Enterprise 2.0, the annual conference focused on social media, was held in Boston this week with IBM, Cisco, and Microsoft as major sponsors. The conference makes available a wealth of useful information, mainly in the form of white papers and videos of the keynote presentations, for free. Check it out here.

Last year, the conference focused on the search for the social media killer app for business. The growing consensus then was collaboration. wiredFINANCE covered it here.

This year collaboration is a given. Some other interesting themes, however, emerged in conversations with various key players. For example, Cisco’s Murali Sitaram observed that the world appears to be rapidly evolving into a network of networks. What might that imply for your business? more

Technology expectations often conflict with reality, especially in the early stages of the emergence of a new technology. This certainly is the case when it comes to private and hybrid clouds, according to a just released survey by Symantec. The survey found that server virtualization (Virtualization is the foundation of any cloud initiative.) is the most mature, with 45% or respondents implementing it. The private/hybrid cloud is the least mature with 35% moving ahead with it.

Even where companies are moving ahead with cloud initiatives they may not be using them for their most important work. The Symantec survey found CEOs and CFOs are concerned with moving business-critical applications into virtual or cloud environments due to challenges around reliability, security, availability and performance.

The gap between expectations and reality can be seen in areas such as private storage-as-a-service (37 point gap), storage virtualization (33 points), and private/hybrid computing (32 points). With the most mature technology, server virtualization, the gap had narrowed to just 4 points (meaning 4% reported a difference between what was expected and what is being delivered). more

In case you missed it, there is a digital transformation of the economy underway. wiredFINANCE referenced the coming digital transformation earlier this year. You can see it all around you with the proliferation of digital capabilities in just about everything you do—in your new car, in the appliances you buy and in the instrumenting of business processes of all types.

Behind this digital transformation is the Internet, the medium across and through all these digital bits travel. Ultimately every item—everything with an RFID tag, every smartphone, anything needing Internet access—will need an IP address. And as the Internet currently is configured, it is running out of IP addresses. That’s the problem Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) addresses. more

Technology migration isn’t fun. It occurs when changes require the organization switch to a different technology. This happens when it has outgrown its current systems or needs capabilities they can’t deliver. You do it when you have no choice, but it entails substantial risk.

Last October wiredFINANCE started to address some of the costs of changing technology, here. All the big technology vendors—IBM, HP, Oracle, others—zero in on the migration issue as part of their efforts to get companies like yours to switch to their products.

IBM has gone so far as to bundle its system migration tools and services into a package it calls the Migration Factory. The IBM process recognizes the risks from the start and addresses the five primary concerns executives have when faced with a technology migration. more

Cloud-based buying networks help procurement people gain better control over their organizations’ spend habit. At least, that’s one of the implications of Jason Busch of Spend Matters’ prediction that 2011 will see more cooperation between business buying and financial operations due, in part, to cloud. In March wiredFINANCE also addressed cloud-based procurement networks.

For example, when procuring print services via the cloud, buyers can collaborate with vendors to keep presses running by scheduling print jobs during slow periods. In that situation, a printer would be more inclined toward reduced pricing.

Although the economy is beginning to recover, spend reduction always remains in fashion and more saving can usually be achieved. If nothing else spend reductions free up cash to pursue business growth opportunities. Coupa, a cloud-based (SaaS) spend and procurement management company, is so sure it can reduce a company’s spend it guarantees that you will cut spending in six months by at least 1% in OPEX or you don’t pay. more