WHAT WE'RE READING
The Investing Edge
of Enterprise IT
May
2013
Financing News: PerspecSys and the Cloud Data Security Opportunity
Last week PerspecSys announced a new financing round that we participated in, alongside Paladin and Intel. We are very excited to be working with the team and our co-investors, and see tremendous potential for this company. Over the last 12 to 18 months, we have witnessed an almost seismic shift in the posture of large enterprise customers toward cloud-based applications. SaaS
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Apr
2013
Six Pre-Requisites for the New Wave of Enterprise IT Security Solutions
Given that IT security is a $60 billion market, you might think that we have robust solutions for keeping enterprise networks and data protected. But you’d be wrong. In reality, better than 1 in 5 enterprises—and likely more—has been compromised. In the past few years, the number of cyber-breaches and the sophistication of the attacks have heightened dramatically. 250,000 new
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Mar
2013
Experts Tackle Enterprise Mobility at Latest B2B IT Forum
We had well over 100 folks at our most recent B2B IT Forum, where our expert panel provided a compelling and informative discussion on the shift to mobile within organizations of all sizes. Thanks to the panel, the audience left the event smarter about how they can navigate the challenges of developing mobile apps for the enterprise.
Mar
2013
Selling Data Insights vs. Tools? Let’s Connect
I have written a number of times about the massive potential that resides in extracting insight from data. Leveraging new database, storage, parallel processing and cloud infrastructure, we can now get to these insights at cost levels and in timeframes that can impact decision making at very regular intervals and in major ways. This was just not possible a few
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Mar
2013
Announcing the Ascent Storify Page
While our singular focus at Ascent is enterprise IT, our portfolio spans a wide range of tech subcategories: Software & SaaS, Data & Analytics, Cloud Business Services, Mobility & Communications, Financial Services & Transaction Technology, and Security & Compliance. Each sector witnesses regular news and innovation, and each has numerous compelling stories. To help facilitate telling those stories, we’ve created
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Feb
2013
Mobile App Development in the Enterprise: What’s Next?
Mobile apps are expected to drive more than $38 billion in revenue by 2015, and enterprises have joined the cause. Not only has there been a significant shift in how enterprises develop and deploy software (enterprises now deploy more apps for employee internal use (22%) than consumers (12%), but smartphones have become the dominant interaction point for employees, as they
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Jan
2013
Technology Drives Change at a Top Global Bank
Ascent strives to anticipate long-term technology trends within the enterprise that can change business for the better. Taking the long view means the technologies we identify can take years before their impact is felt at the enterprise level, so it’s encouraging to get a glimpse of emerging areas of technology that are already driving massive change at large companies. Recently
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Jan
2013
4.4 Million Big Data Jobs? Not So Fast
Gartner made headlines recently when it predicted big data would create 4.4 million jobs by 2015. The analyst firm opined that there’s not enough hired talent to meet the challenges of big data and finding opportunities to turn information into revenue. Gartner reasons that big data will accelerate growth in the global economy and create job opportunities. On the surface,
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Dec
2012
Five Winds of Change in Enterprise Sails (Sales)
If there was one theme that consistently arose during our enterprise sales strategy forum a few weeks ago, it was that selling to business now is a completely different ballgame than it was 10 years ago. Our panel, made up of sales and IT executives from companies like Staples, HubSpot, and American Tower, among others, provided significant insight into how
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Nov
2012
Winning the New Enterprise Sales Game: This Week’s B2B IT Forum
We are very pleased that our second B2B Enterprise IT Forum was so well received. Thank you for all of the positive feedback. We had a strong turnout, smart questions from our audience, and great advice from our panelists on how to successfully sell enterprise IT. If you weren’t able to attend, we’ve compiled some of the key takeaways from
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