Greg Montjoie, General Manager of Hosting Solutions at internet service provider Internet Solutions suggests that companies are not yet grasping the full benefits offered by cloud computing. Despite the fact that there has been a definite shift towards conducting business in the cloud, he feels that most businesses do not understand the true benefits of cloud computing, and are instead just “computing in the cloud”.

Montjoie makes the distinction between accessing specific applications via the internet to perform computing tasks (computing in the cloud), and a setup that allows for seamless maintenance, migration and optimisation of hardware, regardless of geographic location (true cloud computing).

True cloud computing allows companies to make the best use of their infrastructure at all times, and to ensure that resources are allocated to business priorities. Such a system also has built-in redundancy – if a specific server is down or not running at optimal efficiency, processes can be diverted to another server without the user even noticing. Other key benefits mentioned by Montjoie include agility, reliability, performance and interoperability.

He cites the example of companies using cloud computing to ensure more efficient utilisation of their hardware and networks across different timezones. “So when it’s daytime in London, for example, those servers are running at near full capacity, while those in Tokyo are running only the basics.” Likewise when it is evening in London, capacity there will be cut to a minimum while Tokyo’s servers are allowed to run at full steam. “The beauty of cloud computing in this instance is that it is a seamless, automated process that the user is completely unaware of.”

“As with any technology, companies really need to look at the full spectrum of features to ensure they maximise the benefits they derive from changing the way in which they operate,” Montjoie concludes.

This is a big deal folks. In terms of market capitalization, Apple has just shot past Microsoft. For many, many years Microsoft was untouchable, but unfortunately their growth in terms of share price has been dwindling recently. Apple on the other hand, has had a impressive growth spurt in the last few years, starting with the iPod, and now their big money maker, the iPhone.

What makes this even more impressive is that in the mid nineties, Apple were just about ready to close up shop. With a bunch of corporate shake ups and poor leadership on the board, many expected the company to just give up. Luckily Apple somehow go hold of its ousted leader, Steve Jobs, and put him back in charge as interim CEO, or in Apple speak, the iCEO. Before this, Dell CEO, Michael Dell famously pronounced that the right thing to do for Apple is to close shop, and give back the money to the shareholders. Imagine you were one of the shareholders then – things are definitely looking up today. This because Steve Jobs shaked up Apple’s structure and brought back its culture, something that was always Apple’s biggest asset.

What he did is basically scrap unnecessary product lines and refine existing products to just a few choices. It is still very much evident today with the Apple range of products. Despite thinking that people want infinite choice, Apple proves that people do not want to be bombarded with different products.

Now one should not dismiss Microsoft in this – this is after all percepted value of a company based on shares. Apple only has around 10 percent of the US market, while Microsoft is still very profitable, despite these profits primarily coming from its operating systems and productivity software, but then again they sink a lot of money in to other divisions like Xbox and Windows phone, which is yet to turn signaificant profits, if any at all.

What it comes down to is that investors are not always the best people to value a company – Microsoft is still the dominant player in the corporate market, where scale, not pure profit per sale is what is more important (just go look at the profits in building an iPad). Whatever you might read into this, we still live in a Windows world.

I dont believe Microsoft to take back their place in the next few weeks – Apple has an exciting month lined up. On June 7th they are releasing their next generation iPhone (which has been leaked it seems, and it looks great) and also roll out the next release of it iPhone operating system, which will roll out to eager iPhone 3G and 3GS users. This software update also addresses one of the last major criticisms of the iPhone platform with multitasking, although only for the 3GS model (and of course the upcoming one).

I think the battle is still coming.
PS: If you want some history on Apple, go read iCon: Steve Jobs, The Greatest Second Act in the History of Business, a great book by Jefferey S. Young. Another great book is Inside Steve’s Brain, by Leander Kahney (he is the guy behind the Cult of Mac website).

Following on from their Facebook and Twitter infographics, Website Monitoring have produced another stats sheet, this time for YouTube.

Here are a few key facts taken from the chart:

• The first video was uploaded to YouTube on 23 April 2005
• The most popular video on the site, Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance”, has been played 185.39 million times
• 24 hours of video are uploaded every minute
• 70% of YouTube’s traffic comes from outside the USA
• The most popular channel on YouTube has 2,159,651 subscribers

See the full infographic on the Website Monitoring site.

FEMTECH is a six-month business support programme aimed at women who own and run technology-enabled businesses.

Participants will

• learn how to determine whether their concept is feasible
• learn how to develop a plan to take their new product or service to market
• get help and support from a business coach
• become part of a peer network of women facing similar challenges and opportunities

The course includes workshops, ongoing personal mentorship and coaching and women-centered peer networking.

To be eligible for the programme, you must be a female business owner with demonstrated entrepreneurial skills, who is currently running a business, preferably one that is technology-enabled. Alternatively, you must have plans to introduce an innovative product or service into an existing business, or to spin out a business from a corporate environment.

You also need to be within travelling distance of Pretoria, and must be able to attend training and mentoring sessions at least once a month between July and October.

Applications close on 31 May 2010. Twenty applicants will be chosen to complete the programme. Visit the FEMTECH website for details of how to apply.

If you missed Net Prophet on 13 May, you can now see all the videos of the day’s sessions on the Net Prophet blog.

1. Vinny Lingham – Building a global business – lessons learnt
   
2. Stefan Magdalinski – Observations from building a technology business in Africa
   
3. Adriaan Pienaar – The WooThemes story
   
4. Stuart Ntlathi – The next generation
   
5. Richard Mulholland – The side-effects of social media
   
6. Patrick Kayton – Shaping the future of internet publishing by shrugging off the past
   
7. Arthur Goldstuck – The Sophisticat, the Elephant, and the Secret of the Digital Native
   

Seesmic for iPhone is now available for download in the App Store. The application allows you to post to Twitter, Facebook and Ping.fm (which in turn gives you the option to update platforms like MySpace, Tumblr, LinkedIn, Flickr and Blogger).

With Seesmic for iPhone, you can:

• see your mentions, direct messages, and friends’ timelines
• customise your dashboard by adding multiple pages of “spaces” showing accounts, searches, trending topics, lists and so on

• easily switch between accounts on different social networks

• post to multiple social networks at the same time

• read your live Facebook feed

• like and comment on friends’ Facebook posts

• save messages and updates to Evernote

• add geolocation information to your updates
• search through tweets, user profiles and trending topics, and save searches to your dashboard

• configure your dashboard to include Twitter Lists

• choose the format you’d prefer to use for retweets – use the Quote feature to add comments to retweets

• post a photo from your gallery or capture a new one directly through the app

Get the new Seesmic for iPhone free in the App Store. Seesmic is also available for Android, BlackBerry and desktop.

According to Mike Abramsky, analyst at RBC Capital Markets, Apple is currently selling over 200 000 iPads a week – almost double the number of Macs being sold in the USA each week (approximately 110 000), and only slightly lower than the number of iPhone 3GS handsets being sold each week (around 246 000).

Abramsky believes that the strong sales figures of the iPad are being driven by “rising consumer visibility to iPad’s user experience, sustained PR/word-of-mouth marketing, 3G iPad launch, and broadening iPad apps/content”.

Based on the current outlook, Abramsky has raised his expectations for global iPad sales in 2010 from 5 million to 8 million (via Digital Daily).

TweetDeck has just released a new version of its popular desktop client, complete with Google Buzz and Foursquare integration, simpler video uploading, scheduled updates and global filters.

Here’s a closer look at the new features:

1. Google Buzz integration: TweetDeck is one of the first desktop clients to offer this functionality, which allows you to post to Buzz with no character limits, to comment on and like friends’ posts, and to mute the conversations you don’t want to follow.

2. Foursquare integration: TweetDeck is now location-aware. You can check in using your Foursquare account, find your friends, and see tips and current visitors on venue profile pages. If you don’t have a Foursquare account, you’ll be able to find your location on a popup map and add location information to your normal tweets.

3. Scheduled updates: Twitter updates, wall posts and Foursquare check-ins can all be scheduled to be sent at a later date and time. A dedicated Scheduled Updates column allows you to view, edit, reschedule or cancel the updates you’ve already queued.

4. Simpler video uploading: You can now upload a video file in the same way as you’d upload an image file. Videos can also be recorded through your webcam, and posted directly to any of your accounts.

5. Global filters: TweetDeck v0.34 allows you to hide updates based on sender, source or keyword, using multiple global filters.

Watch this video to see the new features in action: