Grazed from MarketWatch. Author: PR Announcement.

Piston Cloud Computing, Inc., the enterprise OpenStack(R) company, today announced that Swisscom, one of the largest ICT providers in Switzerland, has partnered with Piston to help build its future cloud-based infrastructure. Piston is both a technology and strategic partner for Swisscom, providing not only its architecture, but also OpenStack professional and training services.

With 6.4 million mobile customers, one million Swisscom TV customers and roughly 2 million retail broadband connections, Swisscom is Switzerland’s leading telecommunications provider and ranks as one of the leading Swiss providers specializing in the integration and operation of complex IT systems…

Grazed from ITProPortal. Author: Emily Garthwaite.

Cloud computing is one of the most disruptive forces in business in 20 years, according to a study by professional services firm KPMG. The research investigated the future of investment banking to come to this conclusion and warned that financial institutions need to move away from tradition and start embracing new technologies. “Investment banking has always been cyclical business,” claims the report.

“Powerful forces are altering the investment banking landscape in a manner and degree never before witnessed. The ‘old ways’ of doing business need to change,” it adds. Such forces include factors and trends affecting the sector, such as new payment models like Google Wallet and the rise of mobile…

Grazed from MarketWire. Author: PR Announcement.

Atlantis Computing, the leading provider of In-Memory software-defined storage, today announced that it was awarded a key patent by the United States Patent and Trademark Office for its unique approach to Content-Aware I/O processing. This patent anchors the foundation for Atlantis ILIO’s In-Memory storage optimization software, delivering dramatic reductions in storage traffic and capacity as well as a huge boost in performance for any virtual workload.

Validation for content-aware, real-time I/O processing

This new Content-Aware I/O processing patent validates the innovative approach that Atlantis Computing implemented using intelligent software to elegantly solve the very expensive performance and capacity challenges of storage in virtual environments. Generic caching technologies cannot deliver the foundation for real-time intelligent decision making needed to optimize performance and capacity…

Grazed from SmartDataCollective. Author: Rachel McAree.

Check out Part One of this Two-Part Series on the most popular Aas in the business… The aaS model is much more than just a change in how software is paid for. It’s about taking the real total cost of ownership and converting that to a predictable expense, with a highly predictable outcome. It’s about delivering products that evolve and add continual value, versus projects that miss their mark and never meet the needs they were intended to address. This is a very different approach than what the IT industry has historically embraced

Today, designed obsolescence is a fundamental component of every hardware manufacturer’s strategy in every sector. Traditional, on-premise software is the same. Both are designed to require on-going support, parts, and maintenance, and at some point the manufacturer says to every customer, “you have to upgrade.” This approach is integral to the business objectives of all of these technology suppliers…

Grazed from TechCrunch. Author: Catherine Shu.

Alibaba Group’s cloud computing unit, called Aliyun (or AliCloud), said today that its first data center in Hong Kong will launch on May 12. This is significant because it marks Aliyun’s first step toward international expansion. The announcement comes less than a week after Alibaba filed for its U.S. public offering, which is expected to be one of the largest tech IPOs ever. It is important to note, however, that Aliyun does not look like it plans to expand into the U.S. Instead, the subsidiary is targeting Chinese businesses operating in the Greater China region and Southeast Asia.

As Alibaba explained in its announcement, Chinese companies that want to set up business outside mainland China usually need to add Web servers in local markets to handle additional traffic. This means that they have to deal with a new set of Internet regulations in each country. Renting Aliyun servers means that they will be able to sidestep regulations, lowering costs and barriers to entry. Aliyun already has three data centers in the mainland Chinese cities of Hangzhou, Qingdao, and Beijing…

Grazed from Forbes.  Author: Joe McKendrick.

Cloud computing may have been designed and initiated by tech professionals, but it’s something in which everyone should be involved. It doesn’t matter if you’re in accounting or market research or field service — having knowledge and experience with the right online resources is a powerful capability to bring to any employer or client.

Cloud is an expanding world no longer limited to the technology folks — though it’s benefiting them as well. I recently spoke with an accounting manager at a major financial services company who has taken a leadership position in his organization by successfully moving many of the company’s operations to the cloud. For a market research professionals, online Software-as-a-Service-based survey research tools provide a wealth of best practices and techniques that enable them to reach conclusions in the blink of an eye…

Grazed from NYTimes.  Author: Steve Lohr.

This is a “rocky time” for IBM. That is the frank verdict from Virginia M. Rometty, the technology giant’s chief executive.  In recent years, revenue growth at IBM has been stubbornly elusive, and new technologies like cloud computing have risen to threaten the company’s traditional hardware and software businesses.

Those concerns have weighed on the company’s stock price, which has been stagnant since Ms. Rometty took over nearly two and a half years ago.  But in an interview at IBM’s headquarters in Armonk, N.Y., Ms. Rometty said she and the company now had a clear vision for how to pursue another generation of growth…

Grazed from ZDNet.  Author: Larry Dignan.

The enterprise application landscape is shifting, but Microsoft and Adobe appear to have momentum as the entrenched players stay strong, but technology buyers are looking to date around and pick new winners.  Here’s a graph that shows a quick look at the prime enterprise software vendors surfaced in our TechPro Research survey.  Now let’s take a deeper dive;

Microsoft takes a lot of hits for Windows 8 and its mobile strategy, but the company’s enterprise division is humming. In fact, Microsoft may be one of the better positioned enterprise software vendors in the stack. The company has moved to the cloud in good measure, has a strong installed base and is showing double-digit growth for Windows Server, Lync, SharePoint and Exchange. Commercial "other" revenue—largely comprised of cloud offering such as Office 365 and Microsoft Azure—was up 31 percent in the most recent quarter to $1.9 billion…

Grazed from Wall Street Journal.  Author: Editorial Staff.

The cloud offers people the chance to unload their data-storage and computing chores onto somebody else’s machines.  But is doing all of that unloading a good idea?  In recent years, more people have been taking advantage of systems that let them store and share files online, or run common software applications over the Web instead of on their local computer.

For an idea of the size of the cloud market, and how much it has expanded over the past few years, consider some numbers from a recent survey by comScore Inc…

Grazed from eWeek.  Author: 

The recent executive shakeups at enterprise software giant SAP hit the company’s cloud computing business particularly hard, with some of the top people in that unit exiting.  Vishal Sikka, SAP’s CTO in charge of products and innovation and a key developer the company’s HANA in-memory database, resigned May 4. HANA has proved to be a highly successful product for the company and has become the primary platform for SAP’s cloud computing ambitions.

Days later, it was announced that Shawn Price, who in January took over as head of SAP’s cloud unit, was ousted, continuing a trend at the company of instability in a key business for SAP as it looks to compete with the likes of Salesforce.com, Oracle and Microsoft in the all-important cloud arena…