necessary. Cloud services enablement provider BitTitan overcomes these barriers.

BitTitan’s MSPComplete is the industry’s only comprehensive, end-to-end cloud enablment platform. MSPComplete makes any partner, regarldess of size, an MSP by leveraging the three pillars of cloud enablement: Selling, onboarding and servicing.

Learn more about MSPComplete and the three pillars here.

Alleviating the Hybrid Headache

Moving just a handful of mailboxes from on-premise to Microsoft Office 365 can be a time-consuming and complex task. It’s not surprising staged migrations are such a popular approach for enterprises moving what could be anything from 500 to more than 1,000 mailboxes. But this isn’t a cure-all.

For staged migrations from Exhange 2010 and 2013, most partners think hybrid coexistence is a must. There are several hiccups that make this approach subpar: Complexity with the infrastructure causing set up and configuration to take weeks before the migration can begin, a lack of monitoring and reporting, and data loss and outages during removal of the hybrid server.

BitTitan, the leader in cloud services enablement, overcomes these barriesr with MigrationWiz Enterprise Coexistance. Partners can provide enterprises with all the elements vital to coexistance for staged migrations without a hybrid server within just 24 hours. Furthermore, partners can add on and manage additional services such PST files, archives and public folders seamlessly form the same interface.

Learn more here.

Is Your Business “Healthy Enough” for O365?

The possibilities Microsoft Office 365 provides in terms of productivity and efficient business practices are immense. However, many companies have been unable to tap into this potential.

The move to O365 is often a complex, time-consuming task. This is because many companies aren’t aware they’re running on out-of-date systems not congruent with O365. They are simply not compatible. Their software, browsers, bandwidth or operating systems aren’t “healthy” enough for the move.

To overcome this issue, cloud enablement provider BitTitan launched Health Check for its cloud-based, automated desktop management tool DeploymentPro. With Health Check for DeploymentPro, IT personnel can instantly diagnose what must be addressed on each employee’s desktop prior to transitioning to O365. The result is a seamless move with zero downtime and productivity loss.

Further details on Health Check and DeploymentPro are available here.

Breaking the Barriers to Email Archiving for the Channel

The channel has excelled at selling email and data cloud services. But there is a BIG cloud revenue opportunity they’re missing out on: email archiving.

Historically, cloud-based email archiving has been a complex, time-consuming and expensive service to enable. This is because partners must switch back and forth between an array of applications and providers to meet all of the criteria needed for their customers’ archives, be it compliance, security or sources supported. This week, BitTitan and Sonian joined forces to overcome this.

The partnership combines the capabilities of BitTitan’s cloud-based email and data migration solution MigrationWiz with Sonian’s best-in-class cloud-based Email Archiving. The result is a single offering that enables the simple, secure and compliant migration, storage, access and management of email archives in Microsoft Office 365 and the cloud.

Further details on this new service, Sonian Cloud Archive by BitTitan, are available here.

Universities Can Overcome Barriers to O365 Adoption

Migrating mailboxes to Microsoft Office 365 is a daunting task for anyone. However, it’s especially challenging for universities.

Most university IT departments do not have the expertise, budget or resources needed to move what can be tens of thousands of student mailboxes. The result is downtime, productivity loss and lost mail and files for the students or even the inability for universities to take advantage of Microsoft’s free and reduced-cost O365 educational offerings.

This week, BitTitan is enabling universities to overcome these barriers by offering student pricing for its email and data migration solution MigrationWiz. Student pricing is also available for the channel to better serve their university customers.

With MigrationWiz, university IT departments and the channel can seamlessly migrate thousands of student mailboxes from a single cloud-based user interface at drastically reduced costs and migration time. This ensures that educational institutions can take advantage of O365 without any impact on students, while allowing the channel to pass cost savings along to its customers.

For more details, check out the press release here.

How to Print From Any Mobile Device to Any Printer

Why has printing become so complicated?

With printing on the go being such a basic and essential need, users need to overcome the limitations that make printing so complex… With so many printer models and specific printer drivers, each printer essentially speaks its own language. As a result, the various devices people print from can’t communicate with the printers.

ThinPrint Cloud Printer overcomes these limitations as it enables users to print any file type from any device to ANY printer.

Today, ThinPrint Cloud Printer announced that it makes printing wirelessly from anywhere to any printer easier than ever.

With ThinPrint Cloud Printer users can print instantly to any printer in their current Wi-Fi network. The new version of the app automatically shows available Wi-Fi printers and once a printer is selected, the printout is sent directly – without going through a PC or Mac.

For more information, check out the press release here.

EMM: Why Everyone is Getting it Wrong

What do you think the top concern for IT pros is? Most studies or surveys say security. It makes sense, considering the security threats personal devices and an increasingly mobile and remote workforce create. But, the industry has forgotten the purpose behind these devices and remote work: productivity.

Today’s mobility solutions focus so heavily on security that productivity is almost nonexistent.

Cortado announced Cortado Corporate Server 7.4 earlier this week to overcomes this.

Unlike any other EMM solution, Cortado provides the best possible security and productivity. New features and capabilities from Cortado that support this include:

  • The only solution to provide completely on-premise internal and external file sharing
  • A new user interface designed with complete focus on the user experience
  • Document push, which assures all employees have the most recent version at their fingertips
  • Expanded VPN capabilities, including always-on and per-app VPN
  • Secure user-authenticated mobile printing
  • Leverage of the latest iOS business innovations, including defining trusted web and e-mail domains for iOS 8 devices

For more details, check out the press release here.

Seamless Office 365 Email and Data Migrations Now Available in China

The rapid adoption of Microsoft Office 365 (O365) by local Chinese companies and multinational corporations is a key opportunity for the local channel to capitalize on its activations and adoptions. In order to do so, local resellers need the right tools to make migrations quick and easy.

This is now possible as BitTitan, the cloud enablement provider, recently formed a partnership with 21Vianet, the official operator of O365 and Azure in mainland China.

The partnership will help drive the adoption of O365 and the cloud in the region. Through BitTitan’s solution MigrationWiz, BitTitan will enable the local channel to provide seamless mailbox and data migration for their customers. This allows them to focus on their business, versus worrying about wasting resources and losing files. Partners can also lower overall project costs and time, easily scale to the needs of their customers, receive five-star customer service, and remove the barriers that often prevent a company from moving to the cloud.

This partnership extends BitTitan’s global footprint and is one of many recent global wins for the company. BitTitan already works with some of the largest distributors in the U.S., Canada, LATAM and Europe. This includes Tech Data, Synnex, WestCoast, Nexys and Intcomex.

For more detail, click here.

How Cloud-based Service Providers Can Improve Printing

Cloud-based service providers face the challenge of delivering a product portfolio that fully meets the needs of customers’ mobile and remote workforces to truly differentiate their offerings. Many offer services focused on storage, file sharing and security. However, many miss the mark on one of the most basic, yet necessary cloud services – Printing.

To cater to the needs of cloud service providers and their customers, enterprise mobility leader Cortado announced last week that it has expanded the capabilities of its print management software, ThinPrint. This includes the addition of Cortado’s newest printing feature, ThinPrint Mobile Print. This enables users to print from iOS devices with every Windows Session and Windows-based virtual desktop, including Citrix Receiver and VMware Horizon.

Cortado also enhanced ThinPrint’s licensing and billing capabilities, making adoption of ThinPrint easy and time efficient. Licenses are not assigned to a user until ThinPrint is used, with this information instantly available in a sortable, easy-to-read report. Billing is organized on a monthly basis for quick access and simple invoicing.

Read more about its new printing capabilities here.