Technology

Thursday Buzz: Cloud Computing’s 800-Pound Gorilla? Microsoft. Really.

New research from a cloud identity service finds that Microsoft's Office 365 has quickly overtaken every other major cloud computing platform. Also: why driving connections is more important than creating content.

If your company is using a cloud computing platform—or five—there’s a good chance that Microsoft’s Office 365 is among them.

That’s based on research from the cloud identity management service Okta, which found that Office 365 has become a juggernaut in the category, leaping ahead of Google Apps, Box, and even Salesforce. The latter cloud application had long been the most prominent one until January, when Office overtook it.

However, the high usage of Office 365 doesn’t threaten other players too much. Okta’s research found that offices with fewer than 1,000 employees tend to use as many as 16 cloud-based apps, while large enterprises with more than 4,000 employees use around 11.

Okta noted that the cloud space appears to be very trend-driven, with applications becoming hot one day—with the fast-growing Slack currently seeing major uptake—and fading from view the next.

“The rapid rise and fall of enterprise apps in our data set shows that enterprise developers apps must stay highly valuable to stay relevant, similar to consumer app adoption trends,” the company stated in its report.

What platforms are you using these days?

Connect the Dots

If you work at a cultural organization, your content game may be strong, but the bad news is that content isn’t necessarily king anymore. Colleen Dilenschneider, chief market engagement officer for IMPACTS, says that content still has value, but that it’s important to focus less on the content itself and more on the connections it drives. Check out her newest video above and read all about it on her Know Your Own Bone blog.

Other Links of Note

Making a case for face-to-face conversation, Sherry Turkle’s closing presentation at the ASAE Annual Meeting & Exposition has sure led to a lot of online debate (including some of my own). Today’s worthy read on the topic comes from MeetingsNet‘s Sue Pelletier.

In case you were in the market for a modular smartphone, we have some bad news: Google has delayed the release of its Project Ara because the devices keep falling apart.

What’s a UTM, and why you should you care? If that question scares you a little bit, let nonprofit marketing expert Kivi Leroux Miller explain it to you.

Ernie Smith

By Ernie Smith

Ernie Smith is a former senior editor for Associations Now. MORE

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