Cloud

Suri Suriyakumar took a print shop—a dying industry—and repositioned it to focus on the only thriving niche left—architecture, which requires the printing of as many of 10,000 drawings per project. After buying several more small shops, ARC Document Solutions, Suriyakumar’s new business, is now a $407-million architectural documents provider with 2,500 employees. And as technology becomes integral to all business today, Suriyakumar is now reinventing his business again, with the digitization of architectural drawings into the cloud.

CEOs need to merge their disparate IT systems to keep growing—but must do so carefully. The cloud can help.

How cloud computing helps SMEs go global.

Music Mastermind couldn’t exist without cloud computing. The company’s core product is Zya, a free music application and game that allows customers—mostly in the 13- to 24-year age range—to download clips from their favorite songs and add their own voices in what they call a “mash-up.”

According to TechCrunch co-founder Keith Teare (TechCrunch is one of the most visited tech sites on the web), the entire technological landscape will be redrawn over the next 5 years, with current software darlings (including Facebook and Google+) becoming obsolete. Teare sees a future that will move away from personal desktop computers and toward mobile solutions; desktops and laptops will only be used for work. So, if CEOs want their companies to flourish in the future, they will need to focus directly on the cloud and mobility.

To make more-informed decisions and control costs, organizations need a true line of sight into what IT products and services are being consumed by business users across individual units and their associated costs. Here's how to help you calculate the real costs and risks of cloud computing.