Cloud Growth Ahead

Here is an excerpt from Steve Ballmer’s interview with InformationWeek on Microsoft’s all-in cloud computing bet and cloud adoption.

Infographic – Environment Impact of Computing

These are some eye-opening numbers on the impact of computing on our environment.

Infographic – Impulse Purchase

This fact sheet presents some interesting statistics on planned and impulse purchases.

Infographic, The Arty Dashboard

I just can't get enough of infographics - they are visual appealing and informative.  They are designed to grab your attention, and more importantly to convey the right amount of information in a clear and concise manner.  If anything, they are simply cool to look at. 

I stumbled upon this one recently - it compares a few interesting stats on Blackberry and iPhone.  By the way, though not actually depicted, you can gather that iPhone has a greater revenue growth rate – especially in Q4.  And check out the beautiful collection from this social media firm and its thoughts on putting together an infographic.  

For me infographics are very much business intelligence at work for the masses - arty dashboards if you will.  I'd love to see this data visualization tool utilized within an organization - giving scorecard and metrics reporting an artistic appeal.   Until there is an automation tool or some sort with pre-built and stock graphics that are customizable, I supposed it is not going to be very cost-effective to build "infographical" dashboards or reports on a regular basis.   

P.S.  Here are some key concepts on what makes a good information design.

Implications of Public Cloud Computing

Here is a MorningStar industry report that discusses the implications of public cloud market segment on “traditional” application software and data center business models.  While this writing gears toward interests of the investment community, it offers forecast in terms of market maturity, customer adoption, profitability and vendor positions for each of service sub-segments (SaaS, PaaS and IaaS). 

SQL Search

I came across a very handy tool from Red Gate called SQL Search.  It allows you to find text fragments within stored procedures, functions, views and other objects in a SQL Server database.  It integrates with SSMS and works with both SQL Server 2005 and 2008.  Best of all, it is free and can be downloaded here http://www.red-gate.com/products/SQL_Search/index.htm .