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Banking and finance leaders gathered at the Finance Tech Forum organized by Computerworld Hong Kong and talked of the challenges around the need for IT transformation and the role of cloud.

With the pressure on banking and finance institutions to dramatically curb cost bit deliver new customer-centric services and rapid growth capability, there is a clear need for business transformation at many levels, noted Wu Jian Cheng, business development director, Asia, Savvis. "But this does not happen without IT transformation and in most cases business transformations are in fact enabled by IT."

The question of how IT must transforming to enable dynamic business change is almost always focused on the role of cloud computing -- be it adoption of a private, public or in most cases a hybrid cloud model.

"Business leaders are constantly asking IT on how the organization can move forward? How to grow in a more dynamic ad agile fashion? How to respond more speedily while minimizing risk and cost and traditionally long timelines for implementation? "Cloud promises a platform to enable much of these changes," said Cheng.

According to Ashok Kalyanswamy, CIO Asia Ex-Japan, head of APAC equities and prime services IT, Nomura Securities, there is a clear priority for all banks to find ways to sustain profit levels and maintain tight cost control.

The future is cloud
"Clearly we have to manage our cost base. And given that we are the bank's technology experts, we must always review the way we manage the cost of our infrastructure and find ways to optimize and improve," said Kalyanswamy. He noted that banks in the past had a philosophy to own and run everything but today that model must shift to embrace third party providers and opportunities in the cloud.

"There's a limit to how much banks can continually cut cost without also losing the ability to react and support new initiatives when sudden opportunities come along," Kalyanswamy said.

Ideally the bank would move to a private cloud model where IT can charge business units for exactly the amount of IT resource and services that they consume. >>Read more

Source: AsiaCloudForum

Back in the summer in a private meeting I was asked for my thoughts on the outlook for cloud — what will the world think of it in two or even five years' time? This is what I said.

Cloud is delivered on mobile, includes social. Ask a techologist for a definition of cloud and you'll soon get dragged into discussions of virtualization, automated management and even data center design. Ask a business person and they'll talk about the freedom of interacting with applications, resources and contacts without being tied to a physical location. The business people have got it right: what's important about the connected technology of the cloud is the incredible speed, agility and transformation it enables in business. Some people say cloud is a buzzword that is nearing the end of its heyday, but I think it will endure, not as a technology buzzword but as a layman's term for connected automation.

Many businesses will thrive because of cloud. Cloud, in its widest sense of being connected to a global network of on-demand resources, is transforming entire industries. Look at all forms of media and publishing, look at retailing, look at advertising and marketing, look at information technology. The businesses that are using the Web to pioneer new ways of delivering goods and services are growing fast — as Marc Andreessen put it so memorably, software is eating the world. >>Read more

Source: Phil Wainewright/ZDNet

Audio conferences – they are so boring! Ever wonder if the person on the other line is actually paying attention? Or picking their nose! Sounds like a major lack of commitment to audio meetings and even less so if there are multi-lingual and multi- cultural challenges. 

When faced with challenges of language and intonation (accent or dialect – not all English, for example, sounds the same!), the concepts get lost in translation, drawings make no sense.  “How could John not understand the drawing?” “Why was it difficult to understand this concept?” “Are they not paying attention to what I had to say?” “Can you hear my thoughts?” “Now, If only we could see each other, I could better explain what we’re trying to achieve”.   Paying attention to visual cues is often the most understated impediment to effective communication.

It’s said that “Seeing is Believing”, this is a basic truth in human communication; whether personal or business.  When we see a person’s face, eyes, and mannerisms, our understanding is increased exponentially.   Did you know that 80 per cent of messages we receive come from body language.  When we see another person we can communicate easily, manage better, control more precisely, and solve problems quicker – which makes us more effective.  

Relying on audio conferences as a tool for understanding and confirming the intent of meaning is inadequate and costly. We can no longer rely on a voice devoid of meaning and small blurred images to get our points across.  Now there is a viable alternative. HD video conferencing at your desk or on the road, from your laptop or tablet (Smartphone even) – crystal clear HD images of the other party and Ultra High Definition Sound (with capability to carry sounds beyond the sound range of the human voice).  

The platform, on which Singapore Cloud with HD video conferencing is built on, is proven and tested. It’s been around a long while. What’s radically improved is the scability and availability of cloud based video conferencing solutions. It is designed for real time face to face conversations, allowing for greater understanding of the spoken word. Better yet, todays’ technology allows for real time sharing of files and documents, recording of conversations for reference later.  We are aided by a range of visual clues, we hear tiny nuances in the other person’s voice and we achieve greater clarity and commitment when we are face to face.

“To be able to see somebody face to face, it’s a very powerful tool. You lose yourself in the conversation if the quality is good enough”, says Michael Levy, principal of Seattle based Lexician, who was recently interviewed on a podcast called Law Technology Now.

Increasing communication efficacy, visual collaboration, file and document sharing, understanding that vital piece of information, all via Singapore Cloud - at the cost of a cup of coffee a day.  Go to www.singaporevidyocloud.com.   

The Australian Law Reform Commission's (ALRC) newly released Copyright Act review consultation paper has raised concerns that Australian copyright laws might be stunting the country's cloud market, directly making reference to the Optus TV Now court case.

In the paper, "Copyright and the Digital Economy", the ALRC is looking at whether new exceptions to the Copyright Act should be added, since we are well and truly into the digital age.

"The questions we are asking in this inquiry go to whether our current copyright laws are properly aiding the development of opportunities for Australian creators and not unduly hindering the development of new business models, while at the same time ensuring appropriate protection for copyright," the ALRC commissioner for the copyright inquiry, professor Jill McKeough, said in a statement. "At the same time, the expectations of a global community to access and use material for a whole range of creative, community, educative and commercial purposes also needs to be considered."

The dynamic tech sector has thrown a few curve balls at Australia's seemingly outdated copyright laws, including how users of cloud computing can infringe on copyrighted materials.

Launched in 2011, Optus TV Now has since been pulled by Optus after it lost a Federal Court battle with the Australian Football League (AFL), the National Rugby League (NRL) and Telstra. Optus is looking to appeal the case to the High Court of Australia. >>Read more

Source: ZDNet

It’s easy to get lost in the business of cloud and enterprise data management, even for this audience. We get so focused on the technological aspects of making the cloud work for our clients that we may not consider the real-life impact it makes on us outside of the data center.

Ever since we acquired Affiliated Computer Services in 2010 Xerox has operated in unexpected places – we moved from technology provider to the world’s leading enterprise for business process and document management. So with that in mind, I’d like to highlight ways the cloud is having real-life implications in unexpected places.

We’ve all flown on a plane – in fact, you may be reading this at the airport or in the air if you’re lucky enough to have Wi-fi. But do you ever stop and think about what goes into airline communications? According to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), during a flight from Los Angeles to Baltimore pilots will talk to 28 controllers in 11 facilities. That doesn’t seem like a big deal at first glance, but consider the fact that most of this communication occurs on different systems, and with different technologies. Imagine having to make 28 calls on 28 different phones! I realize this is a dramatization of sorts, but it helps illustrate the point. So at this point you’re probably asking yourself, “What does all of this have to do with the cloud?” We recently partnered with an airline software provider to create a solution that blends our cloud capabilities with their data expertise enabling these disparate communication systems to work together seamlessly–helping transmit important data and key transmissions from airlines to other carriers and countless flight authorities, such as the Federal Aviation Administration, the Transportation Security Administration and U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The airline industry has been a laggard in adopting cloud technologies and there is a real opportunity for vendors to create efficient-solutions, because more efficient communications means more peace of mind.  >>Read more

Source: CloudTimes