Category: Cloud Enable

Cloud Enable examines the options available to IT departments considering adopting or managing cloud-based architectures in their business environment.

Systems Integrators Adopting the FDE Model with a Focus on Business Outcomes

by siowmeng, posted in Big Data, Cloud Enable, Secure
A professional man with dark hair and a slight smile, wearing a suit jacket over a light blue shirt, standing in front of a blurred glass background.
S. Soh

Summary Bullets:

• Technology vendors are investing in forward deployed engineers to adapt AI solutions to meet customer needs.

• Systems integrators are working alongside their technology partners to help enterprises accelerate their AI adoption and ensure business outcomes are met.

It is widely reported that only a small percentage of firms that have conducted AI pilots are moving them into production. Even fewer enterprises have been able to scale their AI initiatives across multiple business functions. Based on GlobalData’s observations and discussions with enterprises, there has been greater success in AI implementations among large enterprises that have engaged a systems integrator or consulting firm to work alongside their technology partners, including hyperscale cloud providers and AI model companies (e.g., Anthropic and OpenAI).

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Beyond the Hype: The Reality of CX Agentic Orchestration

by orumohiuddin, posted in Cloud Enable, Communicate, Secure
A woman with long dark hair wearing a colorful patterned top and a pearl necklace, smiling softly at the camera.
Oru Mohiuddin

Summary Bullets:

• Agentic orchestration has been dominating vendor narratives as growing complexity in the CX space is driving the need for a sophisticated coordination system.

• CX agentic orchestration remains fragmented as there are still infrastructural gaps, and trust remains a major issue for customers.

Agentic orchestration has been increasingly occupying CX vendor narratives in recent years, so it is time to take a deep dive into what orchestration is and why it is becoming relevant. Simply put, orchestration is bringing people, workflows, and technology together to achieve an outcome. Depending on how far we stretch the concept, orchestration is not new, and even a deterministic call routing can be described as orchestration. The question is, what is new today and why is orchestration increasingly dominating vendor narratives?

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Salesforce Dreamforce 2026: Salesforce Combats AI Mistrust via Control Plane

by Charlotte Dunlap, posted in Cloud Enable
Close-up portrait of a smiling woman with blonde hair and earrings, against a blurred background.
C. Dunlap
Research Director

Summary Bullets:

• New fears of AI breaches and vulnerabilities significantly threaten AI adoption

• Salesforce and rivals launch aggressive control plane portfolios as part of the new layer of the AI stack

On the heels of broad industry doomsday reports of AIs going rogue, Salesforce launched its mega Dreamforce conference in San Francisco, California (US) last week. CEO Marc Benioff used the stage to reposition the company as the industry platform to provide the oversight and governance of both Salesforce and third-party agents under a single view.

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Zoom Continues to Flourish

by Gregg Willsky, posted in Cloud Enable
A smiling man with glasses, wearing a light-colored shirt, against a blurred background.
G. Willsky

Summary Bullets:

• New features from Zoom reinforce its recently reconstituted platform vision, extend its ongoing transformation, and support an important, contemporary trend in the team collaboration space.

• This latest batch of improvements underscores Zoom’s place among the top team collaboration and contact center vendors such as Microsoft, Cisco, and Google.

Earlier this month, Zoom held the latest installment of an ongoing series of customer webinars highlighting new platform features. In keeping with tradition at Zoom, the enhancements were wide-ranging, covering various tracts of its platform.

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Salesforce Expands the Value of Slackbot with the Introduction of Slackforce Surfaces

by Gregg Willsky, posted in Cloud Enable, Communicate
Close-up portrait of a smiling man wearing glasses.
G. Willsky

Summary Bullets:

• Slackforce Surfaces are front doors into data and context that enable users to grasp a deeper understanding of their business and make more informed decisions.

• Slackforce Surfaces represent the latest chapter in the renaissance of Slackbot, advancing Slack as a key part of the Salesforce organization.

Salesforce has deepened its investment in Slackbot, the AI-driven personal work agent built into Slack, with the debut of Slackforce Surfaces. The introduction will raise the utility of the Slack platform and further cement the starring role Slack has come to play at Salesforce.

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AI Changing the Commercial Model for Fiber Build

by Brendan Swan, posted in Big Data, Cloud Enable, Communicate
B. Swan

Summary Bullets:

• Zayo will build 8,000 miles of new long-haul fiber across key AI corridors, with Nvidia becoming its anchor customer.

• Nvidia’s extends beyond GPUs and compute, with partnerships spanning the optical and networking ecosystem underpinning AI infrastructure.

Until now, the AI Infrastructure race has predominately been focused on GPUs, data centers and access to reliable power, yet beneath all three sits a less visible, but increasingly critical, layer – connectivity. As AI workloads become larger, more distributed and dependent on moving large volumes of data between locations, fiber is emerging as a fundamental component of the AI Stack. Zayo’s recent announcement to build 8,000 miles of new long-haul fiber across key AI corridors, backed by Nvidia as its anchor customer, could mark the new beginning of a new investment cycle for terrestrial networks. The bigger question is whether AI-related companies could become the anchor customer needed for the next generation of fiber investment?

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Zoom is Delivering Better CX by Combining Communications, AI, and Workflow into One Platform

by siowmeng, posted in Cloud Enable, Communicate
S. Soh

Summary Bullets:

• Zoom CX is a credible option for enterprises looking to transform their customer engagement with omni-channel and AI capabilities.

• Working with a broader partner ecosystem is pivotal for Zoom to win in CX space since this involves workflows and different business applications.

Zoom is well-known for its conferencing solution, which is used extensively in modern workplace, but it has gone well-beyond conferencing in recent years. The core business of Zoom has been the enabler of conversations within the workplace. To go beyond communications, the company sees new opportunities by expanding its role to help enterprises automate workflows during and after conversations (i.e., meetings and phone conversations). This vastly enlarges the value Zoom can deliver to enterprise customers, especially with the application of AI. For example, AI can eliminate many manual tasks such as generating documents from meeting with summaries and next steps, or updating CRM records after a discussion within the sales team.

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AI Requires a Reinvention of the Modern Data Center

by Beatriz Valle, posted in Big Data, Cloud Enable, Communicate
B. Valle

Summary Bullets:

• AI is drastically changing the fabric of the traditional data center, prompting fundamental changes in design and architecture.

• The biggest challenge is that AI infrastructure requires simultaneous scaling across multiple constrained layers: electricity, cooling, networking, chips, facilities, capital, and operations.

The rise of AI workloads is pushing data centers through a major architectural shift: from relatively general-purpose, virtualized compute environments toward high-density, network-intensive AI infrastructure. For example, rack density is rising sharply, because traditional data centers were not designed for the power and thermal profiles of dense AI server clusters. This means power distribution, floor loading, cable management, and thermal design are becoming central architectural considerations. Power availability has now become a core design constraint. Energy availability is starting to influence where data centers are built, with land and power constraints pushing some infrastructure development into new or remote regions.

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Zoom Has Upped the Ante in Supporting Sales Teams

by Gregg Willsky, posted in Cloud Enable, Communicate
G. Willsky

Summary Bullets:

  • The Zoom Revenue Accelerator updates combined with the pending acquisition of the Common Room platform will provide Zoom with complete coverage of the sales cycle.
  • Providing support for the sales process represents a ‘new frontier’ that vendors are exploring and one that should ripen quickly.

Zoom announced general availability of three updates to its Zoom Revenue Accelerator (ZRA) feature, which helps sales teams close deals by analyzing customer interactions using AI. The updates consist of ‘Sales Roleplay,’ which provides practice simulations of customer conversations; ‘Sales Assist,’ which includes real-time deal guidance to keep reps focused as they engage the customer; and ‘Ask ZRA,’ which allows both reps and managers to perform natural language queries on conversation data post-discussion with the customer.

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Slackbot Spreads Its Wings but Questions Remain

by Gregg Willsky, posted in Cloud Enable
G. Willsky

Summary Bullets:

• Salesforce has integrated Slackbot more deeply into its platform, providing access purportedly to the entire Salesforce ecosystem.

• Despite positives the announcement generates concerns, the most pressing regarding security.

Salesforce has greatly extended the scope of Slackbot, the AI-driven personal work agent built into Slack, claiming it now spans the entire Salesforce platform. The change will add substantial value, keep Slack – the company – competitive with rivals, and cement the starring role Slack has come to play at Salesforce.

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