writing As Chairperson of the Irish Internet Association's Working Group on Cloud Computing , I am penning a blog to journal our efforts to create a useful White Paper on Cloud Computing Adoption in Ireland. There are 18 of us on the Working Group which consists of representatives from 10 vendors (Google, VMWare, Microsoft, IBM, Salesforce, etc.) and 10 enterprises (Merrill Lynch, elan, Friend's First, Kepak, etc.) The blog can be read at Sysco Software's Blog. We will be publishing our whitepaper, Should Irish companies do business in the cloud? on Wednesday the 25th, November 2009.

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IIA Event - Scheduled for Q1 2010 - The Irish Internet Association plans to hold an event as a postscript to the whitepaper on Cloud Computing referenced above. The format has yet to be decided but it is likely to be a Great Debate between the vendors and the Enterprise customers dealing with topics such as availability, security, reliability and interfacing legacy systems to the cloud. Cloud Computing & Virtualisation - 24th November 2009, The Burlington - VMware and Computerscope are running a short, focused management briefing that will outline the case for a merged virtualization and cloud computing approach that combines short term ROI with medium and long term transformation plans. I am presenting the conclusions from our whitepaper. The Cloud Summit - 23rd September 2009, Croke Park - The Irish Software Association along with the Sunday Business Post ran Ireland's first Cloud Event on Driving IT Efficiency & Cost-savings in today's Enterprise. I spoke on a topic of particular interest to me Why Ireland's not cloud computing? proposing 2 immediate actions: 1) that the Irish Software Association adopt the NIST definition (which I am glad to say they have) and 2) that attendees lobby Minister Ryan on broadband reliability. A copy of the presentation can be downloaded by clicking here. Logistics Ireland - 24th September 2008, Crowne Plaza - The National Institute for Transport & Logistics ran the Logistics Ireland 2008 conference to introduce delegates to the need for resilience in business and in supply chains. In this context resilience refered to the ability of companies to succeed in the face of uncertainty and turbulence in global markets. I spoke about "Technology Trends for Supply Chains" focussing on 5 major trends - Dynamics Applications, Software as a Service, Pervasive Computing, Unified Communications and the Demise of Bespoke. A copy of the presentation can be downloaded by clicking here.