The new iPad 3 is here: with Apple promising this to be another revolutionary device, we’re wondering if the brand can really keep exciting users with its new devices. Can a sharper screen and improved innards entice enough people to make the jump?

Confusingly, Apple’s latest model has no number in its name this time around strictly speaking (although most are still referring to it as the iPad 3 to avoid an Inception-like meltdown) – a sure sign that it’s here to stay, like the iPod and MacBook Pro.

We always like to look to the future at LeadingEdge, and we’ve been reading some interesting articles on how not only commercial business, but how society in general is likley to change in the next decade or so. From payment platforms (who remembers bitCoin?), to Social Interaction advancements (we use the term ‘advancements’ possibly in the loosest sense) along with how generational attitude will change the workforce, in fact it already has done.

There’s a really interesting video here from Steve King, Emergents principle researcher.

Following on from Steve’s insights, here’s Jame’s Canton’s view on the future of business society

There’s been a stack of medical (and some not so medical) reports this week on how the constant use of technology is ruining us. From making us blind, through the use of constantly high brightness high resolution screens which we’re constantly blinking at, to ruining our attention span with always on, always available endless streams of content & infinite choice.

There’s even of course, the human element of interaction, and how that is seemingly dissapearing, lost in a sea of virtual hook ups, from online dating sites, to IRC & real time messaging, iChat & Blackberry BBM.

” People have become so attached to social media networks that I’m not even sure someone would know how to sit down across the table from someone and actually have a conversation anymore. We have become slaves to technology, and eventually it will destroy us.” – An excerpt from stoppingthehate.com

We have to in some point, agree that without enough balance, the constant shift of how we live our life online will change & reprogram the next generation & the generation after that, to be very different people.

There’s a lovely [INFOGRAPHIC] here on the subject, take a look. http://www.bitrebels.com/lifestyle/how-mobile-devices-are-destroying-your-body-infographic/

James Canton’s a well known futureologist, he has an interesting video here

Around this time last year, the cloud computing contract signings were coming fast and furious—not just for commodity work like IT management or email, but for software and infrastructure closer to the core of corporate value. Not long after that, the calls started to come in to Greg Bell, principal and the Americas service leader for information protection at KPMG.

Cloud services customers—more often line of business leaders than IT executives—were panicked as they began to realize that their intellectual property (IP) was now at risk. Some, like one client who discovered that he’d potentially exposed his company’s precious formulas, had to bring the software and associated processes back in-house—at no small expense. “They quickly went through an assessment, made very aggressive movements [into cloud computing], and then had to retreat because they were not able to put the proper controls in place,” says Bell.

There’s always some danger when handing over critical company data to a third party. “Cloud computing entails IP issues similar to traditional IT outsourcing in that you are entrusting sensitive data to a provider who probably won’t treat it as carefully as you would,” says Jim Slaby, sourcing security research director for outsourcing analyst firm HfS Research. “Your applications will be running on IT infrastructure you do not own or control.”

But cloud-based services introduce increased IP threats. The nature of the business—whether it’s software-, infrastructure-, or platform-as-a-service—makes understanding where the data is, who has access to it, and how it’s being used more difficult, notes KPMG’s Bell. There’s a much higher degree of virtualization—from networks to storage to servers. “[For example,] a highly-distributed, highly-virtualized pool of storage resources used by a cloud service may make it much more difficult for the provider to guarantee that deleted files have been securely deleted—not just [removing] the file-system pointer to the data, but [overwriting] the actual data itself—from every single location that the cloud provider might have stored them on,” says Slaby.

Cloud providers are more likely to use subcontractors to meet spikes in demand. Cloud-stored data often hops from country to country, some with weak IP laws or enforcement. “Similarly, if your provider uses personnel who can remotely access your data and IP from countries with weak IP laws, you may be putting your IP at risk of theft or misappropriation, with little recourse,” explains Rebecca Eisner, partner in the privacy and security practice of Mayer Brown. Finally, because many cloud services have grown out of consumer offerings, their standard contracts are severely lacking. “A term in a contract that provides that the cloud vendor owns all content a customer may put on its systems may be okay if that content is a picture of your dog, but may not be so good if you’re talking about your development environment,” says Edward Hansen, partner and co-chair of the global sourcing practice at Baker & McKenzie.

What are the most common mistakes IT managers make when doing a server virtualization project? There are many, and they’re easily avoidable, said a gaggle of Gartner analysts at the Gartner Data Center Conference in Las Vegas this week.

Most virtualization goofs center around lack of planning and forethought, they said.

For example, on the storage front, perhaps the biggest  mistake is to start a virtualization project without already having a SAN or shared storage in place, said Robert Passmore, a Gartner research vice president. “They get 75% of the way through a virtualization project and they realize they need a SAN, but by that point they don’t have the budget,” he said. “It’s a real disaster.”

Similarly, most virtualization newbies don’t anticipate the increase in demand that virtualization will place on their systems, nor the speed at which growth will occur.

“Virtualization introduces speed, and most processes aren’t ready for speed,” said Tom Bittman, another Gartner research VP. And because virtualization tends to remove artificial obstacles to provisioning new workloads, demand for services tends to double in highly virtualized environments, he said. To avoid being overwhelmed, newcomers to virtualization should consider implementing lifecycle management, as well as chargeback or showback.

Other rookie mistakes involve failing to treat the virtualization layer with enough gravitas.

In their enthusiasm for VMware, many IT managers make the mistake of moving too quickly to the latest and greatest release of the platform, said Passmore, oftentimes before ecosystem such as backup and management software are available.

And security of the virtualization layer is often overlooked, added Neil MacDonald, vice president and distinguished analyst. “These issues are overlooked because people say ‘nothing’s different,’ when really, a lot is different,” he said.

To avoid security problems, MacDonald suggested IT managers elevate virtualization to the same layer as the operating system. “Treat it like an OS,” he said, with all the attending hardening, patch management and compliance processes.

Finally on the desktop front, an overarching mistake is to fail to fundamentally rethink desktop support, said Mark Margevicius, vice president and research director. When it comes to the desktop, most organizations are built around a distributed device, he said, but “everything changes when you virtualize the desktop,” for instance, support processes, refresh rates, and budget allocation, to name a few. Without thinking desktop virtualization through up front, “you almost have more problems than the problems you solved with it.”

Google is preparing to launch a long-rumored cloud storage service that tramples a bit on products and services offered by Google partners. A Wall Street Journal report citing “people familiar with the matter” says the new “Drive” service will be launched by Google in the coming weeks or months. What does that mean for other companies that Google works closely with?

As my PCWorld peer Ian Paul pointed out in an article about the upcoming Google storage service, Google already offers online storage in a variety of ways. Ostensibly, the Google “Drive” will consolidate and possibly expand the capabilities, but Google isn’t entirely new to the cloud storage space.

However, offering a more coherent cloud storage solution would pit Google “Drive” more directly against other cloud storage services and possibly turn partners into rivals. Google already has existing relationships with cloud storage providers like Box. Just last summer, Box and Google launched a partnership that integrates Google Docs capabilities into Box for a combo aimed at going head to head with the SharePoint features of Microsoft’s Office 365.

It seems a little bit like McDonald’s deciding to get into the soft drink business with its own line of cola despite its symbiotic relationship with Coca Cola. I asked Box CEO Aaron Levie for his thoughts on whether the Google “Drive” tramples on the Box side of the fence, and what impact the competition might have on their partnership in other areas.

Levie explained that he welcomes the Google “Drive” just like he welcomed Apple’s iCloud. Services like these — with the brand awareness of household names like Apple and Google — drive mainstream, awareness and acceptance of cloud storage in general. Ultimately, that is a good thing for every party involved in cloud storage, including Box.

Rather than being threatened by Google, Levie is elated. “This is great for Box, since we’re all about bringing those benefits to the enterprise, going beyond storage to help organizations manage and collaborate on content across devices.”

Levie went on to say that the Google “Drive” wouldn’t really impact its relationship with Google. “We’ll continue to partner with Google and expand our integration with its Google Apps suite, since our focus on secure information management and collaboration is complementary to its offerings.”

If and when the Google “Drive” is launched, it will be another step toward mainstream adoption of storing and accessing data online. But, “Drive” seems like a more consumer-oriented, and Google-centric service akin to a Google version of Apple’s iCloud, and is not seen as a direct challenge by its cloud partners.

Microsoft is ready to lift the lid on Windows 8 at a preview event at the end of the month. The new OS will be available later this year, not only for PCs, but also for tablets, as Microsoft prepares to take on the iPad. Here’s what we know so far about Windows 8 tablets.

Hardware

Microsoft’s Windows 8 certification requirements note that all Windows 8 tablets must have five hardware buttons: power, rotation lock, volume up, volume down and a Windows key.

The minimum specs include 10GB of free storage space, a 720p HD camera and support resolutions at minimum of 1024 by 768 (although, 1366-by-768 pixels will be required for Windows’ side-by-side views). All Windows 8 tablets should have an ambient light sensor (for auto brightness adjustments, most likely), magnetometer (for compass applications), accelerometer and gyroscope (for motion controls).

What’s Inside: WOA (Windows on ARM)

The first wave of Windows 8 tablets will likely run on low-power ARM processors. Why Windows on ARM? The expectation is that ARM processor-based tablets will be better able to compete on price, battery life, and design with the market-leading Apple iPad. Microsoft has been developing Windows on ARM, code-named WOA, which would allow for instant-on capabilities on tablets. Microsoft is working with three ARM licensees– NVIDIA, Qualcomm, and Texas Instruments–and PCWorld’s Melissa J. Perenson has seen the demos up close from, both at Microsoft’s Build conference and at CES 2012. While ARM-based tablets are expected to be a big push for Windows 8, don’t count out x86-based Intel and AMD tablets: Both chipmakers are readying platforms targeted at tablets for this year.

Metro Interface

Windows 8 is all about Metro. The Metro user interface, that is. The clean, tile-based interface design from Windows Phone 7 and now Xbox 360 makes the jump to Windows 8. The big tiles are clearly optimized for tablets, as compared with the traditional desktop interface, which relies on window panes, tightly placed buttons, awkward scrollbars, and menu bars. By contrast, Metro apps run full-screen, though you can multitask two with two screens side-by-side by having one occupy the left or right third of your display. PCWorld has an in-depth look at Metro in Windows 8.

A Windows App Store

Windows 8 will have its own app store. Microsoft says it store will help ensure Metro-style apps are better protected from malware, bugs and other typical PC problems. Plus, this will give consumers an easy way to find apps designed for the new Metro world. A few developers have been invited to offer apps during the beta period, and those apps will be free.

Thanks to Dan Ionescue for this information.

One interesting facet of the IT industry is the need to learn new skills on a continual basis. New technologies are released all the time, and new operating systems seem to roll off the factory floor every 18 months or so.

What this means for IT professionals is that they must continuously update their skills or end up becoming redundant. What are out-dated skills?

Some skills have been in continuous use for over 50 years (COBOL programmers) and will still be in demand for the short term, but their days are numbered. Other skills are hard to think of as just a pure IT skill (typing) – but does have a dramatic impact overall (texting or IM)

 
1. Software Installation and Support “How can this be?” you say? Simple! The Cloud. Software as a Service (SaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) are rapidly growing in use. It makes sense for many firms to adopt these services – reduced cost and technical support. No longer must a small company spend the money on high-end servers and consultants – they can “rent” the same service from a provider. From a technical perspective, this means that many level-1 support staff will need to expand their skill set. The companies providing SaaS are happy as they have a guaranteed revenue stream as consumers and businesses no longer purchase their software once – rather we “rent” the usage of the Software packages.

 
2. Email “What?” you say. Email being an outdated skill set – perish the thought! While not becoming passé immediately, the number of people using email is declining according to TechCrunch. The number of people using email in several age groups has declined. What does this mean for the business environment? Other communication modalities are on the rise such as texting/IM and web conferencing. The average business person might not see an impact as of yet, but the adoption and use of email by younger workers is slowing (use of IM and social media outlets are on the rise, especially the social media outlets).

 
3. Telephony PBX systems are becoming somewhat akin to mainframes – people have been predicting their demise for sometime, but they still persist. The underlying principles of telephony haven’t changed (good old Erlang will be around for some time), it is how they are implemented that has changed. Many businesses are interested in a comprehensive communications package – one that does more than just provide a phone on a desktop. Microsoft’s Lync Server is changing how we look at presence, voice, IM, and conferencing. The days of having a physical phone and the techs to support that physical phone are numbered. The PSTN (public switched telephone network or, as some refer to it POTS – plain old telephone service) networks will gradually be replaced. A growing number of individuals and households are getting rid of land lines and are instead using their cell phones.

 
4. IPv4 Subnetting On 3 February, 2011, the last top-level block of public Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) addresses was assigned. Now it is onwards to IPv6. Well, not quite that fast, but soon. This also means that the art of subnetting IPv4 addresses will soon be a skill of the past as we move to IPv6. For all of us who have spent hours understanding the significance of /22 (how many subnets and hosts per subnet and what the subnet mask derived for this notation), I am sorry to say this will be a skill set that will go away in the not so distant future (of course they said that about Morse code, but we still use that as well).

 
5. Typing (or the rise of IM speech) This may seem like a strange IT skill that is on the decline but think of the rise of “text or IM Speech”. First it was the decline of the hand-written letter due to the rise of email, now it is the decline of proper typing in-lieu of texting/IM. A new generation of IT users are coming into the workforce who do not use email as much as the previous generation and who are also using texting as their means of communication vs. typical emails.

 
6. Non-TCP/IP Networks When one thinks of the internet and communication protocols, you most likely think of TCP/IP as the default protocol. This is true now, and was true when the “Internet” was still under the control of DARPA and was mainly used between government installations and institutions of higher education. But, there was a time in the mid-1980s to the mid 1990s that another protocol was used heavily: IPX/SPX. Novell’s NetWare was mainly responsible for the rise and acceptance of IPX/SPX during this period. IPX/SPX was originally derived from Xerox Network Systems’ IDP and SPP protocol. With the release of NetWare 5.x, IPX/SPX fell from use as TCP/IP became the favored protocol used.

 
7. Hardware There was a time, not so long ago, where we performed our own component-level repair. That is repairing or replacing components on the computer components (think ROM chips). When is the last time you used that chip replacement tool that used to come with all computer tool kits? Now we simply get a new card, or in the case of tablets and other such systems, we send it in. Along these same lines, how about printer maintenance? In many cases, it is cheaper to buy a low-end ink-jet type printer and sell it once the cartridge is empty than it is to buy a replacement ink-jet cartridge. Impact printers anyone? They are used in some areas extensively (think airline passenger lists), but have pretty much disappeared in most office and home scenarios.

 
8. HTML – Web Developer Why the differentiation? The HTML developer is writing the code that will run the website. As opposed to a web designer who typically uses a graphics program to create the website layout and then uses a second program to make the design for viewing on the web. So which one is on the decline? That would be the Web Developer. This is due primarily to the rise of web design programs. The skills of the web developer will be in less demand, but does not mean their imminent demise in 2011.

 
9. Older Server Operating Systems and Server-based applications Here is another older skill set that must be clearly defined. If you have been in the IT field for more than 5 years or so, you have probably migrated to a new server technology. This is applicable for server technology such as operating system (Windows 200 or even NT4) or to the applications that are running on the servers such as email systems, database programs, or even networking technologies. We have all run across somebody who refuses to learn a new server operating system (given my druthers, I would gladly take Windows Server 2008 R2 over NT4 or Windows 2000). You cannot continue to market yourself as an NT4.0 guru and expect to remain employed for much longer. There just aren’t that many systems remaining in use.

 
10. COBOL COBOL was been around for over 50 years; in fact, it is one of the oldest programming languages. The demise of COBOL has been proclaimed for 20 years and yet it still remains. There was a resurgence of use and interest in COBOL just prior to Y2K, but has been dwindling since then. There are few places to learn COBOL but there is still a need to support the business applications that were written and need to be supported by COBOL programmers – for now. As new applications are written in other languages, the programs that were written in COBOL and the people who support these older apps will find themselves needing a new skill set.

The IT organization of the future will focus more on consulting and guiding the business in technology decisions than on building or even running IT. As business users increasingly procure and even build the applications they need to do their jobs, the IT roles most in demand will be those of technology educators, innovation specialists, vendor management experts, and architects who can assemble and integrate a distributed IT environment.

 
“It’s a very broad definition of consulting. It’s providing direction, it is providing oversight, it’s providing value,” said Marc Cecere, a principal analyst at Forrester Research Inc. and a keynote speaker at the firm’s recent IT Forum in Las Vegas. The IT status quo is about to be toppled, if speakers at the forum are correct. That “sea change” will fundamentally alter IT roles and the scale of IT operations at many midsized and larger enterprises. For CIOs, it is none too soon to start building the IT organization of the future.

 
Even as information technology becomes integral to more industries, Forrester data suggest that, ironically, IT is in danger of being perceived as irrelevant to the business.

A recent Forrester survey of 2,691 business decision makers demonstrates the paradox, said Sharyn Leaver, practice leader for enterprise architecture and CIO at Forrester. While 87% of those surveyed said they believe the future of their organization hinges on technology innovation, more than a third of that group did not consider IT as the source of new ideas. In addition, 65% of the business leaders surveyed told Forrester they had budgets to buy technology within their group without involving IT.

 
“Everybody believes they are a digital business. That’s the good news,” Leaver told IT Forum attendees. “The downside is that 35% of that group said they do not involve IT at all — never pick up the phone and talk to anyone in IT to come up with new and innovative ideas on utilizing technology to grow their business.”

 
What should the IT organization of the future look like? According to Forrester, CIOs first must come to terms with two major trends: the enterprise’s need for speed, and an increasingly technology-savvy and self-sufficient workforce.

 
Even when business leaders understand the value of technology integration and scalability, they will bypass IT if these standards jeopardize their ability to get to market fast, the Forrester survey showed. Moreover, Software-as-a-Service tools and cloud computing make it possible for the business to provision technology without IT.
Of the so-called Generation Y employees (those 18 to 30 years old) surveyed by Forrester, 64% said they downloaded unauthorized applications or visited unauthorized Web sites at least once a week to get their jobs done; and at least 40% do the same on a daily basis, Leaver said.

 
“The combination of this need for speed, along with self-service technology and the tech-savvy workforce, we at Forrester believe will truly topple the IT status quo,” Leaver said.
IT roles and responsibilities

The new reality — the need for speed plus a tech-savvy workforce — was evident throughout the conference. Speakers and attendees stressed the effort of CIOs to adapt their IT organizations. Warren Ritchie, CIO at Volkswagen Group of America Inc., remains convinced that the success of the IT organization of the future — at least at global companies — will depend on parsing the IT services to be centralized, and the IT roles needed to support the unique qualities of each market.

 
Unique to the U.S. market is the rapid adoption of intelligent devices that are redefining how Americans work and connect, in Ritchie’s view. Therefore, IT should be thinking about how the “connected vehicle” (the car as a rolling computer) can improve customer service and Volkswagen products. Volkswagen’s marketing department might be taking the lead on customer service, but leveraging the corporate data amassed by these smart vehicles must be IT’s province, he said.

To that end, he is recruiting data specialists from other car companies and is “wresting some of the data services work” away from the company’s digital marketing agency, IT’s “prime competitor.”

 
“There is this interesting tension between what is a product and what is a service and what is IT’s role. Both sides recognize the tension and are sorting out the actual roles now,” Ritchie said.

 
On a broader scale, Ritchie is reorganizing his IT department “around innovation,” even managing to set aside 8% of his budget for innovation. To change the business’s perception of IT as a utility, he is waging the battle on numerous fronts, setting up “sandbox environments” for proofs of concept, building architectures that support cloud and mobile apps, and allowing business areas to self-provision iPads and iPhones.
One of Ritchie’s biggest challenges is educating the business on the complexity of the IT infrastructure required to support a nimble enterprise — and how that differs fundamentally from the type of consumer IT purchased at a Best Buy, he said.

“We need to start building below the waterline, and the business needs to understand what exists below the waterline.”

 
The transformation of IT organizations from technology-doers to expert guides resonated with attendee Kelly D’Eath, who oversees the business systems analysis services team at Calgary-based energy company TransCanada Corp. “We’re already seeing that in some parts of the TransCanada IT organization, where the team I am building will be more a consulting team than a ‘builder’ team,” she said.

 
D’Eath has not hired new people — yet, she said. But the shift in approach “does allow us to consider other options for buying rather than building the services required.”

 
Empowered BT in the IT organization of the future

Forrester describes the effective IT organization of the future as facilitating “empowered business technology (BT).” What does that mean? As opposed to aligned IT, where the bulk of the IT work gets done by the IT organization, or to embedded BT, where most of the IT choices will be made by the business, empowered BT represents a middle course, Cecere said.

 
“In this middle area, what you have is a shared responsibility for information technology between the business and between the IT organization,” Cecere said.
Traditional application developers will act as guides for these business people to make sure the technology the business is building is secure and scalable, Cecere said. IT project managers will not be running one project at a time but overseeing numerous projects simultaneously.

Vendor management offices will be “template-izing” their expertise for business employees who are procuring IT services, Forrester analyst Stephanie Moore said. Among the most employable IT professionals, Cecere said, will be the enterprise architects who can design and integrate scalable systems, and the security specialists charged with inoculating those systems against the innumerable threats now facing the digital enterprise.

 
In the empowered BT model, business leaders might well go out to the cloud to grab the services and deploy and even maintain the services they need, “but they won’t do it without IT people being involved,” Cecere said.

I don’t know why, but I am still surprised when I hear the following question. What’s the difference between virtualization and Cloud? To me, it’s like asking the question – What’s the difference between a hammer and carpentry? The latter is a comprehensive craft. The former is one of many tools used by the craftsmen who practice it.

Simple – right? So why does that question occur at all?

It occurs, in my opinion, for two reasons, one right and one not so right.

The first reason is that all of the server virtualization vendors of any significance are also introducing Cloud offerings to the market. So, people are naturally associating the two (and rightfully so, just like one would associate hammers and carpentry). The difference is, though, no one thinks hammers and carpentry are the same thing.

So, the not so right reason – There are Cloud computing laggards out there who would like us to think that virtualization and Cloud are similar because they have embraced virtualization technology and do not want to appear out of step. As a result, there is a ton of noise in the market that is very hard to sort through.

So, how do I suggest one sorts through this noise?

When faced with a potential Cloud solution, ask a few questions about it.

Does it help me provision and deploy virtual machines on demand? If the answer is no, I’d ask why are you even looking at it? But if the answer is yes, just deploying VMs on demand does not a Cloud make.

Does it enable the encapsulation and on demand deployment of multiple VMs as a single entity? If rather than managing VMs, you want to manage frequently used “appliances” that are comprised of multiple VMs (e.g. a specific app server, a specific messaging system and a specific database server), can you do it? If the answer is yes, you are on your way to a real Cloud solution.

Does it enable the encapsulation and on demand deployment of whole software stacks (e.g. LAMP, Ruby on Rails, .NET, etc.)? If the answer is yes, you are certainly in the Cloud.

But, do you want more? Does it enable encapsulation and on demand deployment of entire multi-tiered apps? If yes, you have a very powerful Cloud solution.

More? Does it enable the encapsulation of the apps along with everything they need to run – network, storage, infrastructure, configurations, policies, documentation, etc., etc., etc.? If yes, then you have the most complete Cloud solution of all.

So, you might sense a theme here – Encapsulation. Yes. Encapsulation is key, but it is only half of the story. Encapsulation itself results in many benefits, especially operational cost savings and decreased time to market. But encapsulation alone does not make a Cloud. It does not create portability. It does not create the ability, by itself, to deploy anywhere, any time.

What’s the second half of the story? Abstraction. Not only do the most comprehensive Cloud solutions have to provide unlimited granularity of encapsulation, but they must completely abstract what is encapsulated from the physical resources (machines) they run on, so that they can run anytime, anywhere there are available idle resources.

In short, you do not measure a Cloud solution by how it does virtualization. You measure it by the granularity of its encapsulation capabilities and its ability to abstract VMs, stacks, apps/services and entire data centers from the physical resources they run on.

So, what is the future of virtualization and where is it going in 2012?

Virtualization is going the way of the hammer. It will be a necessary commodity for the Cloud, just like the hammer is a necessary commodity for the carpenter.

Now, before all the virtualization vendors get their shorts in a knot and start screaming at me that I am implying that all virtualization is the same, I am not. I acknowledge that some have features others do not, some outperform others, etc. But, can you tell who the best carpenter is only by knowing what brand of hammer he uses?

There’s also an interesting lecture here about Virtualisation, (its a bit heavy going)