Grazed from InnovationEnterprise.  Author: Event Announcement.

The Big Data Innovation Summit, to be held in Hong Kong, March 27-28, 2014, is the largest gathering of senior business executives leading Big Data initiatives in Asia Pacific, bringing together thought leaders from the industry for an event acclaimed for its interactive sessions and high-level speakers.

As many organizations are now working with unmanageably large data sets, the importance of using and maintaining an analytics platform which can cope with this scale of information is essential. This presents both a challenge and opportunity as organizations must identify patterns and gain actionable results in order to gain a crucial advantage over competitors…

Grazed from Business2Community. Author: Tom Caper.

Whether you’re a seasoned CTO or rookie IT Manager, unless you’ve been living in the woods, you’re likely well aware of the ubiquitous emergence of cloud computing and the disruption it is causing the IT industry. As the growth of cloud shows no sign of slowing any time soon, it is increasingly becoming evident that we are sitting on the precipice of an IT revolution. As we are now a month into 2014, I thought it prudent to take a look at some of the specific trends revealing themselves this year.

1. The Cloud Will Be the New Hardware Archetype

Every major IT paradigm shift can be attributed to the development of novel and diverse computational platforms. As for cloud, we will witness the uniform virtualization of enterprise data and seamless integration of business operations. This will allow the entire elimination of many traditional IT infrastructure maintenance costs, with the corresponding savings being added to businesses’ bottom lines…

Grazed from BusinessWire. Author: PR Announcement.

LexisNexis® Legal & Professional (www.lexisnexis.com), a leading global provider of content and technology solutions, today announced a unique alliance with VCE to provide litigation service bureaus and large law firms with a robust and cost-effective way to deploy their own cloud-based systems for handling large-scale electronic discovery projects.

VCE is a pioneer in the development of converged infrastructure systems. Its advanced Vblock™ Systems enable customers to reduce IT infrastructure costs and increase business performance by quickly and efficiently deploying an on-premise cloud computing system. Two best-in-class electronic discovery software tools from LexisNexis – LAW PreDiscovery™ and Concordance® Evolution – will be packaged with VCE’s VblockTM Systems…

Grazed from NetworkWorld. Author: Brandon Butler.

Microsoft just appointed its cloud guy to be the company’s next CEO. Satya Nadella has impressively grown Microsoft into being one of the relevant members of the cloud computing industry, but industry watchers say there is a lot more the company must do to grow into one of the dominant companies in the market.

The promotion of Nadella to be the third-ever CEO of the famed technology company is a commitment by the company to its cloud computing platform. Microsoft’s cloud strategy began ambiguously, but has developed into a complete vision even though it sits in the shadows behind some of the behemoths of the industry. Cloud watchers believe Microsoft has an opportunity to be an important and leading cloud computing company, especially for the enterprise market, and it may have selected just the right leader to get itself there…

Grazed from PRNewsWire. Author: PR Announcement.

Today JobDiva Inc.® (www.JobDiva.com), the proven technology leader in the staffing industry, announced winning the coveted 2014 Cloud Awards Program’s "Cloud Company of the Year." In earning the top award in this year’s competition, JobDiva bested the more than 200 organizations that entered from around the globe, hailing from the U.S., Europe, and the Middle East—including several staffing technology competitors.

"JobDiva presented our judges with a variety of convincing arguments for their nomination and subsequent win as Cloud Computing Company of the Year," Cloud Awards organizer Larry Johnson said. "Without up-and-coming innovators like JobDiva, the Cloud would not continue to be the disruptive force that it is. We were particularly impressed by their powerful and holistic approach to recruitment."…

Grazed from AP. Author: Ryan Nakashima.

As longtime Microsoft insider Satya Nadella takes the company’s helm, he is declaring a new focus on a "mobile-first, cloud-first world." So far, he only has the latter half of the formula figured out. Microsoft and its new CEO are trying to catch rivals such as Apple, Google and Amazon, which are each building their own thriving ecosystems for mobile devices. At the same time, the company wants to expand its burgeoning business as a provider of software and services over the Internet.

Nadella, head of Microsoft’s cloud computing business, was named Tuesday to be Steve Ballmer’s immediate replacement. He is only the third chief executive in Microsoft’s 38-year history. The 22-year Microsoft veteran has enlisted the help of company founder and first CEO Bill Gates, who is leaving his role as chairman to serve a more hands-on role as an adviser at Nadella’s request. Gates will spend a third of his time working on products and technology…

Grazed from MarketWire. Author: PR Announcement.

Aspect Software, a leading provider of fully-integrated customer interaction management, workforce optimization, back-office and award-winning cloud solutions, today announced that Voxeo, an Aspect company, has been awarded the 2014 Best Hybrid Cloud Solution award from the Cloud Awards Program. Voxeo, also as a finalist in Best Cloud Infrastructure category, was selected for its low latency, strong security and reliability. The Cloud Awards program celebrates the brightest and the best in Cloud Computing. Open to organizations across the globe, the Cloud Awards is the first and largest recognition platform of its kind.

Voxeo’s Triple Cloud hybrid cloud solution makes it possible for companies to deploy on-premise solutions in a private cloud, leverage Voxeo’s global cloud hosting, or take advantage of both models in a hybrid deployment that enables low-cost disaster recovery and overflow during peak traffic. The hybrid approach allows companies to maintain the cost benefits of a fixed infrastructure and only use the cloud when needed for peak call volumes, delivering the cost effectiveness of a premise solution with the bursting capabilities and support of the cloud…

Grazed from Scoop.co.nz. Author: Editorial Staff.

What do IBM, Dell, HP, Oracle and SAP have in common? All are mature technology companies – the youngest is Dell formed in 1984 – and they all banking on cloud computing getting them out of the doldrums. There are a few things wrong with that idea.

First, it was cloud computing that got them into trouble in the first place. Hardware sales, particularly servers, fell as companies switched applications and processing to the cloud. Cloud hosted applications disrupt high-end software. It challenges high-margins, undermines the need for infrastructure and support than allows software giants to get away with huge costs.

Oracle, originally a software company but since buying Sun Microsystems with a large hardware business, is in a more nuanced position. It lost server sales to cloud computing while its software business is challenged by nimble, commoditised cloud-based apps. SAP faces just the app challenge…

Grazed from Intel. Author: Editorial Staff.

As Chris Peters recently wrote in his blog, Business Innovation – Opportunities and Trends for 2014, “cloud computing is here to stay.” It seems indisputable that as business becomes more mobile and IT becomes more decentralized, cloud technology will enable the majority of business initiatives.

Intel and Cisco recently teamed up to survey 4,226 IT leaders on the ways cloud technologies were impacting their respective IT organizations. The result was a comprehensive, multi-industry view of the cloud. While IT leaders overwhelmingly agreed that the cloud was a positive presence in their operations, it was also clear that there is no one-size-fits-all cloud solution…

Grazed from ProgrammableWeb. Author: Michael Vizard.

The emergence of platform-as-a-service (PaaS) offerings as a foundation to build applications in a way that abstracts traditional middleware is proving to be a boon for developers in the age of the cloud. The challenge is that there is no such thing as a single cloud. The cloud actually consists of a mix of programmable platforms that lie both inside and out of the traditional enterprise.

Apprenda wants to make it easier to invoke those cloud resources with the inclusion of an API that allows developers to dynamically scale resources in response to user traffic demands or a specific policy requirement within the PaaS environment. As a (PaaS) offering that can be deployed on premise or in the cloud, Rakesh Malhotra, vice president of product for Apprenda, says version 5.0 of the company’s namesakes PaaS offering is the first PaaS environment that provides an API through which developers can dynamically control how IT resources are consumed across a hybrid cloud computing environment…