Cloud switch boon for VOIP

Around two-thirds of medium-sized businesses polled by IBM revealed they are currently planning or implementing cloud computing solutions, news which could mean an increase in the deployment of voice-over-Internet protocol (VOIP) services, states Telappliant.

A new study commissioned by the technology firm, Inside the Midmarket: A 2011 Perspective, showed those businesses expect to enjoy reduced costs, better IT management and improved system performance from using these types of solutions.

Meanwhile, more than half predicted their IT budgets will increase in the next 12 to 18 months, with three-quarters stating they plan to upgrade their core computing systems.

Verizon Business rapidly expanded its cloud capabilities last year, and plans to do the same in 2011, notes Information Week.

The company has not previously been seen as a prominent name in cloud computing, but its enhanced capabilities indicate that may be about to change.

It started out in 2009 offering simple infrastructure as a service, like Amazon's EC2. Later this year, it will move beyond infrastructure into platform-based services and start offering customer relationship management and enterprise resource planning applications online as software-as-a-service.

Private cloud promises the advantages of cloud computing - scalable, on-demand computing - but all tucked safely away behind the corporate firewall, rather than using the public Internet, notes Silicon.com.

Analysts are predicting that 2011 could see significant adoption of private cloud by companies using technologies pioneered by cloud computing vendors to upgrade their own data centres by combining virtualisation, automation and scalability.

When asked: "In 2011, will you be investigating the use of private cloud to make your IT infrastructure more efficient?" Silicon.com's exclusive CIO Jury responded, “Yes” by a margin of 11 to one.