Grazed from InfoWorld. Author: Eric Knorr.

We’re accustomed to thinking of Microsoft as a lumbering giant encumbered by its PC legacy. But think about it: What other company in the world has such a massive collection of software and services to offer through the cloud, not to mention the cloud infrastructure to deliver it? Microsoft has the resources to crush it. The question, as usual, is how well it can execute.

Brad Anderson, corporate vice president of the Cloud and Enterprise division at Microsoft, helps oversee a big chunk of the private and public cloud portfolio: Windows Server, System Center, SQL Server, Windows Azure, and Visual Studio. InfoWorld Executive Editor Doug Dineley and I spoke with him for over an hour last week. In particular, our conversation focused on the connection between Windows Server and Azure, although we began by addressing the commitment Microsoft has made to its public cloud…

Grazed from CloudComputingPath. Author: Pravin Anchan.

To view the infographic, goto: http://www.cloudcomputingpath.com/cloud-infographic-the-potential-of-cloud-computing/

Grazed from TechCrunch. Author: Alex Williams.

IBM reported its third quarter financials this past week that showed a company struggling with its legacy hardware business and the problems that come with a confused cloud services strategy. Revenues were down $1 billion with hardware sales declining 17 percent. Overall revenues for the nine-month period totaled $72.1 billion, a decrease of 4 percent, compared with $75.2 billion for the nine months of 2012. The software division is not having tremendous success, either. This last quarter software sales were up just one percent.

IBM has troubles — its stock is at a two-year low and the company has made some big promises for the years ahead. It has stated it would make $7 billion in annual cloud revenues by 2015 and in the same year will give shareholders a return of $20 earnings per share. In the meantime, the SEC is investigating how IBM is counting its revenues for how it recognizes cloud computing…

Grazed from AP. Author: Editorial Staff.

Business management software company SAP AG says net profit rose 23 percent in the third quarter as its cloud computing business grew rapidly and the company kept down costs by holding down hiring of new employees. The company, based in Walldorf, Germany, said Monday that net profit rose to 762 million euros ($1.036 billion). Revenues grew 2 percent to 4.045 billion euros.

Cloud computing revenues more than tripled to 191 million euros from 63 million euros. In cloud computing, companies access software on SAP’s computers over the Internet rather than having it installed and maintained on-site — saving them money…

Grazed from SSRN. Author: Oliver R. Goodenough.

As cloud computing becomes ubiquitous, the need to fashion better and more finely targeted rules for the cloud takes on increasing urgency. Governance at its best is not an abstraction; rather, it is a set of institutional structures that help people to achieve better outcomes than would occur in a world of unconstrained, self-interested decision making.

The rules in contracts, through associations, and by governments can each play a role in creating beneficial governance, provided they are crafted to effectively meet the challenges and characteristics of the activity in question. This paper – still a work in process – explores a number of factors that rule makers should take into account in crafting such a suite of laws and customs. These factors include the structure and history of cloud computing, the ways in which it creates, captures and allocates values, the fundamental challenges of trust for the industry, and the toolkit of private and public rule making that can create structures to help cloud computing reach is potential for providing and distributing benefits…

Grazed from NetworkAsia.  Author:  Sharat Sinha.

Cloud computing encompasses an increasingly broad array of uses from applications to data services, virtualization, software and platform as a service. However, instead of viewing the cloud as the utopia IT architecture for all enterprises, the cloud is in fact one of multiple options towards a more efficient, responsive and available IT infrastructure. Rather than an immediate migration, there’s still a lot to do in terms of data center consolidation, segmentation, securing your virtualized infrastructure, and safely enabling data center applications.

Within Asia Pacific, and as reported by CNC Data and the Synergy Research Group, corporate spending on cloud and data centre infrastructure reached almost US$10 billion in 2012, a 21 per cent increase from 2011. The adoption and expansion of cloud, mobile, and wireless technologies have also created new and different threats to the network, therefore increasing the scope of the IT security products market…

Grazed from BusinessTechnology.  Author: Editorial Staff.

Martin Bishop, Telstra Global’s head of cloud computing, believes that, when it comes to the cloud, the most successful businesses will always consider the three Cs: connectivity, consistency and control.

Connectivity: combining the flexibility of cloud computing with a world-class global network

According to Bishop, Telstra Global customers can feel safe in the knowledge that their cloud capabilities are award-winning and among the largest and most diverse in Asia-Pacific…

Grazed from PRWeb.  Author: PR Announcement.

The report, “Government Cloud Market By Agency (Federal Cloud, State and Local Cloud, Defense & Military Cloud), By Delivery (Saas, Paas, Iaas), By Deployment (Public, Private, Hybrid, Community) Global Advancements, Market Forecasts and Analysis (2013 – 2018),” has defined the adoption trends of the cloud solutions in government organizations. This comprehensive report offers a detailed analysis and forecast of the global government cloud market. It also highlights the drivers and restraints for this market, along with the insights on trends, opportunities and challenges.

Browse more than 139 market data tables, 103 figures spread through 345 pages and in-depth table of content on “Government Cloud Market": http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/government-cloud-market-1170.html…

Grazed from PR.com.  Author: PR Announcement.

StarWind Software Inc., a leading provider of software-defined storage and storage virtualization software, announced today that their solution, StarWind iSCSI SAN & NAS, has been nominated as a finalist in the SVC Awards 2013 in two categories: "Virtualization Management Product of the Year" and "Storage Virtualization Product of the Year." These highly prestigious awards reward products, projects and services, and honor companies and teams which operate in the cloud, virtualization, and storage sectors.

StarWind iSCSI SAN & NAS delivers industry-adopted storage architecture, which helps to solve common challenges in storage environments including: storage system costs, capacity growth, securing confidential data, inability to scale efficiently, and other complex management problems. One of the most affordable and easy-to-use solutions available, StarWind software provides innovative and advanced technologies which deliver powerful data protection, cost savings and business process improvements…

Grazed from Midsize Insider.  Author: Sue Poremba.

The future of cloud computing seems to be in the hybrid cloud. In an October press release, Gartner predicts that by 2017, half of all large enterprises will have adopted a hybrid environment, and CWCS Managed Hosting predicts that 43 percent of all businesses will be using hybrid, up from 27 percent today.

Predicting Hybrid Cloud Growth

In an article in BusinessNewsDaily, staff writer Sara Angeles reports that midsize businesses will likely be the driver for this move to hybrid due to the fact that they have taken the lead in other cloud technologies. Based on the data from various areas of cloud usage in midsize businesses, all data indicates a good degree of growth for the hybrid option…