This week, the latest batch of quarterly earning calls rolled in; one major highlight was Netflix’s announcement of a new pricing structure, on top of its plans to further expand into Europe. Meanwhile, over on Gigaom Research, our analysts are taking a look back at quarterly findings from throughout 2013, especially as they impact cloud adoption strategies and social technologies, and more.
Note: Gigaom Research is a subscription-based research service offering in-depth, timely analysis of developing trends and technologies. Visit research.gigaom.comto learn more about it.
Buyer’s Lens: Survey: benchmarking cloud expectations
Laura Stuart
Analyst Laura Stuart revisits Gigaom Research’s 2013 Q2 cloud expectations survey, which queried two IT buyer populations (leading-edge as well as mainstream buyers) about their expectations at attitudes about the cloud. By analyzing these results one year later, Stuart provides today’s IT buyers with a valuable set of metrics to benchmark their own progress and attitudes and cloud practices as compared to their peers.
Cloud: How Hadoop passes an IT audit
John Webster
It’s time for Hadoop to grow up, notes analyst John Webster. “Not originally created for the enterprise environment, Hadoop was built for internet data center environments like Google, Yahoo, Facebook, and Twitter,” he observes. However, as more enterprise-level industry segments deploy it, it’s clear that Hadoop must mature further, “in order to be regarded as a viable enterprise platform capable of supporting critical business functions running real-time applications.” Webster analyzes Hadoop’s current role in enterprise IT, and what compliance, security, and support improvements will need to be implemented before it can be considered a viable enterprise solution.
Social: Social fourth-quarter analysis and outlook
Stowe Boyd
In his latest quarterly wrap-up, Stowe Boyd looks back at the past three months in the social technology space, with a special focus on the trends and technologies that impact the workplace. Boyd highlights the rise of technologies like Holocracy and a rethinking of typical managerial roles (as embraced by companies like Asana and GitHub). Boyd also weighs in on issues affecting some of the giants of enterprise technology – namely, Microsoft’s quest to find a new CEO and its future prospects, post-Ballmer.
