Cloud Budgets on the Rise — What Your Next IT Survey Should Ask in 2025

 

In 2025, the cloud conversation has changed. What was once about migration is now about optimization. According to a recent survey of 500 U.S. IT decision makers by Wanclouds, 89% of organizations plan to increase cloud budgets this year, and 84% are operating in hybrid or multi-cloud environments. Yet nearly two-thirds say that cost optimization is their top priority, an intriguing contradiction that reveals how organizations are thinking about growth and efficiency simultaneously.

That paradox presents an opportunity, not just for cloud providers, but for anyone building technology products or services that depend on understanding what IT leaders are actually struggling with. The best way to uncover those insights? Ask them directly.

 

Why Cloud Spending Is Growing — and Why That Matters

Cloud budgets are expanding for several reasons:

• AI adoption is accelerating. Generative AI, model training, and data pipelines are driving new demand for compute and storage.
• Hybrid work remains entrenched. Organizations continue to invest in cloud collaboration, security, and monitoring tools.
• Regulatory complexity is increasing. Enterprises are balancing innovation with compliance, often requiring specialized cloud environments.

But these same forces make visibility, cost control, and accountability more difficult. The rise of shadow IT and overlapping SaaS contracts means CIOs need better data, and better questions, to guide investment decisions.

A well-designed survey can help surface those answers.

 

What to Ask in Your Next IT Decision-Maker Survey

If your business serves the IT, cloud, or SaaS ecosystem, now is the time to engage your audience with a 2025 sentiment survey. Here are five questions to include:

1. Budget Direction:
   “How is your organization’s cloud budget changing in 2025 compared to 2024?”
   → Reveals whether respondents are expanding, maintaining, or cutting budgets, key for market forecasting.
2. Optimization Priorities:
   “Which cost optimization strategies are you currently exploring (e.g., FinOps, AI-based monitoring, contract consolidation)?”
   → Highlights trends and solution opportunities.
3. Multi-Cloud Maturity:
   “How many public cloud providers does your organization actively manage?”
   → Indicates how complex the average deployment is, and where integration pain points may lie.
4. AI Integration:
   “Are you using AI or machine learning to optimize your cloud infrastructure or application performance?”
   → Captures awareness and adoption trends around emerging tools.
5. Vendor Expectations:
   “What factors most influence your satisfaction with cloud vendors, price, performance, support, or innovation?”
   → Helps vendors refine positioning and product roadmaps.

 

From Data to Direction

Collecting data is only the first step. The true value comes from interpreting what that data says about market direction. Are customers looking to consolidate vendors? Do they trust AI-driven optimization tools? Are cost constraints pushing innovation to the edge?

Surveys give you early visibility into those shifts, long before they show up in sales data or renewal trends. When analyzed properly, they inform go-to-market strategy, content planning, and even pricing decisions.

 

Let MAT Services Help You Listen Smarter

At MAT Services, we specialize in building custom survey programs that turn feedback into foresight. From IT buyers to healthcare executives, we design questions that illuminate what your customers need next, and translate those insights into action.

Stop guessing what your market wants. Start asking the questions that matter.

📊 Learn more at MATServices.com

Stop Guessing: Let Your Customers Shape Your Next Big Move

 In today’s hyper-competitive landscape, product decisions can’t be left to guesswork. Yet too many companies still roll out features, offerings, or even full product lines based on assumptions rather than customer validation. The result? Wasted resources, missed opportunities, and sometimes, painful missteps that could have been avoided.

At MAT Services, we believe the most powerful compass for your business isn’t gut instinct, it’s your customer. And the fastest way to align your direction with their needs is through custom, targeted surveys designed to reveal exactly what drives their behavior, their choices, and their loyalty.

Why Surveys Matter More Than Ever

The voice of the customer isn’t just a nice-to-have, it’s the lifeblood of strategic decision-making. CEOs and founders we speak with often share the same pain points:

• Product teams building in the dark. Development cycles based on assumptions instead of validated needs.
• Missed market signals. Competitors moving faster because they’ve tapped into emerging trends first.
• Customer churn. Teams struggling to understand why customers leave, when the answers are right there, if only someone asked the right questions.

A well-crafted survey flips the script. It gives leaders real-time insight into what their market values, what frustrates their customers, and what will make them stay.

The MAT Services Difference

We don’t believe in cookie-cutter surveys. Our team works with you to design instruments that surface the 3–5 actionable insights you can take straight into boardroom discussions and product roadmaps.

Whether it’s:

• Validating your next product concept
• Understanding why adoption rates lag
• Gauging how market trends will impact your strategy

…our surveys deliver clarity where there was once uncertainty.

And because we’ve seen too many businesses waste money on surveys that don’t deliver, we back our work with a simple promise:

If you don’t walk away with actionable insights, you don’t pay.

De-Risk Your Next Decision

Before you commit budget, headcount, or reputation to your next big move, ask yourself: Do I really know what my customers want?

If the answer isn’t a confident “yes,” then the smartest investment you can make is to find out—before the market tells you the hard way.

At MAT Services, we help CEOs and founders turn the voice of the customer into a competitive advantage. Ready to see how a single survey can change your next decision?

👉 Contact us today to get started.

Why Voice of Customer (VoC) Surveys Are Your Secret Competitive Advantage

 

In today’s fast-moving markets, listening to your customers isn’t optional, it’s essential. A strong Voice of Customer (VoC) program not only improves relationships but also drives growth, differentiation, and long-term success.

Drawing on insights from CustomerGauge’s article on Voice of Customer benefits, here’s how VoC + trend surveys can give your organization the edge, and how MAT Services can help you execute them with excellence.

The Power of Knowing What Customers Really Want

CustomerGauge highlights several crucial benefits of a VoC program:

• Deeper Relationships and Retention
  Closing the loop on customer feedback strengthens trust, loyalty, and referrals.
• Growth & Revenue Opportunities
  VoC surfaces unmet needs, opening upsell, cross-sell, and product innovation pathways.
• Sharper Products & Processes
  Feedback reveals friction points you didn’t see, letting you refine features and streamline operations.
• Clarity Across the Organization
  Customer data highlights where service excels and where improvements are most urgent.
• Efficiency Gains
  Over time, VoC lowers acquisition costs, reduces churn, and improves margins.

 

How Trend Surveys Amplify VoC as a Competitive Advantage

Trend surveys are a specific form of VoC effort focused on broader shifts in the marketplace. They don’t just measure today’s sentiment, they uncover what’s coming tomorrow.

With a trend survey, you can:

• Identify emerging demands before competitors.
• Tailor your roadmap and messaging to what customers will need next.
• Differentiate your brand as a thought leader.
• Use outputs as content and lead-generation tools.

What to look for in a Partner

You don’t just want a dataset; you want a partner that can turn the survey insights into business outcomes.

• 🎯 Tailored Design: Questions crafted around your strategy and personas.
• 📊 Actionable Insights: Clear recommendations, not raw numbers.
• 🖋 Thought Leadership Packaging: Whitepapers, reports, and content that position you at the forefront.
• 💰 Lead Generation Built-In: Surveys that double as pipeline drivers.
• 🤝 Trusted Partnership: Long-term, transparent collaboration focused on your success.

Real-World Impact

A Marketing Director from a large public safety organization shared:

“We partnered with MAT Services to identify trends around AI in our primary customer market. We leveraged the data to help drive our product decisions, in multiple thought leadership presentations, in our Investor newsletter, and as a lead generation tool. In the 6 months since we published the report as a lead generation asset, the report has influenced $70 million in pipeline and $9 million in closed bookings.”

Ready to Leverage Your Customers’ Voice?

Voice of Customer and trend surveys aren’t just tools, they are competitive weapons. They help you:

• Innovate faster by spotting emerging needs.
• Win more share by aligning with customer priorities.
• Elevate your brand with thought leadership.
• Empower your leadership with metrics investors and executives value.

At MAT Services, we’ll help you design, run, and leverage surveys that turn customer feedback into a strategic advantage.

📩 Contact MAT Services today to unlock the insights your organization needs to lead your market.

Why Your Customers Need to be Heard – a Cracker Barrel miss?

 

Cracker Barrel’s recent rebranding and store modernization storyline reads like a cautionary tale in corporate strategy and a missed opportunity before the-fact validation.

A Costly Modernization Reversal

In 2024, Cracker Barrel embarked on a $700 million modernization initiative designed to refresh its image and attract younger diners. The makeover included brighter interiors with cleaner décor, updated menus, new conveniences like curbside pickup, and a minimalist redesign of their iconic logo replacing “Uncle Herschel” with a wordmark-centric look.

But for a brand built on nostalgia, these changes hit a nerve. Loyal customers saw the updates as dismissive of the brand’s heritage and charm. The company’s stock dropped 7–11%, equivalent to a market value loss of $94–$143 million in a matter of days. Fueled by a cultural backlash that escalated into a political flashpoint Cracker Barrel quickly reversed course, reinstating the original logo and promising to retain beloved elements like rocking chairs and peg games.

Could a Professional Survey Service Have Prevented This?

Absolutely. A proactive, professionally executed survey or research program focused on core brand elements could have tipped off leadership to customer sentiment before investing such a large sum. A strong survey approach might have included:

• Segmentation Analysis: Differentiating customer attitudes by demographic, geography, and frequency of visits.
• Emotional Attachment Assessments: Measuring the emotional and cultural significance of key brand symbols.
• Message Testing of Concepts: Evaluating reaction to modernized interiors and logo design via focus groups or quant surveys.

The Price of Neglecting the Voice of the Customer

Cracker Barrel executives later acknowledged a failure in communication and planning, stating they “could have done a better job” sharing who they are and what they’ll always be. The swift reversal, while necessary, does not erase the market value lost or the brand trust shaken.

Had a professional survey service been engaged early, Cracker Barrel could have co-created modernization paths with its most loyal customers. Not only might this have saved hundreds of millions, but it could have strengthened product-market fit and avoided a cultural PR crisis.

The heart of this episode is not about resisting change, it’s about listening first. A disciplined, customer-informed approach could have allowed Cracker Barrel to update its look while preserving the soul of the brand that customers love.

Don’t want to fall victim to your market, reach out to Marketing Awareness Technology (https://matsvcs.com/) to see how we can help your organization gain new valuable insights.

The Strategic Value of Trend Surveys - Why MAT Services Does Them Differently

                   

In an increasingly competitive business landscape, the companies that rise to the top are the ones that anticipate change, adapt quickly, and act with confidence. One of the most powerful ways to achieve that is through strategic trend surveys, and at Market Awareness Technologies(MAT) Services, we’ve built a unique approach that turns survey data into measurable business outcomes.

Trend surveys are more than a research exercise; they’re a growth engine. When done right, they generate qualified leads, shape your product roadmap, and provide C-level leadership with investor-ready metrics that strengthen your market position. Here’s how MAT Services delivers value where others can’t.

 

1. Lead Generation Through Thought Leadership

When you publish authoritative research on your industry, you’re not just sharing data, you’re positioning your company as the go-to source for insights. MAT Services takes your survey findings and transforms them into a high-value thought leadership asset, from whitepapers to keynote presentations, that your audience will reference, share, and act on.

The result? A content-driven lead generation engine that opens doors with new prospects and re-engages existing accounts. In fact, one Marketing Director from a large public safety organization shared:

“We partnered with MAT Services to identify trends around AI in our primary customer market. We leveraged the data to help drive our product decisions, in multiple thought leadership presentations, in our Investor newsletter, and as a lead generation tool. In the 6 months since we published the report as a lead generation asset, the report has influenced $70 million in pipeline and $9 million in closed bookings.”

 

2. Market Intelligence That Expands Wallet Share

A MAT Services survey isn’t just about what your market thinks today, it’s about discovering what it will need tomorrow. By reaching your key personas with targeted questions, we uncover emerging demands, hidden pain points, and untapped segments.

This intelligence directly informs your product roadmap and customer engagement strategy, helping you expand your share of existing accounts and break into new ones. The ability to act on validated customer priorities before competitors can is how our clients consistently gain an advantage over their competitors.

 

3. Executive-Ready Metrics for Leadership & Investors

Trend surveys deliver more than marketing content, they produce boardroom-ready metrics that C-level leaders can use in corporate presentations, investor relations, and strategic planning.

Our reports don’t just display numbers; they highlight the business implications, revenue potential, and operational opportunities your leadership team needs to make confident, high-impact decisions.

 

What Makes MAT Services Different?

While many firms will run a survey and hand over a spreadsheet, MAT Services delivers end-to-end value:

• Tailored design that aligns with your strategic goals.
• Direct feedback from your target personas, ensuring results that matter.
• Actionable insights, not just raw data, for immediate business impact.
• Thought leadership packaging that elevates your brand in the marketplace.
• Lead generation integration, connecting insights directly to pipeline growth.

We’re not just researchers. We’re your strategic partner in turning market intelligence into revenue, influence, and competitive advantage.

 

Ready to Lead Your Market?

The best time to understand your industry’s next move is before it happens. With MAT Services’ proven approach to trend surveys, you’ll not only stay ahead of the curve, you’ll define it.

Contact MAT Services today to discuss how we can help you create a trend survey that drives leads, informs strategy, and equips your leadership with investor-ready insights.

Apple's Biggest Hack Ever

Over 225,000 valid Apple accounts and thousands of certificates, private keys, and purchasing receipts were stolen from jailbroken iOS devices. The malware, KeyRaider, was distributed through third-party Cydia repositories in China and appears to have impacted users from 18 countries including China, France, Russia, Japan, United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Germany, Australia, Israel, Italy, Spain, Singapore, and South Korea.

The malware steals Apple account usernames, passwords and device GUID by intercepting iTunes traffic on the device and disables local and remote unlocking functionalities on iPhones and iPads. The malware then uploads the stolen data to its command and control (C2) server, which has been found to contain vulnerabilities that expose the stolen user information to other hackers.

According to Paloalto Networks the purpose of the attack was to make it possible for users of two iOS jailbreak tweaks to download applications from the official App Store and make in-app purchases without actually paying. Jailbreaking is the process of removing hardware restrictions on iOS, Apple's operating system, on devices running it through the use of software exploits; such devices include the iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, and second-generation Apple TV. Jailbreaking permits root access to the iOS file system and manager, allowing the download of additional applications, extensions, and themes that are unavailable through the official Apple App Store. (Wikipedia)

Are Employees Putting Organizations at Risk?

According to a recent report released by Forrester Research, the global public cloud market is expected to hit $191 billion by 2020, based on Forrester's last forecast (published in 2011), this represents a 20% increase over the same time period. It also represents a significant increase from where the market is currently, Forrester estimates that the market was public cloud market was $58 billion at the end of 2013.

However, the challenge facing enterprises with cloud adoption is quite concerning. According a recent article published by Computerworld, "There's a tug-of-war tension in the enterprise right now," said Gartner analyst Lydia Leong. "IT administrators very rarely voluntarily want to go with the public cloud. I call this the 'turkeys don't vote for thanksgiving' theory. The people who are pushing for these services are not IT operations people but business people."

There is no doubt that the business owner is making this selection to drive their business and sees little to no risk with their decision. However, IT security and the lack of oversight, digital loss prevention techniques and audit requirements can leave a company in precarious situation.

The question is, how does IT and the business user coexist as a partners and not as roadblocks to business growth? The key is a common product and sales technique. Understanding the business requirements is critical to forming the right partnership. IT needs to focus on delivering products that help the business become more efficient and meet their needs to facilitate business. The business needs to be the buyer, but IT needs to be there to make sure the corporation remains well protected.

One of the very real risks that corporations are facing today is cloud based file sharing, the reality is that these applications can be acquired very easily by the business, unfortunately, there is no way to control what is actually being store outside the firewall or if the service provider even meets corporate standards. Many companies have blocked the most popular URLs to prevent internal use, but Gartner lists over 100+ competitors, many approaching file sharing from a different industry focus, so it is unrealistic to expect an IT department to be able to prevent all files sharing solutions.

This is just one example of the risk that the business faces when they acquire technology without going through the correct process. But IT must also understand, they are not the business, nor must they decided what is best for the business, rather they must learn to deliver the business requirements, while ensuring that the product or service meets with the Corporate Security Standards. Only then wll the risk of Rouge IT applications subside!

Why International Organizations don’t want to do business with US Cloud providers

While you would need to have been vacationing in the Rockies for the last year or so to have missed the stories outlining the US Government’s legal right to obtain data, most people have just come to accept that we have no choice in the matter. Court papers released on Monday show that Microsoft is fighting a US warrant for customer data stored overseas.

The US is pursuing criminal matters against an individual and has requested emails stored in Dublin Ireland. Microsoft’s theme for their objection to the US warrant is that allowing the obtuse nature of the warrant would "violate international laws and treaties, and reduce the privacy protection of everyone on the planet," as well as "have a significant negative impact on Microsoft's business, and the competitiveness of US cloud providers in general".

In support of this, both Apple and Cisco have filed a friend-of-the-court brief backing Microsoft's position, this is in addition to ones submitted earlier in the week by Verizon and AT&T. Many international organizations recognize the fact that the US government has the right to ask and obtain data from a US company or subsidiary customer data no matter where it resides in the world. The problem is that many International companies feel this is a serious risk to doing business with US companies, I guess only in America do we teach of a global economy. Yes it is true that the law exists, and it is true that companies may not do business with a US company because of it, however, if you build a product that they want, they will use it.

Let’s face facts, data in the cloud is subject to risk (so by the way is data behind the firewall, just ask Target), if it were not, you would see considerably more data stored in the cloud. Having worked both cloud solutions and enterprise software, it is very easy to see the distinction; however it is far more complex when trying to run a business.

We often talk about Salesforce.com (SFDC), as being a major cloud platform that companies heavily rely on. I mean after all, if your entire customer database is on SFDC, you would really need to trust the cloud, right? Well truth be told, the average sales person will probably do more damage leaving an organization with his contact list than losing data from the use of SFDC.

As companies consume homogenized data, it becomes a commodity; you purchase the integration value, not the protection of the data. Don’t misunderstand, the data must be protected, however, no one believes that a cloud provider could deliver better protection than keeping the data encrypted behind their own firewall. Organizations traditionally move data that would not jeopardize the organization to the cloud. This may also include data that extends beyond the firewall.

The debate will rage on for several more years, our society is very fickle, when bad things happen, we want the government to do their job, when things are okay, we want the government to stay away. But how do you balance this? At some level we must realize that the ability to communicate across thousands of miles in milliseconds puts us all at risk, where do we draw the line? I am not advocating government censorship and I am a firm believer that power corrupts, but is profiling patterns, which is typically what happens with most of our data, the worse thing to give up for our protection?

Do we really believe that the US government is doing anything more than other governments, just because their Snowden hasn't gone public? I remember as a child my father saying to me after I got caught doing something I shouldn't have been doing, “The difference between you and me, is that I did not get caught”, I was about to challenge him on that statement, but having thought about this for a brief second, I realized, to defend myself, would mean I would have to tell him about the other 100 times I got away with it. Do we really believe that spying is a US government anomaly?

Is Big Data secure enough?

Most people have heard the concept of Big Data, but few understand how it impacts our lives on a daily basis. The news outlets will sensationalize the government (particularly the NSA) for using Big Data techniques on public data in order to spy on people. For example, selfies are now used by the NSA for facial recognition, but should any of this surprise people? The data we put on the web is viewable by almost anyone and you must realize that companies like Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn are in the business to make money. So let’s face it their data is priceless to the right audience, this includes governments, and don’t think for a second that the US is the only government doing this, however we are the only ones where it makes an interesting news story.To level set, here are some interesting data points from Wikipedia

Government

• In 2012, the Obama administration announced the Big Data Research and Development Initiative, which explored how big data could be used to address important problems faced by the government. The initiative was composed of 84 different big data programs spread across six departments.
• Big data analysis played a large role in Barack Obama's successful 2012 re-election campaign.
• The United States Federal Government owns six of the ten most powerful supercomputers in the world.
• The Utah Data Center is a data center currently being constructed by the United States National Security Agency. When finished, the facility will be able to handle a large amount of information collected by the NSA over the Internet. The exact amount of storage space is unknown, but more recent sources claim it will be on the order of a few Exabytes.

Private sector

• eBay.com uses two data warehouses at 7.5 petabytes and 40PB as well as a 40PB Hadoop cluster for search, consumer recommendations, and merchandising. Inside eBay’s 90PB data warehouse
• Amazon.com handles millions of back-end operations every day, as well as queries from more than half a million third-party sellers. The core technology that keeps Amazon running is Linux-based and as of 2005 they had the world’s three largest Linux databases, with capacities of 7.8 TB, 18.5 TB, and 24.7 TB.
• Walmart handles more than 1 million customer transactions every hour, which are imported into databases estimated to contain more than 2.5 petabytes (2560 terabytes) of data – the equivalent of 167 times the information contained in all the books in the US Library of Congress.
• Facebook handles 50 billion photos from its user base.[36]
• FICO Falcon Credit Card Fraud Detection System protects 2.1 billion active accounts world-wide.
• The volume of business data worldwide, across all companies, doubles every 1.2 years, according to estimates.
• Windermere Real Estate uses anonymous GPS signals from nearly 100 million drivers to help new home buyers determine their typical drive times to and from work throughout various times of the day.

The amount of data we create daily is mind boggling and the amount of data we put on the web unsecured should be of great concern, but we often do not think twice of posting photos of our children on Facebook to share with friends, or writing on our timeline that we are on vacation (this is invaluable information if you are a thief), then we get upset because the NSA is collecting and using this information to “spy” on American citizens.

The truth of the matter is that the US Government is not spying on anyone; they, like all private sector companies, use the data to form patterns and then target high profile individuals. Is the US Government really doing anything different than Google? Google looks at your browsing history to serve up targeted ads that you are more likely to click on to generate revenue. Amazon serves up potential items for you to impulse purchase based on your previous buying history and items you have looked at, all of this is an invasion of privacy, but some we accept as helpful, even cool, and others we deem as violations of our civil rights. Let’s face it, if you don’t want someone spying on you, don’t put it out on public display!

Big Data security is finally becoming an important topic, many companies are bringing in large amounts of data purchased from Twitter, Facebook and other public sites to develop buying profiles to increase the target rates of their marketing spend, however at what point does a bunch of public data start to become private information. For example, let’s say on Facebook, you always put down that you are at the local Starbucks getting coffee, you go to work and then Tweet about your favorite sports team acquiring a new star player, after work you use Google maps to find a restaurant and you run into an old friend and post a selfie on SnapChat. You go home and then browse a few of your favorite sites. By themselves they mean very little, but combined a company now has a very strong profile of your behavior, what you like, what you may buy, political views, how to increase the chance you will buy from them and so on.
So what happens when these profiles are hacked and the wrong person acquires a bunch of data that seems worthless until it is combined with all the other data they have collected? Is this any better than Target losing 40 Million credit card numbers?

Interestingly both Hortonworks and Cloudera (both Big Data software companies) acquired security companies to enhance their offerings. From my perspective, it is about time. But protecting the data in storage is not the only risk, if you are going to move large subsets of data that do not have strong relevancy on its own, but when combined build very sensitive profiles, then you must secure the transport of the data at all times. Many companies feel that public data does not need to be moved securely since it is already public, but the real risk is the selection of data these companies are collecting and how they eventually assemble the profiles, both components must be secured.

Big Data is a part of our lives now and will not go away, it will evolve and become even more invasive, it is time that companies collecting data secure all transmissions, even public information!

Hey MAC - It’s time to grow up

Ever notice how most Mac users are skinny? It's because of all the calories they burn because they can't stop talking about how great their Macs are. OK that is probably not accurate but I did find it comical when I read it. But you know the people I am referring to, the really smart guys that cannot get enough MAC speak, My favorite line that they often throw out is that Mac’s just work, well in reality, one would beg to differ, otherwise why would you have macfixitforums.com (on the net for over 10 years and is now part of CNET).

OK enough picking on the guys who are going to take over the world, we will need them someday soon the way things are going. But I digress; my real topic today is that it is high time that Apple grow up. If you look back at the old days, Apple created a unique buzz about being your own person, that their technology, although ubiquitous, could be used by the buyer to be as individualistic as they were. One of my favorite commercial sequences was the ongoing debate between the corporate pitchman from Microsoft and the really hip Apple pitchman. These commercials tried to show how Apple was the hip up and coming product offering that would create disruption in the business world and Microsoft was the old stagnant way to do business, just throw money at it and raise prices. I am sure plenty will debate that Apple did in fact accomplish a disruption in the market place, especially if you ask your company IT administrator.

In fact the debate continues to this very day. Tim Cook pointed out at the Worldwide Developers Conference this week that OS X Mavericks, which he said accounted for 51% of all Macs in use "Is the fastest adoption ever of any PC operating system in history. Now, you may wonder how that compares to Windows. I knew somebody was going to ask, so I made a chart."

According to Computerworld  the pie chart showed that Windows 8, which Microsoft launched in October 2012, owned a small sliver of Windows overall. "It's at 14%. Need I say more?" Cook continued, to applause and laughter from the very pro-Apple crowd.

Needless to say, it was not mentioned that the overall numbers of Mac users still dwarf PC users and the fact that OS X Mavericks was free, unlike Windows 8. However Windows 8.1 release which also was provided at no charge was trending the same as OS X Mavericks.

In the end though does any of this really matter? People should be tired of the gimmicks, Microsoft and Apple should be focusing on building technology that improves the life of its users and integrates with different technologies. One should not have to be forced to use a PC or Mac to gain ubiquitous access to the overall suite of services. What made these companies great is that they changed the way we viewed how technology could improve our lives, it seems that it has moved towards who can drive the bigger profit and maintain the greatest market share through marketing and empty promises. It is time that both Apple and Microsoft get back to the basics and improve their software and delvier the next breakthrough in computer performance.

Do File Sharing Sites Provide Enough Security?

Whether you are a consumer or a business you must carefully consider what you are willing to put out in the public arena. Even if you believe your data is encrypted or protected by the provider, once it leaves your control, you have to accept the fact that you are relying on someone else to deliver the same level of care to your documents. On May 6th this year, ARS Technica published the following article, “Dropbox disables old shared links after tax returns end up on Google, Vulnerability that may also affect Box sent shared documents to Google AdWords.”

For most consumers, these file sharing sites are an easy way to share pictures with friends and families, but, more and more users are using these sites to store personal data. In fact, file sharing sites are expected to host more than 36% of personal data by 2016. While Dropbox did resolve the aforementioned issue, the question is not whether it is good enough, but rather when will the next vulnerability occur?

As more and more businesses move to increase collaborative efforts between their employees and trading partners and utilize public File Sharing Sites, the Security Team has to be concerned with what data is leaving the firewall. Even with encryption at rest and encryption during transit, vulnerabilities will always be identified. Sometimes they are even trivialized until it becomes wide spread. Box.com, one of the larger file sharing sites for businesses posted the following on their Box.Com blog: “Once someone has access to the user's auth-token they are able use that for browser login. This is a known issue and was a product decision to leave in for Box Sync.”

Is it fair to ask a company to protect data the same way for all customers? Does a large Enterprise require more security than a Small Enterprise and does a consumer need the same level of security? More security means more complexity and greater overhead for systems and bandwidth transfers. In reality each person and business needs to decide what data is relevant for file sharing services versus on premise solutions. If you are not comfortable with the data being exposed then you must look long and hard with keeping your sensitive data on someone else’s “secure” environment.

Are You Maximizing Facebook for Your Business?

Many businesses understand that they must have a social media strategy, but many companies do not fully understand how to accomplish this. In order to be successful, let’s first understand the demographics of Facebook. According to a recent report on Pingdom the average age for a Facebook user is 40.5 years old. Here are some additional stats that may alter your way of thinking about Facebook, 65% of Facebook users are 35 or older and Facebook and Twitter have the same gender distribution: 40% male, 60% female.

Here is what is truly interesting about the age trend for Facebook and Twitter. Compared to a previous survey Pingdom did 2.5 years ago, the age of the average Facebook user has gone up two years, while the age of the average Twitter user has gone down two years. In other words, Twitter’s user base is getting younger, while Facebook’s is getting older.

So now that you understand who is using Facebook, let’s start to figure out how you maximize your exposure. The first thing you need to consider is how to build a strong fan base. Your Facebook page can drive traffic to your website, increase sales and build customer loyalty, but like anything else you have to carefully create your presence. Make sure your page is using your company name and any specialized keywords that your business is typically found under.

You want your page to stand out from competitors, to do this, you need to engage your fan base, for example, you can customize the tabs of your page to highlight your business, including photos, videos, hot items and genera discussions. You also need to keep the content fresh, there is nothing like going back to a website several times to see no updates, so while it may take you some time each day, make sure you stay current with your content, otherwise your fan base will go elsewhere. If you want to grow your fan base quickly, Host contests or giveaways, according to Facebook, research by Forrester shows that contests, giveaways and promotions are the fastest ways to build fans to your page.

Another great way to increase your exposure is to collaborate and connect with Facebook Applications, they are a great way to network and do business through your Page. Facebook has over 50,000 applications on its platform. There are Facebook apps available for everything, including Twitter, Wordpress, Google Reader, and many others. To get your business moving start with the following, and build from there, Add the RSS Feed application to incorporate your blog , add the LinkedIn Profile application to promote your LinkedIn account by posting a badge on your Page, add the Twitter application to incorporate your Tweets.

Once you have built your page you need to gain exposure by getting everyone involved, don’t just put up a Business Page and forget about it. Monitor the feeds, make updates and discuss industry trends, product reviews and relevant events. Encourage employees to be active and participate on your Page. The more people involved on Facebook, the more exposure your company will receive With fresh content and lots of activity, your Page will build in strength and become successful — no one will follow a stagnate page. You should also join other Facebook groups and become fans of other Business Pages to build a network of conversations

Frank Toscano is a 15+ year specialist in cloud based services focusing on Product Management, Marketing and Security within the Cloud. He has worked for EasyLink Services and Premiere Global Services in a global role providing hosted services to Fortune 1000 clients. He is currently seeking employment with a cloud based provider in a senior level Product/Marketing role.

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Can we protect against nation-state espionage?

Researchers at Kaspersky Lab have uncovered new nation-state espionage malware that has links to two previous identified espionage tools known as Flame and Gauss, and it appears to be a “high-precision, surgical attack tool” targeting victims in Lebanon, Iran and elsewhere.

The new malware has been coined miniFlame, although the attackers who designed it called it by two other names – “SPE” and “John.” MiniFlame appears to be used to gain control of and obtain increased spying capability over select computers originally infected by the Flame and Gauss spyware.

According to Wired, “It is the fourth piece of nation-state malware discovered in the last year that appears to have been created by the same group behind Stuxnet, the groundbreaking cyberweapon that sabotaged Iran’s nuclear program and is believed to have been created by the U.S. and Israeli governments. The others – all designed for espionage rather than destruction – are DuQu, Flame, and Gauss.”

“With Flame, Gauss and miniFlame, we have probably only scratched [the] surface of the massive cyber-spy operations ongoing in the Middle East,” the Kaspersky researchers write in a report released Monday. “Their true, full purpose remains obscure and the identity of the victims and attackers remain unknown.”

The report was released as the U.S. continues to make claims against China for its involvement in nation-state cyberespionage. Most notably are the alleged hacks against Google to obtain intelligence about political dissidents and against defense contractors to obtain military secrets.

The risk with miniFlame/SPE malware is that it can be used on its own as a small, standalone data collection tool, or it can be inserted into Flame or Gauss. Until recently, it was assumed that Flame and Gauss were independent nation-state projects that had no connection; but the discovery of miniFlame is the first solid clue that the two projects came out of the same “cyberweapon factory” and were part of the same larger operation.

While the targets appear to be focused on the Middle East, the question must still be answered as to how far this has spread and what information are these countries trying to obtain. While many of us feel that our data is protected and even if it is not, what is the real harm in being compromised, the bigger risk is what happens when the financial institutions are attacked – replacing a credit card is an inconvenient, not being able to use credit cards could impact a nation.

Frank Toscano is a 15+ year specialist in cloud based services focusing on Product Management, Marketing and Security within the Cloud. He has worked for EasyLink Services and Premiere Global Services in a global role providing hosted services to Fortune 1000 clients. He is currently seeking employment with a cloud based provider in a senior level Product/Marketing role.

Now it is Microsoft versus Google in German patent lawsuit

Yesterday Microsoft informed the judge that it will amend their patent infringement lawsuit against Motorola Mobility to include Google as a defendant. Microsoft is suing over European patent EP0845124, which covers a “computer system for identifying local resources and method therefore. The same technology is addressed in U.S. Patent no 6,240,360.

The German lawsuit, filed in April, goes after Android’s Google Map app, which Motorola spent a good amount of time yesterday denying Microsoft’s infringement accusations without ever getting into actual server process discussions. Microsoft has aggressively going after Android handset makers to agree to license agreements, including LG, Samsung and HTC. All have signed on to avoid the legal battle, which can put up to $15 per handset they sell.

Motorola has held out and had hoped that it’s acquisition by parent company Google would prevent Microsoft from taking them on – a strategy that has ultimately failed. Motorola has been forced to pull virtually all of their smartphones from retailers in Germany due to previous patent litigation with Apple and Microsoft. The move today is believed to show that the Android OS is not free and that the Windows Phone system would be a worthy alternative.

Once again Patents will force manufacturer behavior, which will end up providing the consumer with little choice in which phone they can purchase. It would be interesting if these companies would put more of the legal costs into R&D and develop the next generation phone rather than continually fight each other for positioning. The concept of the strong will survive, now appears to mean that the one with the best lawyers will survive – not the best product!

Frank Toscano is a 15+ year specialist in cloud based services focusing on Product Management, Marketing and Security within the Cloud. He has worked for EasyLink Services and Premiere Global Services in a global role providing hosted services to Fortune 1000 clients. He is currently seeking employment with a cloud based provider in a senior level Product/Marketing role.

Tweeting Tips

Twitter remains one of the top social media tools on the market today, according to Twitter they process 340,000,000 Tweets per day and have over 140,000,000 active users. With this kind of access one can imagine why Twitter remains a key tool for successful marketing strategies. While each organization will find a different level of success, there are a few tips to help maximize your success on Twitter.

Keep your Tweet to 125 characters or less:

You only get 140 characters and the goal is not just to tweet your message but to get other people to re-tweet the message so you can maximize your coverage. If you max out, the retweet may cut off the last part of your message, and should that be the URL – you will impact the effect of the tweet. So try to keep your message short!

Follow the right people:

The common misconception is that the more followers you have the better coverage you will get. The reality is that a more targeted approach generates greater results. You do not want to follow everybody that follows you – you need to do your homework and make sure the company or person you follow meets your standards.

You are far better off having 25 super followers that are willing to retweet your message and or post about your products on their blog than trying to gain 6,000 random followers. A good place to start is trying to follow industry experts who do a lot of retweeting – the goal is to get your tweet retweeted. So you may wonder how you gain these super users, the first thing to do is to start following them, some will follow you back if your tweets have value to them. You should also follow their blog and comment as frequently as possible, this will most likely get you recognized and increase your odds of having your message picked up.

Utilize Twitter’s search feature:

One of the most underutilized feature available from Twitter is their search function,, located at http://search.twitter.com. This search feature allows you to see what people are talking about in real time, which can change how you tweet. It is also recommended that you get an RSS feed for the keywords that are most important to you. You can do this on Twitter by clicking “RSS feed for this query” near the bottom of the page after entering a search term.

In addition, you should be aware of which hashtags are critical for your industry and business. To identify the right hashtags for you, you can go to hashtags.org and enter any hashtag and see how it’s trending.

The time of your Tweet is critical:

Most users of Twitter do not read tweets that are more than a few hours old, so you want to send your tweets during the optimal time of the day. The best time to do this is during business hours for the Eastern Time Zone. Retweeting tends to drop off by the end of the day. Of course each business is different so while this is a good general rule to follow, understand your industry may have a more optimal time, especially if you are focused globally.

Frank Toscano is a 15+ year specialist in cloud based services focusing on Product Management, Marketing and Security within the Cloud. He has worked for EasyLink Services and Premiere Global Services in a global role providing hosted services to Fortune 1000 clients. He is currently seeking employment with a cloud based provider in a senior level Product/Marketing role.

Walmart versus Amazon

The lines between on-line retailers and brick and mortar have become blurred even further today as Walmart announces same day delivery in several launch cities. In competing with Amazon (AMZN) and their push to deliver products the same day to meet consumer’s requirement for instant gratification, Walmart has conveniently launched their same day delivery service jut in time for Christmas.

For a flat $10.00 you can have all of your items delivered the same day, Walmart intends to utilize their large quantity of store locations to act as warehouses versus Amazon’s methodology of using strategically place warehouses to support the same day shipping. In reality Walmart has the distinct advantage since you can find them virtually everywhere – this expands their product availability and allows them far more flexibility in the shipping process.

Just like all things, the old become new – if you remember it was predicted that on-line retailers would make the old brick and mortar stores obsolete, and to a large degree we saw many icons collapse as on-line retailers were able to offer lower cost for the same products (does anyone remember Circuit City or Comp USA?). But in the end we have seen a integration of on-line and brick and mortar, in rare instances the exclusive on-line or brick and mortar store has been able to thrive, but the most successful ones had to become more than just a one trick pony.

\It will be interesting to see who ends up winning the holiday season, Walmart or Amazon.  What I can predict is that one of them will see their stock price soar while the other will see it decline dramatically. Investors will be watching this battle closely to see which power house retailer comes out on top.

Frank Toscano is a 15+ year specialist in cloud based services focusing on Product Management, Marketing and Security within the Cloud. He has worked for EasyLink Services and Premiere Global Services in a global role providing hosted services to Fortune 1000 clients. He is currently seeking employment with a cloud based provider in a senior level Product/Marketing role.

Apple’s New iPhone 5

Apple’s new smartphone is unleashed. Apple unveiled the iPhone 5, at a press event in San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts on Wednesday. Apple has made significant changes to the iPhone 5, which Apple is quite proud of. “We’ve updated every aspect of iPhone 5,” Apple’s SVP of Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller said at the event. The device goes on sale September 21 and here are some of the major changes from previous versions.

iPhone 5 provides a larger, 4-inch screen while utilizing a longer body, which also will provide another row of apps (because you can never have enough apps). This will also mean all apps will need to be updated to take advantage of the larger screen size, those apps that are built for the oler versions will still work, but will have black borders in the extra space.

The iPhone 5 is thinner and lighter than older versions. The body is built entirely of glass and aluminum, and measures 7.6 mm thick and weighs 112 grams. The iPhone 5’s screen delivers a 326 PPI, 1136×640-pixel Retina display and provides a considerably sharper display than the previous apple phones. The iPhone 5 also features Apple’s latest processor, the A6 chip. The processor is two times faster than the A5 chip and is considerably smaller. That means better graphics performance in addition to iOS improvements and better gaming. Battery life is designed to last just as long even with the improved performance. Apple says that you should be able to get eight hours of talk time, eight hours browsing and 10 hours of video playback with the iPhone 5.

The new iPhone 5 still uses the 8-megapixel sensor, but it is signifintly smaller than the camera in the iPhone 4S. There are also some great improvements, including a dynamic low-light mode, a better image-sensor processor, spatial noise reduction and a smart filter that can recognize where uniform color and texture should be within a shot. Despite the improvements, Apple claims the camera is 40 percent faster at taking photos.

Apple is now using three microphones to improve voice recognition and noise reduction. Apple also improved the iPhone 5’s speaker. The iPhone 5 will come with new Apple EarPods that the company claims are more durable, have a more natural fit, and boast impressive acoustic quality.

One of the more frustrating change will probably be the elimination of the 30-pin dock connector. The iPhone 5 has a smaller, 8-pin dock connector, which Apple has named Lightning. Apple’s belief is that the world is relying more on wireless than hard connections. Apple has worked with several manufacturers to create compatible accessories, but for those who do want to stick with their old accessories, Apple has made an adapter plug.

In the U.S., the phone will be offered via AT&T, Verizon and Sprint on Sept. 21. The iPhone 5 will come in three storage sizes: 16GB, 32GB and 64GB, and will cost $200, $300, and $400, respectively, with a two-year contract. For those who want Apple’s latest creation in their hands on launch day, you can start pre-ordering the phone a week in advance, starting on Sept. 14.

Frank Toscano is a 15+ year specialist in cloud based services focusing on Product Management, Marketing and Security within the Cloud. He has worked for EasyLink Services and Premiere Global Services in a global role providing hosted services to Fortune 1000 clients. He is currently seeking employment with a cloud based provider in a senior level Product/Marketing role.

Marketing & Blogs

One of the challenges I have had to face with E-Marketing is how to build a message that people want to read. We know that the length of the message should be limited and the images should be catchy but is the reader really getting anything out of the message itself?

One of the methods I have found to be successful is using a blog in conjunction with E-Marketing. Based on personal experience I saw a substantial increase in the number of page views on the blog after launching an E-Marketing campaign that pointed the reader to the blog. In my research, I found that most people view a blog as informational, whereas the corporate web site is viewed to sell you something. People tend to let their guard down a little bit as they see the blog as informational; and less of a sales pitch.

This allows you to accomplish your first objective, get the reader to execute the call to action. If the call to action is to have them view the blog and read the article and learn more about the company then this becomes a great tandem to be successful.

Of course the real objective is not accomplished unless you can convert the reader into a sales prospect. So the Blog needs to have carefully placed touch points to promote your products. The E-Marketing to the Blog will increase brand awareness but it does not guarantee that the reader will take the next call to action.

So how you do go about this? First do not try to write blog articles that are entirely about your product, company or any other hard sales approach. The articles should be relevant to your industry so that the right audience can take away valuable information if they read the blog. You should have a soft pitch at the end of the article and you should have carefully orchestrated ads on the Blog (just like they would see if you had Google ads on the site).

The key here is to remember that people buy because they have a need; the need is different for each company in both requirements and timing. If you can build a readership base of your blog with valuable information that keeps readers coming back on their own, the end result will be that the prospect will contact you when his need becomes strong enough to make your product a top priority. Acquire enough readers and you will have a steady stream of hot prospects!

Frank Toscano is a 15+ year specialist in cloud based services focusing on Product Management, Marketing and Security within the Cloud. He has worked for EasyLink Services and Premiere Global Services in a global role providing hosted services to Fortune 1000 clients. He is currently seeking employment with a cloud based provider in a senior level Product/Marketing role.

Can The Internet Be Silenced?

Worldwide, suppression of free speech is growing and nowhere is that trend more evident than on the World Wide Web. The man who created the Web, Tim Berners-Lee, felt compelled to mention this trend while unveiling the newest report on how governments manage the online lives of their constituents. The bottom line, Berners-Lee said, is that there is no kill switch for Internet freedom.

There is no off switch for the Internet, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who's widely acknowledged as the father of the Web, said in London when launching the World Wide Web Index report for 2012.

Growing suppression of free speech, both online and offline, is the major challenge to the Web's future, Berners-Lee stated. Countries in the Middle East as well as China, have continually attempted to suppress free speech, but information seems to find ways to get in and out of these countries.

Even the United States has attempted to insert an Internet kill switch, but this was dropped after strong opposition from a wide spectrum of society here, including consumer advocates and privacy groups. Sen. Joseph Lieberman, who pushed for the kill switch provision to be included in the Protecting Cybersecurity as a National Asset Act, said in a TV interview that the US government should follow the lead of China in this area.

Several Western democracies that scored high on the Web Index either monitor citizens' access to the Internet or restrict it in some way. They include the UK and Australia, which scored 93.83 and 88.44 on the index, respectively. The US scored 97. The Index assesses the use, utility and impact of the Web around the world. It looked at 61 countries With Sweden ranking number one followed by the US and the UK. respectively.

Ultimately, the web provides access to content and information that just cannot be stopped, as long as there are social sites, information will continue to permeate throughout the world. In the end we as the people control the flow of content, there has been a substantial shift in the power of information as the web has been adopted by more countries and despite certain governments best efforts, there is just no way to silence our voices.

Frank Toscano is a 15+ year specialist in cloud based services focusing on Product Management, Marketing and Security within the Cloud. He has worked for EasyLink Services and Premiere Global Services in a global role providing hosted services to Fortune 1000 clients. He is currently seeking employment with a cloud based provider in a senior level Product/Marketing role.

Java 7 Patch Contains Critical Vulnerability

According to security researchers from Security Explorations, the Java 7 security update released Thursday contains a vulnerability that can be exploited to escape the Java sandbox and execute arbitrary code on the underlying system.

Security Explorations sent a report about the vulnerability to Oracle on Friday together with a proof-of-concept exploit, Adam Gowdiak, the security company's founder and CEO said Friday via email. The company doesn't plan to release any technical details about the vulnerability publicly until Oracle addresses it, Gowdiak said.

According to Gowdiak, Security Explorations privately reported 29 vulnerabilities in Java 7 to Oracle back in April, including the two that are now actively exploited by attackers.  The new vulnerability discovered by Security Explorations in Java 7 Update 7 can be combined with some of the vulnerabilities left unpatched by Oracle to achieve a full JVM sandbox bypass again.

"Once we found that our complete Java sandbox bypass codes stopped working after the update was applied, we looked again at POC codes and started to think about the possible ways of how to fully break the latest Java update again," Gowdiak said. "A new idea came, it was verified and it turned out that this was it."

Based on the experience of Security Explorations researchers with hunting for Java vulnerabilities so far, Java 6 has better security than Java 7. "Java 7 was surprisingly much easier for us to break," Gowdiak said. "For Java 6, we didn't manage to achieve a full sandbox compromise, except for the issue discovered in Apple Quicktime for Java software."

The most recent security problems with Java are far from unique. Security firm Sophos, for example, blames underlying Java vulnerability for attacks by the Flashback malware last April that infected one out of five Macs.

The risks do not outweigh the rewards, security expert Dominique Karg, the founder and chief hacking officer of AlienVault, a security software company said. “I'd say 90 percent of users don't need Java anymore, I consider myself a ‘power user’ and the last and only time I realized I had Java installed on my Mac was when I had to update it.”

Most security researchers have said it before: If you don't need Java, uninstall it from your system. 

Frank Toscano is a 15+ year specialist in cloud based services focusing on Product Management, Marketing and Security within the Cloud. He has worked for EasyLink Services and Premiere Global Services in a global role providing hosted services to Fortune 1000 clients. He is currently seeking employment with a cloud based provider in a senior level Product/Marketing role.