Grazed from Recode.net.  Author: Editorial Staff.

Is it possible that IBM’s new cloud computing services business unit — the one that got suddenly bigger last year after the acquisition of SoftLayer — is bigger than cloud computing’s dominant player, Amazon Web Services?  It turns out that it is, but it’s not a very good comparison. It all depends on what you consider to be “the cloud.”

Let’s start with the basic numbers, which have emerged in recent days as both IBM and Amazon have reported their fourth-quarter and annual results.  If you look at IBM’s cloud business strictly by revenue, the company’s CFO Martin Schroeter disclosed on a conference call with analysts on Jan. 21 that it finished the year with $4.4 billion in cloud revenue, a 69 percent increase over the prior year…

Grazed from Sys Con Media. Author James Carlini.

So many organizations switched to third-party help desk solutions without really putting in place any performance measures or tracking mechanisms to really measure how good – or bad – the support is. Some executives got a big bonus for "thinking out of the box" and coming up with a cost-cutting initiative to outsource IT help desks.

Those same executives do not want to hear all the complaints of people getting no results and wasting a lot of time in repetitive phone calls as well as no solutions to their problems. Even routine problems become time-consuming nightmares because the third-party support person on the other end doesn’t understand the caller or the caller just doesn’t understand them…

Grazed from CloudTweaks. Author: Glenn Blake.

With many organizations in the United States opting to access cloud services as an alternative to traditional technology infrastructure and equipment, vendors and businesses are continuing to emphasize practices and policies that help companies take advantage of cloud computing without undermining security.

According to a recent report by Forbes, United States companies will spend more than $13 billion on new cloud services in 2014. Cloud-based solutions offer businesses state-of-the-art technology, immediate software updates, and scalability on a subscription or pay-per-use basis. In most cases, cloud services reduce or even eliminate an organization’s dependence on such hardware products as servers as well as concerns about software licensing and upgrades. Experts note that cloud services often decrease technology costs over time while improving such functions as collaboration and accessibility to data…

Grazed from CMSWire. Author: David Roe.

It’s a just about a cliché at this stage to note that cloud computing has been one of the big technology disruptors in recent years. However, according to Gartner, the best — or worst, depending on your perspective — has yet to come. It seems Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) applications are doomed to legacy status or even the trash bin.

ERP Legacy Systems

According to a recently published report. Predicts 2014: The Rise of the Postmodern ERP and Enterprise Applications World (fee charged), monolithic ERP implementations will start to disappear by 2016, especially as alternatives mature. Gartner describes a legacy system as any system that is not sufficiently flexible to meet changing business needs…

Grazed from v3.co.uk. Author: Editorial Staff.

NetSuite has posted record results for the fourth quarter and the whole of 2013, thanks to “unstoppable” demand for cloud computing among businesses. In the firm’s fourth quarter, which ran from October to December 2013, the firm made sales worth $115m, up eight percent from the third quarter, and an increase of 35 percent compared with the same quarter the previous year. The on-demand enterprise resource planning (ERP) firm also saw similarly impressive growth for the whole year, increasing 2013 sales by $106m or 34 percent to $414.5m.

Zach Nelson, chief executive of NetSuite, pointed out during a conference call on Thursday that 2013 was the fourth consecutive year of record revenue growth, a feat he said is matched by very few other public companies.  However, the firm has some way to go before it posts a healthy profit. NetSuite made a net loss of $20.2m during the fourth quarter, up from $9.6m during the same quarter in 2012. Across the whole year, NetSuite posted a net loss of $70.4m, compared to $35.2m in 2012…

Grazed from CRN. Author: Editorial Staff.

When CRN first introduced its annual 100 Coolest Cloud Computing Vendors list in 2010, the space was still ripe, rapidly evolving from an industry buzzword to a legitimate means for solution providers to enable customers to eliminate the overhead and capital expenditures that come with on-premise hardware.

In 2014, the fourth year of the Cloud 100, "the cloud" is now mainstream and the shift from a traditional on-premise solution provider model to a cloud-based services model is not just a trend, but in many cases a crucial move for survival. The Cloud 100 list aims to help solution providers navigate the growing cloud marketplace and identify the best solutions to support the IT channel…

Grazed from InformationWeek. Author: Wyatt Kash.

As we reported last week in an in-depth analysis, cloud service providers are queuing up for a rigorous government review process that certifies their service meets a strict baseline of security standards. This certification, known as the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program, or FedRAMP, is mandatory for any cloud service provider looking to do business with federal agencies.

But the stakes are equally high for the federal agencies. The Office of Management and Budget, which mandated in 2011 that agencies begin using cloud services, has given them until June 5 to show that those services meet federal security standards. A big question now is what happens if cloud service providers don’t get the security certification by the June deadline? And where does that leave agencies trying to migrate slices of their IT operations to the cloud if their preferred provider’s services have not yet been approved?..

Grazed from GreatResponder. Author: Maria Dehn.

Cloud computing and telecom service provider company “NewCloud” has announced an ambitious expansion project of data centers at multiple locations across the USA. This announcement was made by the company through a press release statement on Tuesday, January 28, 2014.

According to the press release statement of Denver based cloud computing service Provider Company, it is recording a healthy business growth during last consecutive four years, which is very encouraging for the company to expand its cloud computing infrastructure across the country. In this project, the first data center will be operational in coming February, 2014 in Phoenix, AZ – and remaining data centers will be put into operation very soon in different phases…

Grazed from VentureBeat.  Author: Event Announcement.

Big data analytics will continue to ignite explosive growth for those able to leverage it in 2014.  But while the data-science field continues to evolve at warp speed, companies are moving to a more practical stage this year: They’re seeking real results from their investments in analytics tools. They’re looking to boost revenue or curtail costs — or best of all, both.

VentureBeat hosted our inaugural DataBeat event in 2013, and it was a smash success, bringing together some of the top data scientists, analysts, investors, and entrepreneurs in the field of big data. Now we’re doing it again…

Grazed from InfoWorld. Author: David Linthicum.

Many enterprises planning a move to cloud-based systems believe a huge disruptive change in the IT organization is required as part of that shift. They call it "building a cloud organization." I blame this disruptive mentality mostly on the ongoing press coverage that calls for "the end of IT as we know it" or other silly events that won’t happen. Any time the analysts or press project absolutes, their predictions never seem to pan out. In the world of IT, we evolve. We don’t suddenly shift.

Right now we’re about five years into this cloud thing, and the predicted huge disruptive changes in IT organizations have not occurred. In fact, most organizations have not made enough progress with cloud-based technology to even call it a systemic change. But they have been changing…